from CNN.com

Editor's note: Michael E. Dickstein mediates complex disputes across North America with Dickstein Dispute Resolution, teaches negotiation at Stanford Law School, and has taught negotiation to governmental, judicial, corporate, academic, professional and other audiences around the world.

(CNN) -- The problem with seeing negotiation as a game of chicken is that sometimes you get what you want, but most of the time everyone just gets plucked. That is what I tell my mediation clients, when they take more and more extreme positions, and insist everyone else needs to back down.

That is what I tell my negotiation students when they give blustering ultimatums and ignore what the other side wants. And that is what I wish someone would tell the parties in Washington battling over the budget and a looming default.

So, what do you do when you realize you're in a negotiation where everyone will be worse off if no one finds a path out?

Consider the following:

1) The immediate problem is not how you got here, it is how you are going to get out.

There will be plenty of time later to learn and teach lessons. Right now you need to find a path to a better outcome. Accusations, dissections of past mistakes and allocations of blame will only make it harder to get there.

2) There is no "they" on the other side.

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