Summary Getting to Yes:
Negotiating an Agreement without
Giving In
Negotiation is a basic means of getting what you want from others.
There is a soft way, which is wanting to avoid conflict and so make concessions readily
to reach agreement. There is a hard way, in which a negotiator sees any sit.
Chapter 1: The Problem
1. Don’t bargain over positions
People routinely engage in positional bargaining, each side takes a position, argues
for it, and makes concessions to reach a compromise.
Any method of negotiation must be judged by three criteria:
i. it should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible
ii. it should be efficient
iii. it should improve or at least 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 take
community interests into account.
Most common form of negotiation depends on successively taking and then giving.
Taking positions serves useful purposes in a negotiation; it tells the other side what
you want and more. But the purposes can be served in other ways, positional
bargaining fails to meet the first criteria; producing a wise agreement,
effi ciently and amicably.
Saving face: In reconciling future action with past positions
When negotiators bargain over positions, they tend to lock themselves into these
positions. The more you try to convince the other side of the impossibility of changing
your opening position, the more difficult if becomes to do so; your ego becomes
identified with your position.
Illustration of John F Kennedy & Soviet Union + Farmers & Oil Company
In conclusion; the more attention that is paid to positions, the less attention is
devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties. Any agreement reached
may reflect a mechanical splitting of the difference between final positions rather
than a solution carefully crafted to meet the legitimate interests of the parties.
Arguing over positions is ineffi cient - Bargaining over positions creates incentives
that stall settlement. In positional bargaining you try to improve the chance that any
settlement reached is favorable to you by starting with an extreme position and
making small concessions only as necessary to keep the negotiation going. Each of
,these factors tend to interfere with reaching a settlement promptly. Where each
decision not only involves yielding to the other side but will likely produce pressure to
yield further, a negotiator has little incentive to move quickly. It increases the time and
costs of making an agreement as well as the risk of no agreement at all.
Arguing over positions endangers an ongoing relationship - Positional
Bargaining becomes a contest of will. Anger and resentment often result as one side
sees itself bending to the rigid will of the other while its own legitimate concerns go
unaddressed. Positional bargaining thus strains and sometimes shatters the
relationship between the parties.
When there are many parties, positional bargaining is even worse - In
situations where there are a lot of parties, positional bargaining leads to the formation
of coalitions among parties whose shared interests are often more symbolic than
substantive. Because there are many members in a group, it becomes more difficult to
develop a common position, and once there is an agreement, it is hard to divert from
that. Altering a position is even harder when there are higher authorities that must
nevertheless give their approval.
Being nice is no answer - Many people hope to avoid hard positional bargaining by
following a more gentle style of negotiation. In a soft negotiating game the standard
moves are to make offers and concessions, to be the friendliest as necessary; in order
to avoid confrontation.
Soft negotiating game emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining a
relationship. It tends to be efficient, at least to the extent of producing results quickly.
As parties follow the path of being more forthcoming, an agreement becomes highly
likely. But it may not be a wise one. Any negotiation primarily concerned with the
relationship runs the risk of producing a sloppy one.
Pursuing a soft and friendly form of positional bargaining makes you vulnerable to
someone who plays a hard game of positional bargaining. The hard negotiator
dominates the softer one. In positional bargaining, a hard game dominates a soft
one.
There is an alternative
If you do not want to choose between a hard and a soft game, change the game. The
game of negotiation takes place at two levels:
, Level I: Negotiation addresses the substance; it may concern your salary, the
terms of a lease, or a price to be paid.
Level II: it focuses, usually implicitly, on the procedure for dealing with the
substance; concerns how you will negotiate the substantive question; by
soft/hard positional bargaining.
The second negotiation is a game about a game: each move you make within a
negotiation is not only specific to that topic, it also helps structure the rules of the
game you are playing. It also escapes notice because it seems to occur without
conscious decision.
The answer to the question whether to use soft of hard is neither.
There is another method (developed by Harvard Negotiation Project) called principled
negotiation / negotiation on the merits that can be boiled down to 4 points:
People: Separate the people from the
problem.
Human beings are not computers: humans
have strong emotions with different
perceptions and difficulty to communicate.
Emotions typically become entangled with
the merits of the problem. Taking position
is worse, considering it might result in the
formation of an ego problem. Making
concessions for the relationships is even
more problematic, considering it
encourages and rewards stubbornness.
People should work side by side, attacking
the problem
Interests: Focus on interests, not
positions.
Compromising positions will not produce
an agreement that will take care of the
needs that established the positions in the
first place
Options: Invent multiple options looking
for mutual gains before deciding what to
do.
Trying to decide in the presence of an
adversary narrows your vision and inhibits
creativity
Criteria: Insist that the result be based on
some objective standard.
Negotiation must reflect some kind of fair
standard independent of the naked will of either participants side
The four propositions of principled negotiation ae relevant from the time you
begin to think about negotiating until the time either an agreement is reached
/ you decide to break off the effort. This period can be divided into analysis,
planning and discussion.
Analysis
In this period you are simply trying to diagnose the situation - gathering
information, organizing and thinking about it. You will want to consider the
people problems of partisan perceptions, heavy emotions and unclear