Getting to Yes

Like it or not, you are a negotiator. Negotiation is a fact of life. You negotiate with your boss during your performance appraisal. You negotiate with your spouse where to go for dinner. You even have to negotiate with your children!

Negotiation is a basic means of getting what you want from others. It is a back and forth communication designed to reach an agreement when you and the other side have some interests that are shared and others that are opposed.

There are two standard strategies to negotiate: soft and hard.

When you are a soft negotiator, you see the participants as friends and you want an agreement. You make concessions readily in order to reach an agreement. You want an amicable solution as you care for the relationship, yet you may end up feeling exploited and bitter.

On the other hand when you are a hard negotiator, you consider the participants as enemies and your goal is victory. You dig in to your position and try to win a contest of will. In this case even if you win, you are exhausted and your relationship with the other side is harmed.

So is there a third alternative? Harvard Negotiation Project came up with the method of “principled negotiation”. It aims at deciding issues on the merits rather than positions. It suggests that you look for mutual gains wherever possible.

Wherever your interests conflict, you should insist that the result be based on a some fair standards independent of the will of either side.

This method is hard on the merits, and soft on the people. It shows you how to obtain what you want and still be decent. It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.

There are four basic elements of negotiation: people, interests, options and criteria. Principled negotiation proposes four methods to deal with these elements.

First proposition: Separate the people from the problem.

This responds to the fact that we are creatures of strong emotions and not computers. Our emotions typically become entangled with the objective merits of the problem. People’s egos become identified with their positions. So before working on the problem, the “people problem” should be disentangled.

The participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other.

Second, Focus on the interests, not positions.

Do not focus on people’s stated positions. The objective of a negotiation is to satisfy the underlying interests. A negotiating position often obscures what you really want. Compromising between positions also would not effectively take care of the human needs that led people to adopt those positions.

Consider two men quarreling in a library. One wants the window open and the other wants it closed. They bicker back and forth on how much to leave it open. No solution leaves them satisfied.

The librarian comes in and asks them what they need: One says I want fresh air. The other says I want to avoid draft. The librarian goes to the next room and opens the window, bringing in fresh air without a draft.

Focusing on their positions and not their interests made the men blind to the options.

That brings us to the third point: Invent options for mutual gain.

Consider two children who want an orange. One wants the peel for baking and the other wants to eat the orange. Finally they split the orange and take each half. One eats half orange and throws away the peel. The other bakes with half the peel and throws away the orange. Normal negotiations are like this. Instead of eating the whole orange and using the whole peel for baking, the participants end up having only the halves. They did not invent options for mutual gain before reaching the agreement.

Set aside a designated time within which to think up a wide range of possible solutions that advance the shared interests and creatively reconcile differing interests.

Fourth proposition is to Insist on using objective criteria.

Try, as you may, there would still be conflicts that need to be reconciled. Try to reach a result based on the standards and not based on the will. Commit yourself to reach a solution based on the principle, not pressure. Be open to reason, not to threats.

To sum up, in contrast to positional bargaining, principled negotiation methods of focusing on basic interests, mutually satisfying options, and fair standards typically results in a wise agreement. Also separating the people from the problem makes an amicable settlement possible. To learn more about these methods, you can read the book: Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury.