Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents)

by William Ury

Three actions can help. First, see yourself from the “balcony.” Second, go deeper and listen with empathy to your underlying feelings for what they are really telling you. Third, go even deeper and uncover your underlying needs.

The balcony is a metaphor for a mental and emotional place of perspective, calm, and self-control. If life is a stage and we are all actors on that stage, then the balcony is a place from which we can see the entire play unfolding with greater clarity. To observe our selves, it is valuable to go to the balcony at all times, and especially before, during, and after any problematic conversation or negotiation.

The blame game is the core pattern of almost every destructive conflict I have ever witnessed. The husband blames the wife and vice versa. Management blames the union and vice versa. One political enemy blames the other and vice versa. Blaming usually triggers feelings of anger or shame in the other, which provokes counterblame. And on it goes.

The opposite of the blame game is to take responsibility. By responsibility, I mean “response-ability”—the ability to respond constructively to a situation facing us, treating it as ours to handle.

Your inner BATNA is your commitment to stop blaming yourself, others, and life itself for your dissatisfactions no matter what. It is your commitment to remove the responsibility for meeting your true needs from the other person’s shoulders—and to assume it yourself no matter what. This unconditional commitment gives you the motivation and the power to change your circumstances, especially in a difficult situation or conflict. Your inner BATNA is, in effect, the foundation for your outer BATNA.