Getting To Yes - Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

By Roger Fisher and William Ury

I. Don’t Bargain Over Positions

• Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: o It should produce
a wise agreement if agreement is possible
• It should be efficient
• And it should not damage the relationship between the parties
• A wise agreement can be defined as one that meets the legitimate interests of each
side to the extent possible, resolves conflicting interests fairly, is durable and takes
community interests into account.

• Arguing over positions is inefficient

o Negotiators tend to lock themselves into their positions. The more they clarify
their position and defend it, the more committed they are to it. Ego gets
involved.
o The more they try to convince the other side of their position, the more
difficult it becomes to compromise.
o Negotiators start by taking an extreme position and taking small concessions
only to keep negotiating going. The same is true for the other side.
o The more extreme the more drawn out the negotiation

• Being nice is no answer

o Pursuing a soft and friendly form of positional bargaining makes you
vulnerable to someone who plays a hard game of positional bargaining.
o If your response to sustained, hard positional bargaining is soft positional
bargaining, you will probably lose your shirt.

• There is an alternative – principled negotiation can be boiled down to four basic

points:
o People – separate the people from the problem. The participants should see
themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other
o Interests – focus on interests, not positions
o Options – Generate a variety of possibilities for mutual gain before deciding
what to do
o Criteria – Insist that the result be based on some objective standard

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1032 E Brandon Blvd #4744, Brandon, FL 33511 | Phone: (941) 312-0400 | [Link]
II. Separate the People from the Problem
• Negotiators are people first –
o You are dealing with human beings, not abstract representatives. They have
emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds and viewpoints.
o Be sensitive to the people around you.

• Put yourself in their shoes –

o Seeing the situation as the other side sees it, is one of the most important
skills a negotiator can possess.
o If you want to influence them, you also need to understand empathetically
their point of view.
o Understanding their point of view is not the same as agreeing with it.

• Address the other side’s concerns

o It is common in negotiation to treat as “unimportant” those concerns of the
other side perceived as not standing in the way of an agreement.
o To the contrary, communicating loudly and convincingly things you are willing
to say that they would like to hear can be one of the best investments you as
a negotiator can make.

II. Focus on Interests, Not Positions

• For a wise solution reconcile interests, not positions. 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.
• Reconciling interests rather than positions works for both parties. For every
interest there usually exist several possible positions that could satisfy it.

• How do you identify the interests of the other side?

o It’s easy to identify positions but underlying interests may well go
unexpressed and purposely hidden.
o Ask “Why?” Ask why they take 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, or fears.
o 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. What interests of theirs stand in the way? If you are trying to change
their minds, the starting point is to figure out where their minds are now.
o Construct the other side’s currently perceived choices. How do I want to
affect it? What decision do they think you are asking them to make?
o Now analyze the consequences, as the other side would probably see them,
of agreeing or refusing to make the decision you are asking for.

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 • Make a list of interests
o Sort out the various interests of each side as they occur to you.
o This will enable you to improve the quality of your assessment as you learn
new information and to place interests in their order of importance.
o Acknowledge their interests. People listen better if they feel that you
understand them. So, if you want the other side to appreciate your interests,
begin by demonstrating that you appreciate theirs.

II. Invent Options for Mutual Gain

• Expand the pie before dividing it. Invent solutions advantageous to both sides.
Skill at inventing options is one of the most useful assets a negotiator can have.

• Obstacles that inhibit the inventing of an abundance of options:

• Premature judgment – Nothing is so harmful to inventing options as a critical sense

waiting to pounce of the drawbacks of any new idea. Judgment hinders imagination.

• Searching for a single answer – Most people don’t agree that inventing options is
part of the negotiating process. People see their job as narrowing the gap between
parties, not broadening options available. By looking for the single best answer, you
are likely to short-circuit a wiser decision-making process in which to select from a
larger number of possible answers.

• The assumption of a fixed pie – see the situation as either/or – either I get it, or
they do.

• Thinking that “solving their problem is their problem” – for a negotiator to reach
an agreement that meets his own self-interest he needs to develop a solution which
also appeals to the self- interest of the other side.

• The solution to these obstacles

o Separate the act of inventing options from the act of judging them. Invent first,
decide later. Before brainstorming clarify the ground rules, including the no-
criticism rule.
o Broaden the options on the table rather than look for a single answer.
o Search for mutual gains.
o Invent ways of making their decisions easy. Rather than making things
difficult for the other side, you want to confront them with a choice that is as
painless as possible. Without some option that appeals to them, there is likely
to be no agreement at all.

• Three points about shared interests are worth remembering

o Shared interests lie latent in every negotiation. They may not be immediately
obvious. Ask yourself: What opportunities lie ahead for cooperation and
mutual benefit? What costs would we bear if negotiations broke off?

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 o Shared interests are opportunities, not godsends. To be of use, you need to
make something out of them. It helps to make a shared interest explicit and to
formulate it as a shared goal.
o Stressing your shared interests can make the negotiation smoother and more
amicable.

• Dovetailing different interests

o Differences between two parties sometimes create problems, but differences
can also lead to a solution.
o Many creative agreements reflect this principle of reaching agreement
through differences. Differences in interests make it possible for an item to be
high benefit to you, yet low cost to the other side.
o Ask for their preferences as a way of dovetailing interests. Invent several
options all equally acceptable to you and ask the other side which one they
prefer.
o You then take the option that is most preferable, work with it some more, and
again present two or more variants, asking which one they prefer. In this way,
without anyone making a decision, you can improve a plan until there are no
more joint gains.
o In summary, dovetailing is the process of looking for items that are low cost to
you and high benefit to them, and vice versa.

III. Insist on Using Objective Criteria

• The case for using objective criteria – Commit yourself to reaching agreement
based on principle, not pressure. Be open to reason but closed to threats.
o The more you and the other side refer to established standards, to precedent
or community practice, the greater your chance of producing a wise and fair
agreement.
o A constant battle for dominance threatens the chance of agreement;
principled negotiation protects it.
o It is far easier to deal with people when both sides are discussing objective
standards for settling a problem instead of trying to force each other to back
down.

• Carrying on a principled negotiation involves two questions:

o How do you develop objective criteria?
o How do you use them in negotiating?
o Objective criteria need to be independent of each side’s will and also need to
be legitimate and practical.

• Negotiating with objective criteria – three points to remember:

o Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria. For example,
let’s figure out what a fair price would be.
o What objective standard might be most relevant? Before even considering
possible terms, you may want to agree on the standards to apply.

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 o If the other side starts by giving you a position, ask for the theory behind the
price.
o Each standard the other side proposes becomes a lever you can use to
persuade them.

• Reason and be open to reason as to which standards are most appropriate.

o A principled negotiator is open to reasoned persuasion on the merits; a
positional bargainer is not.
o It is the combination of openness to reason with insistence on a solution
based on objective criteria that makes negotiation so persuasive.

• Never yield to pressure, only to principle –

o If the other side truly will not budge and will not advance a persuasive basis
for their position, then there is no further negotiation.
o If there is no principled basis for accepting it, you should assess what you
might gain by accepting their unjustified position rather than accepting your
next best alternative or the benefit of just walking away.

IV. What If They Are More Powerful?

• Develop Your BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement

o Of what benefit is talking about interests, options, and standards if the other
side has a stronger bargaining position? What if the other side is richer, better
connected or more powerful?
o In response to power, the most any method can do is to meet two objectives:
o First, to protect you against making an agreement you should reject.
o Second, to help make the most of the assets you do have so that any
agreement you reach will satisfy your interests as well as possible.

• Protecting yourself
o A major danger is that you will be too accommodating to the views of the
other side. The argument, “Let’s all agree and put an end to this” becomes
persuasive. You may end up with a deal you should have rejected.
o The costs of using a bottom line. To protect themselves, some negotiators
establish their bottom line – the worst acceptable outcome. A bottom line
makes it easier to resist pressure, but it comes with costs:
o It limits your ability to benefit from what you learn during negotiation. By
definition, a bottom line is a position that is not to be changed. Therefore,
nothing the other party says could cause you to raise or lower that bottom
line.
o It also inhibits imagination. It reduces the incentive to invent a tailor-made
solution which would reconcile differing interests in a way more advantageous
to both parties.
o In short, while adopting a bottom line may protect you from accepting a bad
agreement, it may keep you both from inventing and from agreeing to a
solution that would be wise to accept.

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• Knowing your BATNA – protects you against accepting an agreement you should
reject and rejecting an agreement you should accept.

• What is your BATNA? – it is your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. That

is the standard against which any proposed agreement should be measured.

• Your BATNA has the advantage of being more flexible – Instead of ruling out any
solution which does not meet your bottom line, you can compare a proposal with
your BATNA to see if it better satisfies your interests.

• The insecurity of an unknown BATNA –

o If you have not thought carefully about what you will do if you fail to reach an
agreement, you are negotiating with your eyes closed.
o Whether you should agree on something in a negotiation depends entirely
upon the attractiveness to you of the best available alternative.

• Making the most of your assets

o The better your BATNA, the greater your power –
o People think of negotiating power as being determined by resources like
wealth, political connections, friends, or power over subordinates.
o In fact, the relative negotiating power of two parties depends primarily upon
how attractive to each is the option of not reaching agreement.
o For example, how would you feel walking into a job interview with no other job
offers? Think how the talk about salary would go. Now contrast that with how
you would feel walking in with two other job offers. The difference is power.

• The results of knowing your BATNAs

o Knowing what you are going to do if the negotiation does not lead to
agreement will give you additional confidence in the negotiating process.
o The greater your willingness to break off negotiations, the more forcefully you
can present your interests and the basis on which you believe an agreement
should be reached.

• Should you disclose your BATNA to the other side?

o This depends upon your assessment of the other side’s thinking. If your
BATNA is extremely attractive – if you have another customer waiting in the next
room – it is in your best interest to let the other side know.
o If they think you lack a good alternative when in fact you have one, then you
should almost certainly let them know.
o However, if your best alternative to a negotiated agreement is worse than
they think, disclosing it will weaken rather than strengthen your hand.

• Consider the other side’s BATNA.

o The more you can learn of their alternatives, the better prepared you are for
negotiations.

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 o Knowing their alternatives, you can realistically estimate what you can expect
from the negotiation. If they appear to overestimate their BATNA, you will
want to lower their expectations.
o If both sides have attractive BATNAs, the best outcome of the negotiation –
for both parties – may well be not to reach agreement.

• When the other side is powerful

o Developing you BATNA thus not only enables you to determine what is a
minimally acceptable agreement, it will probably raise that minimum.
o Developing your BATNA is perhaps the most effective course of action you
can take in dealing with a seemingly more powerful negotiator.

V. What If They Won’t Play (Use Negotiation Jujitsu)

• If they continue to use positional bargaining, you can resort to a second strategy,
negotiation jujitsu, which focuses on what they may do. It counters the basic
moves of positional bargaining in ways that direct their attention to the merits.
• How negotiation jujitsu works.

• Don’t attack their position, look behind it.

o Neither accept nor reject their position.
o Look for ways to improve it.
o Assume every position they take is a genuine attempt to address the basic
concerns of each side.
o Ask them how they think it addresses the problems at hand.

• Don’t defend your ideas, invite criticism and advice.

o Instead of asking them to accept or reject an idea, ask them what’s wrong
with it.
o Examine their negative judgments to find out their underlying interests and to
improve your ideas from their point of view.
o Rework your ideas in light of what you learn from them.

• Recast an attack on you as an attack on the problem.

o Don’t defend yourself when attacked.
o Listen to what they are saying and when they have finished, you recast their
attack on you as an attack on the problem.

• Ask questions and pause.

o Those engaged in negotiation jujitsu use two tools:
o They use questions instead of statements, which allows the other side to get
their points across and lets you understand them.
o Silence. If they make an unreasonable proposal or an attack you regard as
unjustified, the best thing is not to say anything. Silence creates an
uncomfortable situation especially if they have doubts about the merits of
what they just said.

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VI. What If They Use Dirty Tricks? (Taming the Hard Bargainer)

• Tricky bargaining tactics are in effect one-sided proposals about negotiating

procedure, about the negotiating game that the parties are going to play. To counter
them, you will want to engage in principled negotiation about the negotiating
process.

• How do you negotiate about the rules of the game? There are three steps in
negotiating the rules of the negotiating game:
o Recognize the tactic – Learn to spot particular ploys that make you feel
uncomfortable or indicate deception.
o Raise the issue explicitly – Discussing the tactic not only makes it less
effective, it also may cause the other side to worry about alienating you.
Simply raising a question about a tactic may be enough to get them to stop
using it.
o Question the tactic’s legitimacy and desirability – bringing it up gives you
the opportunity to negotiate about the rules of the game. This negotiation
focuses on the procedure (or how the two sides will negotiate) instead of the
substance of the negotiation.

• Some Common Tricky Tactics

o Phony facts – knowingly making false statements
o Ambiguous authority – the other side may allow you to believe they have
full authority to compromise when they don’t. After they have pressed you as
hard as they can and you have worked out a firm agreement, they announce
that they must take it to someone else for approval. To counter, insist on
reciprocity. “All right. We will treat it as a joint draft to which neither side is
committed. You check with your boss, and I’ll sleep on it and see if I come up
with any changes I want to suggest tomorrow.”
o Stressful situations – Be aware that the setting might have been
deliberately manipulated to make you want to conclude the negotiations
promptly or to yield points in order to do so.
o Personal attacks – use of both verbal and non-verbal communication to
make you feel uncomfortable.
o The good-guy/bad-guy routine
o Threats
o Hardhearted partner – the other side justifies not yielding to your request by
saying that he personally would have no objection, but his hardhearted
partner will not let him. Recognize the tactic.
o A calculated delay – frequently one side will try to postpone coming to a
decision until a time they think favorable to them and disadvantageous to you.
o “Take it or leave it.” – As an alternative to explicitly recognizing the “Take it
or leave it” tactic, consider ignoring it at first. Keep talking as if you didn’t hear
it, or change the subject, perhaps by introducing other solutions. If you do
bring up the tactic specifically, let them know what they have to lose if no

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 agreement is reached and look for a face-saving way to get them out of the
situation.
o Don’t be a victim – Whatever you do, be prepared to fight dirty bargaining
tactics. You can be just as firm as they can, even firmer. It is easier to defend
principle than an illegitimate tactic. Don’t be a victim.

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