Negotiating 101
Agenda
• The Problem
– Positions
• The Method
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Separate people from problem
Focus on interests, not positions
Invent options for mutual gain
Insist on using objective criteria
• Yes, But. . .
– What if they are more powerful?
• More on BATNAs
– What if they don’t want to negotiate?
– What if they don’t negotiate fairly?
• Summing up
Don’t negotiate over positions
• Unwise agreements
• Inefficient
• Endangers a long
term relationship
• Being a nice person is
no help
• Focus on interests
and negotiate in a
principled way.
Separate people from problem
• Negotiators are people
first
• Two basic interests: the
substance and the
relationship
• Positional bargaining puts
the two in conflict
• Deal with relationship as
a separate consideration
Manage your perceptions
• Put yourself in their shoes
• Don’t deduce their
motives from your fears
• Don’t blame them for
your problem
• Discuss each perceptions
• Give them a stake by
getting them to
participate
• Make your proposals
consistent with their
values
Control your emotions
• Be aware and identify your
own emotions
• Same for them
• Talk about emotions explicitly
• Allow them to vent interfering
emotions
– Anger and fear, common
• Do not react to emotional
outbursts
• Use symbolic gestures
Concentrate on communication
• Listen actively and acknowledge
• Speak to be understood
• Speak about you, not them
• Speak for a purpose
Start before problems arise
• Build a working relationship immediately
• Focus on the problem, not them
Focus on interests not positions
• Reconcile interests
• Identify their interests
• Talk openly about interests
Reconcile Interests
• Interests define the
problem
• Behind positions lie
interests
• Interest categories
– Compatible
– Shared
– Conflicting
Identify their interests
•
•
Ask “Why?”
Ask “Why not?”
– What are their other
choices?
•
Multiple interests
– Detail the many sources of
interest in the problem, and
determine who represents
them
•
Interests: the power of basic
human needs
•
Make lists
Talk openly about interests
• Show concern for their interests
• Put their problem ahead of your
answer
• Make your interests come alive
• Look ahead, not behind
• Be concrete but flexible
• Hard on problem, soft on people
Invent options for mutual gain
• Diagnosing the problem
• Solving the problem
Diagnosis before prescription
• Be the Problem Doctor:
– Problems of premature
solutions
– Searching for the single
answer
– Fixed pie? Are you sure?
– Solving their problem is my
problem.
Prescription methods
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Separate inventing from deciding
Broaden your options
Look for mutual gains
Make their decision easy
Separate inventing from deciding
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Before brainstorming
During brainstorming
After brainstorming
Helping them brainstorm
1.
Invent Options First
2.
3.
4.
5.
Decide which is best
Broaden your options
•
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Look for help from a variety of experts
Invent agreements of different strengths
Change the scope of a proposed agreement
Multiply options: the Circle Chart exercise (next)
Circle Chart for Inventing Options
Step II: Analysis
Step III: Approaches
Sort symptoms into groups
Possible strategies
Possible causes
Theoretical fixes
What’s missing
Broad ideas about what to do
Barriers to solving
Step I: Problem
What’s wrong?
Symptoms?
Reality vs Desired Future
Step IV: Action Ideas
What specific steps
Goals
Verify
Look for mutual gains
• Identify shared interests
• Merge differing interests
– What is the difference?
– Different beliefs?
– What is their value of time?
– Different forecasts about
the future?
– Risk aversion differences?
• What are their preferences?
Make their decision easy
• Whose shoes?
• What decision?
• When threatening is not
enough
Insist on using objective criteria
• Deciding based on strength
of will
• Case for objective criteria
• Developing objective criteria
• Negotiating with objective
criteria
• Joint search for objective
criteria
• Reason and be open to
reason
• Never yield to pressure
Deciding based on strength of will
• Too costly
– Substance
– Relationships
• Someone has to back down
– No one wants to do that,
loss of face
– Leads to irrational choices
Case for objective criteria
• Principled negotiations
– Smarter
• Finding data, information that help inform a better decisions
for both parties
– Efficient
• No time wasted in testing each other’s will
– Less hostility
• No need to get angry if we looking for objective data
– Protects the relationship
• Mutual hunt for an objective basis
Developing objective criteria
Fair standards
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Market value
Precedent
Scientific judgments
Professional standards
Efficiency
Costs
Court decisions
Equal treatment
Fair procedures
– Coin flips
– Cut and choose
– Veil of ignorance choices –
not knowing your part
– Taking turns
– Drawing lots
– Letting a third party decide
– Choosing the last best offer
Criteria need to be independent of each side’s will
Legitimate and practical
Negotiating with objective criteria
• Frame each issue as the joint search for
objective measures of value, facts, etc.
• Reason and be open to reason as to what to
accept as appropriate standards
• Never yield to pressure, only to principle.
The joint search for objective
criteria
• What is fair to both sides?
• What is your theory
about what is fair?
• Agree first on principles.
Reason and be open to reason
• Keep an open mind
• Possibility of multiple criteria
of fairness
– What objective basis is
there to decide?
– Splitting the difference or
compromising
Never yield to pressure
• Pressure to yield takes
many forms
– Bribes
– Threats
– Stubbornness
• Question the process,
look for objective criteria
• This is why you have a
BATNA!!!!
Yes, but . . .
• What if they
– are more powerful?
– won’t negotiate?
– won’t negotiate fairly?
What if they are more powerful?
• Protect yourself from making a bad decision.
– The problem of being too accommodating
– The problem of being too inflexible
– Know your BATNA: all offers are measured against it.
• Make the most of your assets
– Better BATNA = More Power
– Develop your assets into a BATNA
• Invent a list of actions you could take if the negotiation fails
• Improve the ideas and convert to practical alternatives
• Tentatively select the alternative that seems best
What if they won’t negotiate?
• You can concentrate on
interest / merits not positions.
– Everything we have looked
at so far
• If they don’t respond, focus on
what they might do.
Negotiation jujitsu.
Negotiation jujitsu
•
The typical attack has three parts;
– Aggressively asserting their
own position
– Attack your ideas!
– Attack you!
•
You should
– Look behind attack for
motivating interests.
– Treat their position as one
possible option.
– Don’t defend your ideas
• Invite criticism and advice
– Re-frame attacks on you as
attacks on the problem
– Use more questions, make
fewer statements
What if they won’t negotiate
fairly?
• Deliberate deception
– Unless you have good
reason to trust someone,
don’t trust them.
– Check facts, assertions,
etc.
• Unclear authority
– Making you think they
have power to decide
– Asking you to concede but
claiming they don’t have
power
– Before you begin, ask how
much authority they have
to make the decisions.
• Questionable intentions of the
other side
– Make your doubts public
– Negotiate assurances in the
agreement
• Creating purposely stressful
situations
– Acknowledge the stressors
and ask for some
adjustments
• Personal attacks
– Recognize it and call it to
their attention
• Threats
– Recognize and call
attention to it. Treat as
pressure.
Questions?