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Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

by Roger Fisher and William Ury

Introduction

• Negotiating is a basic means of getting what you want from others. It is back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement when some interests are shared and others are opposed.
• Conflict is a growth industry. Everyone wants to participate in decisions that affect them, and fewer and fewer people will accept decisions made by someone else.
• A soft negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict. He or she will make concessions readily to reach agreement, and so will end up exploited and feeling bitter.
• A hard negotiator takes more extreme positions and holds out longer. That exhausts both himself or herself and his or her resources, and harms the relationship with the other side.
• The Principled negotiation method looks for gains wherever possible, and where interests conflict, to insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side.
• Principled negotiation is an all-purpose strategy. Unlike almost other strategies, if the other side learns this one, it becomes easier to use rather than harder.

Ch 1: Don't Bargain Over Positions

• A wise agreement is one that meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible, resolves conflicting interests fairly, is durable, and takes community into account.
• Any method of negotiation should be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if possible, it should be efficient, and it should be amicable.

Arguing over position produces unwise outcomes

• Negotiating over a position leads to lock-in, as the more you clarify your position and defend it against attack, the more committed you become to it. Your ego becomes identified with the position.
• The more attention is paid to positions, the less attention is devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties.
• If an agreement is reached with positional bargaining, it may reflect a mechanical splitting of the difference between final positions, rather than a solution crafted to meet any legitimate interests.

Other dangers of positional arguments

• Extreme positions, small concessions, and the large number of individual decisions regarding what to offer, what to reject, and what to concede, make positional bargaining highly inefficient.
• Moreover, positional bargaining strains and sometimes shatters relationships, and is even worse when there are more than two parties involved.

Being nice is no answer

• Soft positional bargaining may be efficient, but the agreement may not be wise. Moreover, you are vulnerable to domination by someone who plays a hard game of positional bargaining.

There is an alternative

• The game of negotiation takes place at two levels: At one level it addresses the substance; at another, it focuses, usually implicitly, on the procedure for dealing with the substance.
• Each move you make within a negotiation not only deals with a substantive question, but it helps structure the rules of the game that you are playing. It is a meta-game.
• Principled negotiation, or negotiation on the merits, can be boiled down to focusing on people, interests, options, and criteria.
• For people: separate the people from the problem. Participants should see themselves as working side-by-side, attacking the problem and not each other.
• For interests: Focus on interests, not positions. Compromising between positions will not produce an agreement that will take care of the human needs that led people to adopt those positions.
• For options: Before trying to reach an agreement, invent options for mutual gain. Set aside time for thinking of solutions that advance shared interests and creatively reconcile differing interests.
• For criteria: Insist on using objective criteria. If a party is being stubborn, counter by insisting that the agreement must reflect some fair standard independent of the naked will of either side.
• The time in which these four propositions of principled negotiation are in play can be broken down into three stages: analysis, planning, and discussion.
• The analysis stage is when you gather information; the planning stage is when you generate ideas about what to do; the discussion stage is when options can be generated and agreement reached.

Ch 2: Separate the People from the Problem

Negotiators are people first

• When negotiating, you are not dealing with abstract representatives of "the other side," but with human beings. They have all the emotions and biases and flaws that we do.
• Failing to deal with others sensitively as human beings prone to human reactions can be disastrous. Always ask yourself if you're paying enough attention to the "people problem."

Two kinds of interests: the substance and the relationship

• Beyond substantiative interests, a negotiator also has an interest in the relationship with the other side. In some cases, an ongoing relationship is far more important than a single negotiation's outcome.
• The relationship becomes entangled with the problem. We treat the people and the problem as one, and so merely identifying the problem may sound like a personal attack.
• Also we draw from comments on substance unfounded inferences, which we treat as facts about that person's intentions or attitudes toward us. We don't consider other explanations.
• Positional bargaining puts relationship and substance in conflict. An entrenched position may show that you care little about the relationship.

Disentangle the two; deal directly with the people problem

• Change how you treat people to deal with people problems. Base relationships on mutually understood perceptions, clear two-way communication, expressing emotions without blame, and a forward-looking outlook.
• All people problems, including your own, fall into these categories of perception, emotion, and communication.

Perception

• As useful as looking for objective reality may be, it is ultimately the reality as each side sees it that constitutes the problem in a negotiation, and opens the way to a solution.
• To influence someone, you must understand empathetically the power of their point of view and to feel the emotional force with which they believe it.
• Communicate loudly and convincingly things you are willing to say that the other side would like to hear; this can give them real incentive to reach agreement on other issues.
• Agreement becomes much easier if both parties have ownership of the ideas in a negotiation. Each criticism and consequent change or compromise is a personal mark by the negotiator.
• To give the other side a feeling of participation, get them involved early, ask them for advice, and give them credit generously for ideas whenever possible.
• Face-saving avoids labeling winners and losers. It involves reconciling an agreement with principle and with the self-image of the negotiators.

Emotion

• It is easy to treat negotiators for organization as mouthpieces without emotions. But they, like you, have personal feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams; take note of how they feel, too.
• To build rapport, attend to the interests of: autonomy, appreciation (to be recognized and valued), affiliation, role (to have a meaningful purpose), and status (to be fairly seen and acknowledged).
• Think about whether your counterpart may be experiencing a threat to their identity, or their self-image or self-respect, from what you have said or what you might say.
• Make your emotions an explicit topic of discussion, and even let the other side let off steam, but do not react to any emotional outbursts.

Communication

• Often, a negotiator has given up communicating effectively to the other side, or given up on listening to the other side; furthermore, one side misinterprets what the other side says.
• Actively listen, and then reiterate what they said, thereby giving them the satisfaction of being heard and understood. Take in their perceptions, their needs, and their constraints.
• Speak about yourself, not about them. A statement about them may be heard as untrue, ignored, and cause anger; but a statement about how you feel is difficult to challenge.

Prevention works best

• Try and build a relationship with the other side that can weather a negotiation, and structure the negotiation to disentangle the substantive problem from the relationship.
• The time to develop a relationship is before the negotiation begins. Find ways to meet them informally. Try arriving early to chat before the negotiation starts, and lingering afterward.
• You must change the other side from a face-to-face orientation to a side-by-side orientation. Try sitting on the same side of the table, or raising the issue with them explicitly.

Ch 3: Focus on Interests, Not Positions

For a wise solution reconcile interests, not positions

• Interests define the problem and motivate people; they are the silent movers behind positions. Your position is something you have decided upon. Your interests are what caused you to decide.
• Reconciling interests rather than positions works because several positions can satisfy every interest, and behind opposed positions lie many more interests than conflicting ones.

How do you identify interests?

• Put yourself in the other side's shoes. Examine each position they take and ask yourself "why?"
• Also identify the basic decision that the other side probably sees you asking them for, and then ask "why not?", and identify what interests of theirs stand in the way.
• If you have no idea what the other side thinks they are being called on to do, they may not either. That alone may explain why they are not deciding as you would like.
• Thinking of negotiation as a two-sided affair can be illuminating, but the other side can have multiple interests, and people on the other side may have differing interests.
• In searching for the basic interests behind a declared position, look for basic human needs, such as security, economic well-being, a sense of belonging, recognition, and autonomy.

Talking about interests

• The purpose of negotiating is to serve your interests. If you wan the other side to take your interest into account, you must explain to them what your interests are.
• Inviting the other side to "correct me if I'm wrong" shows your openness, and if they do not correct you, it implies that they accept your description of the situation.
• People think that those who understand them are intelligent and sympathetic people whose own options are worth listening to. By appreciating their interests, they will appreciate yours.
• Give your interests and reasoning first, and your conclusions and proposal last. If you put your position first, they will be preparing arguments against it, and not listening to your justification.
• You will satisfy your interests better if you talk about where yo would like to go rather than where you have come from. Do not talk about the past, but about the future.
• Most of what positional bargainers hope to achieve with an opening position can be accomplished equally well with an illustrative suggestion that generously takes care of your interest.
• It may not be wise to commit yourself to your position, but it is wise to commit yourself to your interests. These often produce the wisest solutions.
• Attack the problem without blaming the people. Give positive support to the human beings on the other side in equal strength to the vigor with which you emphasize the problem.

Ch 4: Invent Options for Mutual Gain

• Grow the pie before dividing it. Skill at inventing options is one of the most useful assets that a negotiator can have.

DIAGNOSIS

• Four obstacles inhibit inventing many options: premature judgment, searching for a single answer, the assumption of a fixed pie, and thinking that "solving their problem is their problem."

Premature judgment

• Under the pressure of negotiation, your critical sense will likely be sharper, which in turn will hinder inventing options in the negotiation. Judgment hinders imagination.

Searching for a single answer

• 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 larger number of possible answers.

Thinking that "solving their problem is their problem"

• Emotional investment on one side of an issue makes it difficult to achieve the detachment necessary to think up wise ways of meeting the interests of both sides.
• We also frequently possess a psychological reluctance to accord any legitimacy to the views of the other side; it can also feel disloyal to think up ways to satisfy them.

PRESCRIPTION

• To invent creative solutions: separate inventing options from judgment, broaden the available options, search for mutual gains, and invent ways of making their decisions easy.

Separating inventing from deciding

• Brainstorm new ideas with colleagues or friends. Postpone all criticism and evaluation of ideas, thereby separating the creative act from the critical one of selecting among the ideas.
• Choose a time and place for brainstorming that distinguishes the session from normal discussions. This will make it easier for participants to suspend judgment.
• Choose a facilitator that keeps the meeting on track, makes sure everyone gets a chance to speak, enforces any ground rules, and stimulates discussions by asking questions.
• Seat the participants side-by-side or in a semicircle of chairs facing a flip chart or whiteboard. This reinforces that they are facing the problem and not each other.
• Permitting criticism will create an implicit goal to advance ideas that no one will shoot down. But by refraining from criticism, we can generate possible ideas from even impossible ones.
• Record brainstorming ideas on a whiteboard or a flipchart; this gives the group a tangible sense of achievement, reinforces the no-criticism rule, reduces repetition, and helps stimulate ideas.
• Star the most promising ideas, and then invent ways to improve each one or make it more realistic, as well as ways to carry it out. Then, later, pick the most promising improved ideas.

Consider brainstorming with the other side

• Joint brainstorming produces ideas that account for the interests of both sides, creates a climate of joint problem solving, and facilitates educating each side about the concerns of the other.
• Distinguish the brainstorming session explicitly from a negotiating session where people state official views and speak on the record.

Broaden your options

• Room within which to negotiate can be made only by having a substantial number of markedly different ideas. You and the other side can build on and jointly choose from these ideas.
• Following the circle chart: Identify the problem, diagnose it by sorting symptoms and suggesting causes, generate broad strategies for a cure, and finally devise actionable, specific steps.
• By finding different action ideas that use the same approach, or different approaches that cure the same problem, we can develop a tree of ideas.
• Examine the problem from the perspective of different professions and disciplines. Consider how each would diagnose the situation, develop approaches, and what practical suggestions would follow.
• You can multiply the number of agreements on the table by thinking of agreements with reduced strength or scope, in case a sought-for agreement proves beyond reach.
• It is also provocative to ask how the subject matter might be enlarged so as to "sweeten the pot" and make agreement more attractive.

Looking for mutual gain

• Look for solutions that leave the other side satisfied as well. An outcome in which the other side gets absolutely nothing is worse for you than one that leaves them mollified.
• Shared interests are opportunities, not godsends. Make a shared interest explicit and formulate it as a shared goal; that is, make it concrete and future-oriented.
• Dovetail differing interests. Differences in interests and belief make it possible for an item to be of high benefit to you, but of low cost to the other side.
• The differences that best lend themselves to dovetailing interests are differences in interests, in beliefs, in the value placed on time, in forecasts, and in aversion to risk.

Make their decision easy

• We often marvel at the merits of our own case, and neglect the ways of advancing our case by taking care of interests on the other side. Instead, put yourself in their shoes.
• However complex the other side's decisional process may seem, you will understand it better if you pick one person and see how the problem looks from his or her point of view.
• Focusing on one person does not ignore complexities; instead, you are handling them by understanding how they impinge on the person with whom you are negotiating.
• Frequently you want as much as you can get, but you don't know how much that is. Simply asking for a proposal is an unappealing request; you will likely treat it as a lower bound.
• We are strongly influenced by legitimacy; therefore the other side is more likely to accept a solution if it seems fair, legal, honorable, and so forth.
• Find a precedent that can serve as an objective standard for your request. Use it to generate options that take their point of view into account, recognizing their desire to be consistent.
• Concentrate both on making the other party aware of the consequences they can expect if they do decide as you wish, and on improving those consequences from their point of view.
• To evaluate an option from the other side's point of view, consider how they might be criticized if they adopted it. Write out a hypothetical criticism, and their hypothetical defense.

Ch 5: Insist on Using Objective Criteria

The case for using objective criteria

• The more you bring standards of fairness, efficiency, or scientific merit to bear on your particular problem, the more likely a wise and fair outcome.
• Benefit from past experience by referring to precedent and community practice. An agreement consistent with precedent is less vulnerable to attack.
• People using objective criteria tend to use time more efficiently talking about possible standards and solutions, rather than defending their position and attacking the other side's position.

Developing objective criteria

• Objective criteria need to be independent of each side's will. Ideally, to ensure a wise agreement, it should also be both legitimate and practical. It should also apply to both sides.
• To produce an outcome independent of will, use fair standards for the substantiative question, or fair procedures for resolving the conflicting interest.
• Look at basic procedural means of settling differences, such as "one cuts, the other chooses," "last-best-offer arbitration," taking turns, drawing lots, letting someone else decide, and so on.

Negotiating with objective criteria

• Three basic points: Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria; reason and be open to reason about their application; and never yield to pressure, only principle.
• When the other side makes a proposal, ask the theory behind it. Treat the problem as though the other side is looking for an outcome based on objective criteria.
• Your case will have more impact if it is presented in terms of the criteria or standards that the other side proposes. To them, deferring to it is not an act of weakness, but an act of strength.
• Insisting for objective criteria does not mean insisting on the criterion that you advance. One standard of legitimacy does not preclude the existence of others.
• When each party is advancing a different standard, look for an objective basis on deciding between them, such as which has been used by the parties in the past, or which is more widely applied.
• It's the openness to reason and the insistence on a solution based on objective criteria that makes principled negotiation so persuasive and so effective at getting the other side to play.
• Pressure can take many forms, such as a bribe, a threat, a manipulative appeal to trust, or a simple refusal to budge. Do not yield to each case of pressure; only yield to principle.
• If pressured, always invite them to state their reasoning, suggest objective criteria you think may apply, and refuse to budge except on this basis.

Ch 6: What If They Are More Powerful?

• In response to power, the best any method of negotiation can do is to protect you against making an agreement that you should reject, and to make the most of the assets that you have.

Protecting Yourself

• Having a bottom line, or the worst acceptable outcome, makes it easier to resist pressure and temptations of the moment.
• But a bottom line is rigid, thereby limiting your ability to learn and your incentive to invent creative solutions. It can also be too high, steering you away from an agreement that you should accept.
• You negotiate to produce something better than the results you could get without negotiating. That is the BATNA, or the Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement.
• Measure all proposed agreements against your BATNA. It is not only a better measure, but is flexible enough to permit the exploration of imaginative solutions.

Making the most of your assets

• The relative negotiating power of two parties depends primarily on how attractive to each is the option of not reaching agreement.
• Generating BATNAs requires listing actions you might conceivably take if no agreement is reached, converting the better ones to practical alternatives, and selecting the one that seems best.
• A strong BATNA will facilitate breaking off negotiations, thereby allowing you to more forcefully present your interests and the basis on which you think an agreement should be reached.
• Reveal your BATNA to the other side if it is extremely attractive, or if they think you lack a BATNA. Don't reveal it if it is worse for you than they think.
• Consider the BATNA of the other side. If they appear to overestimate their BATNA, you will want to help them think through whether their expectations are realistic.
• If both sides have attractive BATNAs, the best outcome for both parties may well be to not reach an agreement.

Ch 7: What If They Won't Play?

• If the other side focuses on positions and not merits, and principled negotiation fails, then you can play negotiation jujitsu, or you can include a third party.

Negotiation jujitsu

• If the other side has a firm position and criticizes your proposal, then rejecting their position only locks them in, and defending your position only locks you in.
• Instead, when they assert their positions, do not reject them. When they attack your ideas, do not defend them. Instead, sidestep attacks and deflect them against the problem.
• First, don't attack their position, but look behind it. Treat it one possible option. Look for the interests behind it, seek out the principles that it reflects, and think about ways to improve it.
• Second, don't defend your ideas, but invite criticism and advice. This leads them to confront your half of the problem, and they may even invent a solution that meets your concerns.
• When the other side attacks you personally, listen and show that you understand what they are saying. Then recast their attack on you as an attack on the problem.
• Use questions instead of statements. They generate answers, pose challenges, lead the other side to confront the problem, offer no position to attack, and educate instead of criticize.
• Also, use silence. It creates the impression of a stalemate that the other side will feel impelled to break by answering your question or creating a new suggestion.

Consider the one-text procedure

• More easily than the parties involved, a mediator can separate people from problems, direct the discussion to interests and options, suggest an impartial basis for resolving differences, and more.
• In the one-text procedure, a third party learns about both parties' needs and interests, and iterates with them on a solution. Finally both parties must jointly accept it or reject it.
• The one-text procedure is almost essential for large multilateral negotiations. It simplifies the process of decision-making without diminishing the quality of the outcome.

Ch 8: What If They Use Dirty Tricks?

How do you negotiate about the rules of the game?

• When the other side is using a tricky tactic, you must recognize the tactic, raise the issue explicitly, and then question its legitimacy and desirability, i.e. negotiate over it.
• Upon recognizing the tactic, bringing it up makes it less effective, makes the other side worry about alienating you completely, and gives you opportunity to discuss the rules of the game.

Some common tricky tactics

• Tricky tactics can be divided into deliberate deception, psychological warfare, and positional pressure tactics.

Deliberate deception

• Be wary of false statements. So unless you have reason to trust somebody, don't; do not let someone treat your doubts as a personal attack.
• Where the issue is one of possible misrepresentation of their intention to comply with the agreement, try to build compliance features into the agreement itself.

Psychological warfare

• It is sometimes advantageous to meet on the other side's turf: It may put them at ease and make them more open to suggestion, and if necessary, it will be easier for you to walk out.
• If you are personally attacked, simply recognizing the tactic will help nullify its effect. Bringing it up will probably prevent a recurrence.
• Do not use threats; they make the decision harder for the other side. The question is no longer "Should we make this decision?" but "Shall we cave into outside pressure?"
• Instead of threats, appeal to warnings, or consequences of the other side's action that will occur independently of your will.
• You can warn the other side about your likely actions in the event of no agreement, as long as you demonstrate that such actions are intended to safeguard your interests, and not to punish the other side.

Personal pressure tactics

• If the other side makes an extreme demand, call attention to it. Such a demand that both you and they know will be abandoned undermines their credibility.
• Faced with a lock-in tactic, interpret the commitment as to weaken it, or resist it on principle. But avoid making it a central question so that the other party can gracefully back down.
• Faced with a take-it-or-leave-it tactic, inform them what they have to lose if no agreement is reached and look for a graceful way for them to get out of the situation.