Getting to Yes: Negotiating an agreement without giving in

by Roger Fisher

Recognizing their probable desire to be consistent, thinking about what they have already done or said will help you generate options acceptable to you that also take their point of view into account.

Having a bottom line makes it easier to resist pressure and temptations of the moment.

If the other side announces a firm position, you may be tempted to criticize and reject it. If they criticize your proposal, you may be tempted to defend it and dig yourself in. If they attack you, you may be tempted to defend yourself and counterattack. In short, if they push you hard, you will tend to push back. Yet if you do, you will end up playing the positional bargaining game. Rejecting their position only locks them in. Defending your proposal only locks you in.

If pushing back does not work, what does? How can you prevent the cycle of action and reaction? Do not push back. When they assert their positions, do not reject them. When they attack your ideas, don’t defend them. When they attack you, don’t counterattack. Break the vicious cycle by refusing to react. Instead of pushing back, sidestep their attack and deflect it against the problem.

Statements generate resistance, whereas questions generate answers. Questions allow the other side to get their points across and let you understand them. They pose challenges and can be used to lead the other side to confront the problem. Questions offer them no target to strike at, no position to attack. Questions do not criticize, they educate.

Silence is one of your best weapons. Use it. If they have made an unreasonable proposal or an attack you regard as unjustified, the best thing to do may be to sit there and not say a word.

People tend to feel uncomfortable with silence, particularly if they have doubts about the merits of something they have said.

It is hard to make concessions, but it is easy to criticize.

There are three steps in negotiating the rules of the negotiating game where the other side seems to be using a tricky tactic: recognize the tactic, raise the issue explicitly, and question the tactic’s legitimacy and desirability—negotiate over it.

Paradoxically, you strengthen your bargaining position by weakening your control over the situation.

relationship. If, despite your efforts to establish a working relationship and to negotiate substantive differences on their merits, people problems still stand in the way, negotiate them—on their merits.

When you are on the phone, and especially when you are using email or texts, make an effort to create some personal connection before diving into substance. Studies show that a little effort up front to schmooze—to learn and share something personal, to evoke an existing relationship or shared identity, or to find a shared connection—helps promote cooperation and increases the chances of agreement.

Whether or not you make an offer, you may want to try to “anchor” the discussion early around an approach or standard favorable to you. On the other hand, if you are ill prepared and have no idea what would be reasonable, you will probably be reluctant to put an idea or an offer on the table, perhaps hoping that the other side will go first and offer something generous.

Don’t ask “Who’s more powerful?” Trying to estimate whether you or your counterparts are more “powerful” is risky. If you conclude that you are more powerful, you may relax and not prepare as well as you should. On the other hand, if you conclude that you are weaker than the other side, there is a risk that you will be discouraged and again not devote sufficient attention to how you might persuade them. Whatever you conclude will not help you figure out how best to proceed.

There are many sources of negotiation power How do you enhance your negotiating power? This whole book is an attempt to answer that question. Negotiation power has many sources. One is having a good BATNA. Provided they believe you, it is persuasive to tell the other side that you have a better alternative. But each of the four elements of the method outlined in Part II of this book—people (the relationship), interests, options, and objective criteria—is also a source of negotiation power. If the other side is strong in one area, you can try to develop strength in another. To these five we would now add a sixth, the power of commitment, and seventh, the power of effective communication, including process management.

If you understand the other side and they understand you; if emotions are acknowledged and people are treated with respect even when they disagree; if there is clear, two-way communication with good listening; if there is mutual trust and confidence in one another’s reliability; and if people problems are dealt with directly on their merits, not by demanding or offering concessions on substance, negotiations are likely to be smoother and more successful for both parties.

President John F. Kennedy was justly famous for his skill at the first of these, crafting a forceful message: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”7

Successful brainstorming increases your ability to influence others. Once you understand the interests of each side, it is often possible—as in the radio-station example above—to invent a clever way of having those interests dovetail. Sometimes this can be done by devising an ingenious process option.

The more concrete the offer, the more persuasive.