Getting to YES by Roger Fisher & William Ury

Principled negotiation is looking for mutual gains wherever possible. Negotiation isn’t just about bargaining over positions – that’s the most topical understanding of the act. Sophisticated and efficient negotiations take place when we are thoughtful of emotions, focus on incentives, expand our possible choice set, and look for mutual gains.

Fisher and Ury lay out the following framework in their book:

Errors in common negotiation strategies: 

• Arguing over positions produces unwise agreements: When we bargain over positions, we lock ourselves up into them / our ego is identified with them. As more attention is paid to positions, less is devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties and agreement is less likely
• In positional bargaining, we start with an extreme position and move towards the middle (i.e. I’ll pay you $15 for something with a market value of $50, and we inch towards the middle, if at all). This is inefficient, and increase the time and costs of reaching an agreement, as well as increases the possibility of threatening to walk out, stonewalling, etc.
• Which leads to the next point: positional bargaining endangers relationships with its “all or nothing” mentality (which is attached to the negotiator’s ego). Anger and resentment often result as one side sees itself bending to the rigid will of the other will its own legitimate concerns go unaddressed
• Two sides of positional bargaining: hard and soft. Soft tends to go with family, loved ones, but inefficient because desired outcomes might not be evident. Hard bargaining, if two people both utilize same strategy, come into conflict of being unyielding (see above inefficiencies). Soft x hard = hard wins, biased towards hard bargaining

Solution:

• Divide the problem into four categories:
  • People: Separate the people from the problem
    • People problems fall into three categories: perception, emotion, and communication
    • Perception: Understanding others’ POV is not the same as agreeing with it. Discuss each other’s perceptions, and look for opportunities to act inconsistently with others’ (perhaps negative) perceptions
    • Emotion: Making emotions explicit (displaying and legitimizing vulnerability) makes negotiations less reactive / more proactive. Emotions that are consuming (emotional outbursts, letting off steam, etc.) best dealt with controlling yourself / not walking out / listen quietly without responding to their attacks. Symbolic gestures – acts that product constructive emotional impact improve hostile emotional situations at small costs
    • Communication: “Did I understand correctly that you are saying that…?”, and using standard techniques of good listening / repeating what they’ve said, understand them without thinking of the next response, and taking in their perceptions, needs, and constraints. Speak clearly and with a purpose – before making a significant statement, know what you want to communicate and know what purpose this information will serve
  • Interests: Focus on interests / incentives, not positions as they often obscure what we really want 
    • Reconcile interests not positions. i.e. finding a solution that solves the problem and not finding a midpoint between proposed solutions
    • The most powerful interests are basic human needs including security, economic well-being, a sense of belonging, recognition, control over one’s life
    • You will satisfy your interests better if you talk about where you’d like to go instead of where you have come. I.e. talk about what you want to happen in the future vs justifying what they did yesterday
  • Options: Generate a variety of possible outcomes / invent options for mutual gain
    • For major obstacles that inhibit invention of new options: (1) premature judgement; (2) searching for a single answer; (3) the assumption of a fixed pie; (4) thinking that solving the problem is the answer
    • Expand the pie before dividing it – invent options = mutually beneficial, even for negotiations where there seems to be only one beneficiary / negotiation appears a fixed-sum game
    • Brainstorming ideas fosters communication of incentives & widens the pie
    • Strengthening shared interests (passengers in a lifeboat) & dovetail differing interests (find items that are low val to you but high benefit for them)
  • Criteria: Results are based on objective, not subjective standard. Yield to principle and not pressure
    • Self explanatory

BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) 

• In the case you negotiate with someone w/ higher bargaining power:
  • Set a bottom line / base case
  • Know your BATNA, in layman terms, what is the alternative, and by negotiating. Know others’ BATNA. Two strong BATNAs indicate that perhaps no agreement needs to be made; stronger BATNA = more negotiating power
  • Other way to think about BATNA is opportunity cost for negotiating; higher the cost, the less you’re willing to budge for something less optimal