Getting to Yes: Negotiating an agreement without giving in

by Roger Fisher

The goal cannot and should not be to eliminate conflict. Conflict is an inevitable—and useful—part of life. It often leads to change and generates insight.

the best decisions result not from a superficial consensus but from exploring different points of view and searching for creative solutions.

“separate the people from the problem,” the powerful first step in the method of principled negotiation.

Our belief is that by disentangling the people from the problem you can be “soft on the people” while remaining “hard on the problem.”

Everyone negotiates something every day.

The method of principled negotiation is hard on the merits, soft on the people.

Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at least not damage the relationship between the parties.

Arguing over positions produces unwise outcomes

the more attention that is paid to positions, the less attention is devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties.

Positional bargaining becomes a contest of will. Each negotiator asserts what he will and won’t do. The task of jointly devising an acceptable solution tends to become a battle.

pursuing a soft and friendly form of positional bargaining makes you vulnerable to someone who plays a hard game of positional bargaining. In positional bargaining, a hard game dominates a soft one.

The first point responds to the fact that human beings are not computers. We are creatures of strong emotions who often have radically different perceptions and have difficulty communicating clearly. Emotions typically become entangled with the objective merits of the problem.

the participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other. Hence the first proposition: Separate the people from the problem.

The second point is designed to overcome the drawback of focusing on people’s stated positions when the object of a negotiation is to satisfy their underlying interests. A negotiating position often obscures what you really want.

Having a lot at stake inhibits creativity. So does searching for the one right solution.

Insist on using objective criteria.

Each side should come to understand the interests of the other. Both can then jointly generate options that are mutually advantageous and seek agreement on objective standards for resolving opposed interests.

people get angry, depressed, fearful, hostile, frustrated, and offended. They have egos that are easily threatened. They see the world from their own personal vantage point, and they frequently confuse their perceptions with reality. Routinely, they fail to interpret what you say in the way you intend and do not mean what you understand them to say.

Whatever else you are doing at any point during a negotiation, from preparation to follow-up, it is worth asking yourself, “Am I paying enough attention to the people problem?”

The relationship tends to become entangled with the problem.

On both the giving and receiving end, we are likely to treat people and problem as one.

Positional bargaining puts relationship and substance in conflict. Framing a negotiation as a contest of will over positions aggravates the entangling process.

Disentangle the relationship from the substance; deal directly with the people problem

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.