Getting To Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 2nd edition - By Roger Fisher, William Ury, & Bruce Patton
Date read: 2018-08-12How strongly I recommend it: 10/10
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A must read for anyone trying to improve their negotiation skills. Not just for standard negotiations, but also great for dealing with difficult parties when trying to come to some sort of resolution.
Contents:
- PRINCIPLED NEGOTIATION
- SEPARATE THE PEOPLE FROM THE PROBLEM
- FOCUS ON INTERESTS, NOT POSITIONS
- INVENTING OPTIONS
- OBJECTIVE CRITERIA
- NEGOTIATION JUJITSU
- DIRTY TACTICS
My Notes
More and more occasions require negotiation; conflict is a growth industry.
Principled negotiation is to decide issues on their merits rather than through a haggling process focused on what each side says it will and won't do. Look for mutual gains whenever possible and insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side.
When negotiators bargain over positions, they tend to lock themselves into those positions. The more you clarify your position and defend it against attack, the more committed you become to it. The more you try to convince the other side of the impossiblity of changing your openining position, the more difficult it becomes to do so.
As mor attention is paid to positions, less attention is devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties.
Principled negotiation or negotiation on the merits has four basic points:
The four propositions of principled negotiation are relevant from the time you begin to think about negotiating until the time either an agreement is reached or you decide to break off the effort. That period can be divided into three stages: analysis, planning, and discussion.
Note options already on the table and identify any criteria already suggested as a basis for agreement.
Planning stage - generating ideas and deciding what to do. You will want to generate additional options and additional criteria for deciding among them.
Discussion stage - Differences in perception, feelings of frustration and anger, and difficulties in communication can be acknowledged and addressed. Both can then jointly generate options that are mutually advantageous and seek agreement on objective standards for resolving opposed interests.
Most negotiations take place in the context of an ongoing relationship where it is important to carry on each negotiation in a way that will help rather than hinder future relations and future negotiations. The ongoing relationship is far more important than the outcome of any particular negotiation.
To find your way through the jungle of people problems, it is useful to think in terms of three basic categories: perception, emotion, and communication
Perception - Put yourself in their shoes. The ability to see the situation as the other side sees it, as difficult as it may be, is one of the most important skills a negotiator can possess.
Don't blame them for your problem. When you talk about the problem, separate the symptoms from the person with whom you are talking.
Discuss each other's perceptions.
Perhaps the best way to change their perceptions is to send them a message different from what they expect.
If they are not involved in the process, they are hardly likely to approve the product.
Emotion - First recognize and understand emotions, theirs and yours. Talk with the people on the other side about their emotions. Talk about your own.
Don't react to emotional outbursts. The members of the committe adopted the rule that only one person could get angry at a time.
Use symbolic gestures. An apology may be one of the least costly and most rewarding investments you can make.
Communication - Listen actively and acknowledge what is being said. Standard techniques of good listening are to pay close attention to what is said, to ask the other party to spell out carefully and clearly exactly what they mean, and to request that ideas be repeated if there is any ambiguity or uncertainty.
It is useful to establish private and confiential means of cummunicating with the other side.
Speak obut yourself, not about them. A statement about how you feel is difficult to challenge.
Build a working relationship. Knowing the other side personally really does help.
For a wise solution reconcile interests, not positions. Your position is something you have decided upon. Your interests are what caused you to so decide.
For every interest there usually exist several possible positions that could satisfy it.
Behind opposed positions lie shared and compatible interests, as well as conflicting ones.
Examine each position they take, and ask yourself "Why?". Ask "Why not?" Think about their choice. What interests of theirs stand in the way?
In almost every negotiation each side will have many interests, not just one.
The most powerful interests are basic human needs:
Make interests come alive - Be specific and acknowledge their interests as part of the problem.
Give your interests and reasoning first and your conclusions or proposals later.
Instead of arguing with the other side about the past, talk about what you want to have happen in the future. Instead of asking them to justify what they did yesterday, ask, "Who should do what tomorrow?"
Having thought about your interests, you should go into a meeting not only with one or more specific options that would meet your legitimate interests but also with an open mind.
Give positive support to the human beings on the other side equal in strength to the vigor with which you emphasize the problem.
Expand the pie before dividing it. Skill at inventing options is one of the moste useful assets a negotiator can have.
If the first impediment to creative thinking is premature criticism, the second is premature closure. By looking from the outset for the single best answer, you are likely to short-circuit a wiser decision-making process in which you select from a large number of possible answers.
Separate the process of thinking up possible decisions from the process of selecting among them. Invent first, decide later by conducting a brainstorming session.
The key to wise decision-making lies in selecting from a great number and variety of options.
The four basic steps in inventing options:
Examine your problem from the perspective of different professions and disciplines.
You can multiply the number of possible agreements on the table by thikning of "weaker" versions you might want to have on hand in case a sought-for agreement proves beyond reach.
Identify shared interests. In almost every case, your satisfaction depends to a degree on making the other side sufficiently content with an agreement to want to live up to it.
Shared interests lie latent in every negotiation. They may not be immediately obvious.
People generally assume that differences between two parties create the problem. Yet differences can also lead to a solution.
Dovetailing - Look for items that are of low cost to you and high benefit to them, and vice versa. Differences in interests, priorities, beliefs, forecasts, and attitudes toward risk all make dovetailing possible.
If you place yourself firmly in the shoes of your opposite number, you will understand his problem and what kind of options might solve it.
Few things facilitate a decision as much as precedent. Search for it. Look for a decision or statement that the other side may have made in a similar situation, and try to base a proposed agreement on it.
The approach is to commit yourself to reaching a solution based on principle, not pressure. Concentrate on the merits of the problem, not the mettle of the parties. Be open to reason, but closed to threats.
Fair procedures - To produce an outcome independent of will, you can use either fair standards for the substantive question or fair procedures for resolving the conflicting interests. Consider, for example, the age-old way to divide a piece of cake between two children: one cuts and the other chooses. Neither can complain about an unfair division.
A variation on the procedure of "one cuts, the other chooses" is for the parties to negotiate what they think is a fair arrangement before they go on to decide their respective roles in it. In a divorce negotiation, for example, before deciding which parent will get custody of the children, the parents might agree on the visiting rights of the other parent. This gives both an incentive to agree on visitation rights each will think fair.
Ask "What's your theory?" If the sellar starts by giving you a position, such as "The price is $155,000," ask for the theory behind that price: "How did you arrive at that figure?" Treat the porblem as though the seller too is looking for a fair price based on objective criteria.
You should behave like a judge; although you may be predisposed to one side, you should be willing to respond to reasons for applying another standard or for applying a standard differently.
Never yield to pressure, only to principle.
While adopting a bottom line may protect you from accepting a very bad agreement, it may keep you both from inventing and from agreeing to a solution it would be wise to accept.
BATNA - Your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. Instead of ruling out a soultion which does not meet your bottom line, you can compare a proposal with your BATNA to see whether it better satisfies your interests.
Generating possible BATNAs requires three distinct operations:
Consider the other side's BATNA.
Do not push back. Avoid pitting your strength against theirs directly; instead, use your skill to step aside and turn their strength to your ends. Rather than resisting their force, channel it into exploring interests, inventing options for mutual gain, and searching for independent standards.
When the other side sets forth their position, neither reject it nor accept it. Treat it as one possible option. Look for the interests behind it, seek out the principles which it reflects, and think about ways to improve it.
Don't defend your ideas, invite criticsm and advice. Examine their negative judgements to find out their underlying interests and to improve your ideas from their point of view.
Ask them what they would do if they were in your position.
Recast an attack on you as an attack on the problem. For example, "When you say that a stirke shows we don't care about the children, I hear your concern about the children's education. I want you to know that we share this concern: they are our children and our students. We want the strike to end so we can go back to educating them. What can we both do now to reach an agreement as quickly as possible?"
Ask questions and pause. Statements generate resistance, whereas questions generate answers.
Silence is one of your best weapons. Use it. If they have made an unreasonable proposal or an attack you regard an unjustified, the best thing to do may be to sit there and not say a word.
One-text procedure - Rather than ask about their positions, ask about their interests. Afterwards, develop a list of interests and needs. Then ask for them in turn to criticize the list and suggest improvements on it. It is hard to make concessions, but it is easy to criticize. Simply perpare a draft and ask for criticism.
Making yourself open to correction and persuasion is a pillar in the strategy of principled negotiation. You can convince the other side to be open to the principles and objective facts you suggest only if you show yourself open to the ones they suggest.
When someone says, "But don't you trust me?", turn it around and say, "Its not a question of trust..."
Statements of fact can be threatening. Whenever you can, ask a question instead.
A good negotiator rarely makes an important decision on the sopt. The psychological pressure to be nice and to give in is too great. A little time and distance help separate the people from the problem.
If someone is using a dirty tactic, simply raising the question about a tactic may be enough to get them to stop using it.
Don't attack people personally for using a tactic you consider illegitimate.
Before starting on any give-and-take, find out about the authority on the other side. It is perfectly legitimate to inquire, "Just how much authority do you have in this particular negotiation?"
If you find the physical surroundings prejudicial, do not hesitate to say so. You can suggest changing chairs, taking a break, or adjourning to a different location or another time.
The good-guy/bad-guy routine is a form of psychological manipulation. When the good guy makes his pitch, just ask him the same question you asked the bad guy: "I appreciate that you are trying to be reasonable, but I still want to know why you think that's a fair price. What is your principle?"
Refusal to negotiate - Communicate either directly or through third parties. Find out their interests in not negotiating.
As an alternative to explicitly recognizing the "Take it or leave it" tactic and negotiating about it, consider ignoring it at first. Keep talking as if you didn't hear it, or change the subject, perhaps by introducing other solutions. If you do bring up the tactic specifically, let them know what they have to lose if no agreement is reached and look for a face-saving way, such as a change in circumstances, for them to get out of the situation. After management has announced its final offer, the union could tell them, "A $1.69 raise was your final offer before we discussed our cooperative efforts to make the plant more productive."
When you sense you are finally close to an agreement, consider giving the other side something you know to be of value to them and still consistent with the basic logic of your proposal.