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“Getting to Yes: negotiating an agreement without giving in”
In everyday life, we all have to negotiate, because everybody has his or her own interests and point of view. Therefore, negotiation is a natural and essential part of human life, because this the way people are dealing with their differences and consequent conflicts of interests. Actually, the word “negotiation” is usually associated with business, as the process of finding the variant that will satisfy all parties. Indeed, such skills are probably one of the most crucial in the business world, especially in the modern conditions, including globalization and increasing international cooperation. Probably, the ‘art’ of building personal contacts and communication with people, in many cases is more helpful, than knowledge of theoretical models and formulas. Increasing number of different courses, textbooks, lectures and other materials, that promise to help people to master their negotiation skills, might be the evidence of this. One of the example of such guidance is the book of Roger Fisher and William Ury, “Getting to Yes” that was written more than three decades ago. However, the principles presented in this book could and should be applied in the modern life. Moreover, though negotiations are seems to be likely associated with business, the skill of reaching the fruitful agreement is important in other fields of our relationships: with parents and spouses, with colleagues and groupmates, with bosses, and sometimes even with people, we have never seen before. Therefore advancing this skill will be very useful not only for business people, but also for everybody who wants, on one hand to protect his or her interest, and on the other hand not to spoil relationships with other people. Thus, the main aim of these paper is to analyze main concepts presented in the book and assess the usefulness of the given tips in the everyday life.
Actually, though negotiations are so common in our life, this is not an easy process, because people are different and sometimes their interests are opposite. However, in most cases, the situation is not so extreme, and the agreement that would satisfy all parties is possible to find. But, in the real world, not everything is so ideal, and many negotiations lead to the result that at least one or even all parties are happy with. Therefore, the consequent question, what is the problem? If the fruitful outcome is possible, which mistakes negotiators are doing? Authors of the book answer this question, by analyzing common strategies of negotiating, that include two types of positional bargaining – the soft one and the hard one, and principled negotiation. So, people, especially those that unaware of special techniques and (or) are not inborn negotiators, are usually use the first two strategies. The main principle of the soft negotiator is avoiding personal conflicts at any price, even if he or she have to make huge concessions. This type of negotiations often occurs between people whose relationships are crucial for each other, such as relatives or friends. Though the negotiators are likely to keep good personal contacts, the result might be unfavorable even for both parties. The example of bad outcome of mutual concession is the story of the couple, where wife sold her hairs to buy the chain for her husband’s watch, while the husband sold his watch in order to gift his spouse a comb for hairs. With no doubt, this is far from everyday reality; however, the story perfectly reflects the useless of soft strategy in negotiations.
The hard negotiator, conversely, is willing only to achieve his (her) own goal, even at the price of spoiled relationship. These types of negotiations often occurs at the political levels. For example, the authors give the case of the US-the USSR negotiations (under President Kennedy’s administration) over anti-nuclear program, particularly on the frequency of the mutual inspections. Actually, there was not real result: the USSR insisted on no more than three, while the US wanted no less than ten inspections per year. Notably, those parties even did not specify the duration, the kind of such supervision; conversely, they were concentrated only on defending their own positions. Another example is the economical sanctions. The inefficiency of economic sanctions is proved both theoretically and empirically, they hurts and disrupts both the sender and the target economy, and even the third parties that are not involved, because of growing interdependence. However, the policymakers still use this tool, instead of conducting fruitful diplomatic negotiations and finding compromises. Therefore, the disadvantages of both types are obvious: in the first case the negotiator is likely end up with no result and therefore dissatisfied, and in the second case the negotiator might broke the long-term relationships with the partners that sometimes are more precious than achieving the current goal.
Thus, when using positional bargaining this seems inevitable that dilemma would arise. Therefore, the next question is whether this is possible to achieve both goals. If answer is positive, what should negotiators do then? The authors believe that the third strategy, practical negotiation, is the solution of this problem. As they emphasize, this way is “neither hard nor soft, but rather both hard and soft” (Fisher and Ury, 6). This seems confusing, at the first glance, the overview of the main principles explored in the book will help not only understand the concept, but also implement this in the practice. Thus, the main idea of the practical negotiation is concentrating on the mutual gains that will satisfy all parties involved, rather than on personalities and their words and promises. If the conflict occurs, this should be resolved by using some “fair standards” that are “independent of the will of either side”. By doing these the negotiators will gradually achieve the result that will satisfy all parties without giving up their interests or spoiling relationships.
Therefore, the authors highlight three main goals that is important to keep in mind for every negotiator. The negotiating strategy should:
efficient;
be aimed at achieving the wise agreement, if possible;
Improve, but at least do not harm the current relations between parties.
However, as this is often occurs in practice, “easy to say, but hard to do”. Therefore, in order to help future successful negotiators to master their skills, the authors has distinguished four main items and principles of practical negotiations connected with this items:
People – The negotiator must separate people from the problems;
Interests – The negotiators should focus on interests rather than on their positions;
Options – The negotiators should all the possible variants before deciding what to do next.
Criteria: - there should be objective standards for assessing the result.
The following Figure schematically represents these concepts:
Figure 1. Principled negotiation model. Source: https://pmbarobinson.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/principled-negotiation/
Indeed, every people are different, even if they belong to the same culture, nationality, political party, family etc. However, in the real life is more complicated and we should realize that people has their features, that does not make them better or worse, right or wrong. Therefore, instead of focusing on people themselves, the negotiator would better note their problems, whether they are psychological, emotional or communicational. In other words, the parties should not be opponents, but partners trying together to solve the problem. Moreover, in order to conduct successful negotiation, the parties should understand their underlying interests, rather than focusing on shown position. The example of two visitors in library demonstrates the importance of this. One wanted the window opened, another wanted it shut; and the process of arguing should have never ended unless the librarian found out their interests: fresh air, on the one side, and avoiding the draft, on the other, and just opened window in the other room satisfying both interests.
So, as the authors correctly noted, behind the opposite positions might be the “shared and compatible interests”, as long as might not. Therefore, this is important to identify interests, or motives that forced another party to take his (her) position. Generally, this process include answering questions ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’. However, determining the interests might be simplified, because there are most powerful interest that are common for all people because they serve their basic needs. The authors identified five ones: security, economic wealth; a sense of belonging; recognition and the last, but not least – control over life.
This is also important to know options other than just loosing and winning like in the positional bargaining. In the middle of these two extreme positions are always variants that would satisfy both parties. Finally, when all the previous items are determined, in order to achieve some fruitful agreement the negotiators might refer to some common standards, such as law, tradition, scientific and professional judgments etc.
However, there are always might be situations, when desirable agreement could not be achieved, even if you has perfectly mastered the skills of analyzing interest’s, options etc. For example, your definitely can not buy expensive car with only one dollar in your pocket, even negotiating whole the day with the seller. Therefore, this is important to know and improve your BATNA – the Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. Therefore, every negotiation is conducted in order to change the situation, to achieve the result that cannot be obtained without negotiation. So, knowing and having alternative ways for the case if the current negotiation fails, would give the negotiator more power. However, the BATNA need to be built and improved. After determining the list of actions, he or she should pick and advance most promising ones, in order to, finally, choose the best one. Sometimes there are situations, where you should not engage in negotiations at all. As authors specify, when your BATNA is unfavorable. So decision, whether to negotiate or not depends heavily on the BATNA. There also might be the opposite situation? When you can get more, even if your think this would be unfair. Thus, the book is not guidance for the moral behavior, however the authors advise to be careful about this and assess and compare potential benefits and losses.
The other usefulness of this guidance is that the authors describe common tricks and explain how to defend against them. There are different types of them, such as psychological or positional pressure. The example of the first one is the threats. The authors recommend that the best respond to the threats is to be principles. The example of the second one might be extreme demands, such as offering too low price for the product or service you are selling, with the hope to agree upon the price lower than fair one. However, the situation are different, but the general tactics is to bring bargainer’s attention to the trick, for example ask for justification of the too low price.
With no doubts, the book represents many useful ideas, not only for businesspersons, whose life is literally depend on everyday negotiations, but also in everyday life. As for my opinion, the most useful part of the book is the chapter explaining the BATNA and the steps of building and strengthening this. With no doubt, explaining four main principles of negotiations is also important, but, I suppose, the BATNA is probably the basic concept that helps to decide whether to start negotiations or not, how to prepare for them and what to do if they were not successful. However, the four concepts just help to behave yourself when negotiations are already has started. I have not taken much notice to the part describing common tricks, particularly because, despite the rest of the book, I have not find anything new to me, probably because I have read about this before or have not faced some tricks yet. Nevertheless, the book is the helpful guidance, but, I believe, that there is never better than practice, that is why I will try to apply the concepts I have learned about, especially the BATNA, to the real life situations.
Reference list:
Fisher, Roger, William Ury, and Bruce Patton. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving in. New York, NY: Penguin, 1991. Print.
