GETTING TO YES

Chapter 2: THE METHOD

 Chapter 2: The method

SEPARATE THE PEOPLE FROM THE

PROBLEM
How to deal with a problem without:

People misunderstanding each other

Getting angry or upset
Taking things personally
Negotiators are people first

HUMAN BEINGS
Emotions
Deeply held values
Different backgrounds and viewpoints
Unpredictable
The other party is prone to:

Cognitive biases
Partisan Perceptions
Blind spots
Leaps of Illogic
Negotiator: 2 kinds of interest

SUBSTANCE
RELATIONSHIP
Negotiator: 2 kinds of interest

RELATIONSHIP
Maintain a working relationship good enough
to Produce an acceptable agreement And
effective implementation, If one is possible
given each side’s interest.
3 categories of people problems

PERCEPTION
EMOTION
COMMUNICATION
1. PERCEPTION

Differences are defined by the difference

between your thinking and theirs
Conflict lies not in objective reality but in
people’s heads
You don’t necessarily need to focus on knowing
more about the object or event
Perception

PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES

Try on the other side’s point of view
How you see the world depends on where you sit
Try to see the situation as the other side sees it.
Withhold judgement and try on their views
Perception

REDUCE THE AREA OF CONFLICT

Understanding their point of view is not the same as
agreeing with it
To influence them you need to understand emphatically
their point of view
 Perception

Don’t deduce their intention from your fears

Don’t blame them for your problem
Look for opportunities to act inconsistently with their
perceptions
Give them a stake in the outcome by making sure
they participate in the process
Make your proposals consistent with their values
2. emotion

Take stock and understand emotions

Theirs and yours:
Nervous
Angry
Relaxed
Careers may be at stake
What produces the emotions; why are you feeling this
way
Emotion: core contents

 Autonomy – Desire to make choices and control

your fate
 Appreciation – Desire to be recognized and valued
 Affiliation – Desire to belong
 Role – Desire for meaningful purpose
 Status – Desire to be acknowledged and
understood
 Identity – Self-image and self-respect
2. emotion

Make emotions explicit and acknowledge them

as legitimate
Allow the other side to let off steam
Don’t react to emotional outbursts
Use symbolic gestures
3. communication

Negotiation is a process of
communicating back and forth for the
purpose of reaching a joint decision.
Communication problems

May not be talking to each other in a way

to be understood
They may not be hearing you; not paying
attention to what you say
Misunderstanding
Misinterpretation
3. communication: Listen

Actively and acknowledge what is being said

Pay attention
The cheapest concession you can make to the
other party is to let them know they have been
heard
Repeat what you understand them to say and
phrase it positively
 3. communication

SPEAK TO BE UNDERSTOOD
- Reduce distractions with private and confidential means of
communicating
SPEAK ABOUT OURSLEF, NOT ABOUT THEM
- Describe a problem in terms of its impact on you
SPEAK FOR A PURPOSE
- Sometimes the problems is not too little communication,
but too much
Good will

Prevention works best

Build a working relationship
Face the problem, not the people
Sit on the same side of the table
Summary: 3 main problem sources

DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
UNCLEAR COMMUNICATIONS
 SUMMARY: PROBLEM HANDLING
STRATEGIES
PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES
UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS, THEIRS AND YOURS
DISCUSS EACH OTHER’S PERCEPTIONS
LISTEN ACTIVELY
SHOW THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THEM
SPEAK TO BE UNDERSTOOD
INVENT OPTIONS FOR MUTUAL GAIN
BE FRIENDLY
FOCUS ON INTERESTS, NOT
POSITIONS
How to get a YES from a NO without
compromising position?

CONFLICT
Compatible Interest vs. Conflicting Interest

TENANT LANDLORD

• Does not want fresh paint (allergic) • Requires apartment refurbishing

(higher rent)

• Pet lover (companionship) • NO pet allowed inside the

apartment (maintenance cost)

• Both want a well maintained apartment

• Interested in good relationship with each other.

How do you identify interest?

W H Y ?
W H Y NOT?
POWERFUL INTERESTS
 BASIC HUMAN NEEDS:

• Security

• Economy well-being

• A sense of belonging

• Recognition

• Control over one’s life

Explaining One’s Interest

Find shared GOALS

Be SPECIFIC
Win – Win Position
Hard Soft
Concrete Flexible
Forward Backward
INVENT OPTIONS FOR
MUTUAL GAIN
INVENTING OPTIONS

- negotiating along
multiple dimensions
Impediments to inventing options
Premature judgment
Single-answer mentality
Fixed-pie assumption
Self-concern/self-interest
Premature judgment
- under the pressure of a
negotiation, critical senses
are likely to be sharper.
Single-answer mentality
- narrowing the gap
between positions becomes
the general rule.
Fixed-pie assumption
- each side sees the
situation as essentially a
zero-sum game.
Self-concern/self-interest

- "solving their problem is

their problem"
Impediments to inventing options
Premature judgment
Single-answer mentality
Fixed-pie assumption
Self-concern/self-interest
Prescriptions to inventing options
Invention-judgment separation
Option broadening
Search for mutual gain
Appeasement
Invention-judgment separation

- separate inventing with

assessment.
Option-broadening
- Statement of problem
- Descriptive analysis
- General approaches
- Specific approaches
Search for mutual gain

- identify shared interests

- dovetail differing interests
Appeasement

- make other party’s

decision easy
 INSIST ON USING
OBJECTIVE CRIERIA
Deciding on the basis of will is
costly
The case for using objective
criteria
Principled negotiation
produces wise agreements
amicably and efficiently
 DEVELOPING OBJECTIVE CRITERIA

Carrying on a principled negotiation

involves two questions:
1.How do you develop objective
criteria?; and
2.How do you use them in negotiating?
 FAIR STANDARDS
 You will usually find more than one objective criterion available as a
basis for agreement
 Depending on the issue, you may wish to propose that an
agreement be based upon:

•Market Value •What a court would decide

•Precedent •Moral Standards
•Scientific Judgment •Equal Treatment
•Professional Standards •Tradition
•Efficiency •Reciprocity
•Costs •etc.
 At minimum, objective criteria need to be independent of each
side’s will.
 To assure a wise agreement, objective criteria should be not only
independent of will but also both legitimate and practical.
 Objective criteria should apply, at least in theory, to both sides.
 You can use the test of reciprocal application to tell whether a
proposed criterion is fair and independent of either party’s will.
 FAIR PROCEDURE
 To produce an outcome independent of will, you can use either fair
standards for the substantive question or fair procedures for
resolving the conflicting interests.
 This simple procedure was used in the Law of the Sea negotiations,
one of the most complex negotiations ever taken.
 A variation on the procedure of “one cuts, the other chooses” is for
the parties to negotiate what they think is fair arrangement before
they go on to decide their respective roles in it.
 As you consider procedural solutions, look at other basic means of
settling differences: taking turns, drawing lots, letting someone else
decide, and so on.
 Drawing lots, flipping a coin, and other forms of chance have an
inherent fairness. The results may be unequal, but each side has an
equal opportunity.
 Letting someone else play a key role in a joint decision is a well-
established procedure with almost infinitive variations.
 The parties can agree to submit a particular question to an expert
for advice or decision.
 They can ask a mediator to help them reach a decision. Or they
can submit the matter to an arbitrator for an authoritative and
binding decision.
 NEGOTIATING WITH OBJECTIVE
CRITERIA
 Having identified some objective criteria and procedure, how do
you go about discussing them with the other side?

 There are three basic points to remember:

1. Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria.
2. Reason and be open to reason as to which standards are most
appropriate and how they should be applied.
3. Never yield to pressure, only to principle.