However you approach the other parent for Michigan legal custody, you'll be pursuing a negotiating strategy. This strategy will dictate what you do and when you do it.
When negotiating, you should know that there are several theories of negotiation. One theory divides strategies into two categories:
o Position-based negotiation.
o Interest-based negotiation.
Position-Based Negotiation
In position-based negotiation, you immediately adopt an extreme position and then refuse to budge. As the bargaining proceeds, you demand everything, concede nothing, and threaten retaliation if you don't get your way. To get what you want, you bluff, threaten, lie, posture, and bully your opponent into submission. Position-based negotiation is hardball, where you attack and intimidate your adversary in order to win.
The main advantage of this negotiating style is that it works. The parent who can bargain for children by threatening and stonewalling gains an enormous strategic advantage.
The main disadvantage is that this style dramatically increases the hostilities. A "scorched earth" approach leaves little of the good will necessary for parents to continue a relationship afterwards.
Position-based custody negotiation is often adopted by parents who view custody as a zero-sum game, where one person's gain must necessarily be the other's loss.
Michigan Legal Custody: Interest-Based Negotiation
In interest-based negotiation, you strive to change a "win-lose" result into "win-win." With this strategy, you immediately disclose all relevant information, fully explain your reasons, and then genuinely listen to the other parent as you search for an agreement that satisfies both your interests. This type of negotiation is cooperative, with each side offering constructive suggestions on how to solve the problem.
The main advantage of interest-based negotiation is that it dramatically lowers the conflict, allowing the parents to cooperatively work together in the future.
The main disadvantage is that both parents must genuinely want to participate. If one parent cooperates and the other one doesn't, the cooperative parent is vulnerable to being bullied or coerced by the non-cooperative parent.
Interest-based negotiation is an attempt to turn custody into a non zero-sum game, where parents create additional value by cooperative trading. In a sense, this Michigan Legal Custody strategy seeks not just to divide up the pie, but to actually make the pie bigger, and then to share the increase.
