Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In

by Roger Fisher

The more quickly you can turn a stranger into someone you know, the easier a negotiation is likely to become.

It is easier to defuse tension with a joke or an informal aside.

Try arriving early to chat before the negotiation is scheduled to start, and linger after it ends.

Face the problem, not the people.

“Look, we’re both lawyers [diplomats, businessmen, family, etc.]. Unless we try to satisfy your interests, we are hardly likely to reach an agreement that satisfies mine, and vice versa. Let’s look together at the problem of how to satisfy our collective interests.”

Interests define the problem. The basic problem in a negotiation lies not in conflicting positions, but in the conflict between each side’s needs, desires, concerns, and fears.

Interests motivate people; they are the silent movers behind the hubbub of positions. Your position is something you have decided upon. Your interests are what caused you to so decide.

We tend to assume that because the other side’s positions are opposed to ours, their interests must also be opposed.

Shared interests and differing but complementary interests can both serve as the building blocks for a wise agreement.

A position is likely to be concrete and explicit; the interests underlying it may well be unexpressed, intangible, and perhaps inconsistent.

remembering that figuring out their interests will be at least as important as figuring out yours?

You can also ask the landlord himself why he takes a particular position. If you do, make clear that you are asking not for justification of this position, but for an understanding of the needs, hopes, fears, or desires that it serves.

Ask “Why not?” Think about their choice. One of the most useful ways to uncover interests is first to identify the basic decision that those on the other side probably see you asking them for, and then to ask yourself why they have not made that decision.

Basic human needs include: security economic well-being a sense of belonging recognition control over one’s life

Make a list. To sort out the various interests of each side, it helps to write them down as they occur to you. This will not only help you remember them; it will also enable you to improve the quality of your assessment as you learn new information and to place interests in their estimated order of importance. Furthermore, it may stimulate ideas for how to meet these interests.

The purpose of negotiating is to serve your interests. The chance of that happening increases when you communicate them. The other side may not know what your interests are, and you may not know theirs.

If you want someone to listen and understand your reasoning, give your interests and reasoning first and your conclusions or proposals later.

the argument is being carried on as a ritual, or simply a pastime.

if you talk about where you would like to go rather than about where you have come from.

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. An open mind is not an empty one.

Be hard on the problem, soft on the people.

be personally supportive: Listen to them with respect, show them courtesy, express your appreciation for their time and effort, emphasize your concern with meeting their basic needs, and so on. Show them that you are attacking the problem, not them.

The problem is a common one. There seems to be no way to split the pie that leaves both parties satisfied.

there are four major obstacles that inhibit the inventing of an abundance of options: (1) premature judgment; (2) searching for the single answer; (3) the assumption of a fixed pie; and (4) thinking that “solving their problem is their problem.”

Nothing is so harmful to inventing as a critical sense waiting to pounce on the drawbacks of any new idea. Judgment hinders imagination.

tense situation like this you are not likely to start inventing imaginative solutions.

Since whatever you say may be taken as a commitment, you will think twice before saying anything.

fear that by inventing options you will disclose some piece of information that will jeopardize your bargaining position.

People see their job as narrowing the gap between positions, not broadening the options available.

If the first impediment to creative thinking is premature criticism, the second is premature closure.

A third explanation for why there may be so few good options on the table is that each side sees the situation as essentially either/or—either

A final obstacle to inventing realistic options lies in each side’s concern with only its own immediate interests.

To invent creative options, then, you will need to (1) separate the act of inventing options from the act of judging them; (2) broaden the options on the table rather than look for a single answer; (3) search for mutual gains; and (4) invent ways of making their decisions easy.

Since judgment hinders imagination, separate the creative act from the critical one; separate the process of thinking up possible decisions from the process of selecting among them. Invent first, decide later.

Before brainstorming: 1. Define your purpose.

2. Choose a few participants.

3. Change the environment.

4. Design an informal atmosphere.

5. Choose a facilitator.

1. Seat the participants side by side facing the problem.

2. Clarify the ground rules, including the no-criticism rule.

3. Brainstorm.

4. Record the ideas in full view.

After brainstorming:

1. Star the most promising ideas.

2. Invent improvements for promising ideas.

3. Set up a time to evaluate ideas and decide.

Change the scope of a proposed agreement. Consider the possibility of varying not only the strength of the agreement but also its scope.

Different beliefs?

Different values placed on time?