Book Summary: Getting to Yes

This book from 1981 by Roger Fisher (Professor of Law at Harvard Law School) and William L Ury (Founder of Harvard program of negotiation) couldn’t be more timeless. You know a book is a gem when it’s described as timeless, after all it passes the Lindy test.

This book is now a part of my best books for life list with the amount of practical and real knowledge to be learnt.

As long you’re a human interacting with other humans, you have no reason to skip this book.

Introduction

Principled negotiation lies between hard and soft negotiation or bargaining.

Chapter 1 the problem

• Don’t bargain over positions. Positions are taking one side and negotiating to come to some intermediate from both sides which may or may not happen.
• Bargaining creates incentives that stall settlement. It increases the time and cost of reaching and agreement. It also increases chances that an agreement might not be reached at all.
• Arguing over positions endangers an ongoing relationship since the agreement becomes a battle to be won.
• With multiple parties positional bargaining is even worse. Once you have a position it becomes harder to change it, so it’s better to be not take a concrete position. Emotions and egos become entangled with positions.
• Instead of seeing the other side as adversary, see them as friends.
• Between a hard and a soft negotiator, the soft one is bound to lose their shirt
• Harvard principled negotiation:
• Separate the people from the problem
• Focus on the interests not positions
• Generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do
• Insist that the result be based on some objective standard
• A negotiating position often inches what you really want which are your collective interests.
• Trying to decide in the presence of an adversary narrows down the vision or possibilities, leading to suboptimal outcomes. Before trying to reach agreements, invent options for mutual gain. Be creative. Dedicate time to thinking about all the possibilities.
• One effective way to counter someone who is stubborn is by coming up with a measure that is objective and fair to make a call instead of an “I say so” decision.
• Three people within negotiations: analysis, planning and discussion

II the method

Chapter 2: Separate the people from the problem

• Negotiators are people first with emotions, egos, opinions and sometimes delusions and want to feel good about themselves especially in front of others.
• Every negotiator has two kinds of interest, one is the substance and one is the relationship.
• We are seldom aware that other view points maybe equally valid
• Bargaining with positions puts substance and relationship in conflict
• Competing strong positions indicate that the two parties don’t Callie the relationship or each other very highly
• Positional bargaining trades off one against the other (substance and relationship)
• Separate the relationship from the substance. Deal directly with the people
• People problems are of three carries: perception, And communication. For perception use psychological techniques to change it. For emotion, you need to let the other party let off steam. For misunderstandings, work to improve communication.
• You need to solve not only their but your people problems as well. Your anger and frustration might be obstructing you from reaching the best deal.
• Perception
• Merely understanding the other side will not solve your problem. What they think or perceive can also be a problem.
• Conflict usually lies not in the object of discussion but usually in people’s heads. The way to a solution is in understanding how each side sees it rather than searching for objective reality.
• Understand the other person’s point of view. Don’t deduce their intentions from your .
• Don’t blame others for your problem. Even if it’s true it’s just counterproductive.
• Discuss explicitly the other person’s perceptions
• In a negotiation, the concerns of the other side might be seen as important to you but might be highly important to satisfy before you get to what you want from them. You should instead say loudly and clearly things you are willing to say and the other side wanting to hear.
• Look out for opportunities to act inconsistently with their perceptions.
• Give others a stake in the outcome to make them feel heard by having them participate in the process. Even if the terms of an agreement seem favorable it might be rejected if the other side feels like they didn’t have a say in it. Agreement becomes much easier if both sides feel they’ve contributed enough number of suggestions. Giving others credit for a proposal encourages them to defend it as theirs.
• Make your proposals consistent with other’s values.
• Emotion
• Recognize and understand your emotions, then theirs. Understand why people are feeling angry or fearful, is fear spilling over from other issues.
• Talk and acknowledge emotions explicitly, accept them as legitimate. Once freed from the burden of buried emotions, people would more likely work on solving the problem at hand.
• Allow the other side to let off steam. People get psychological relief by simply expressing and recounting their grievances. Become a nanny and listen to the other’s grievances. Don’t react to emotional outbursts.
• An apology goes a long way, is one of the cheapest ways to diffuse an argument and embalm people’s emotions. Small acts like a little gift, a rose or anything of that sort also good a long way.
• Communication
• 3 problems in communication:
• negotiators might not be talking to each other.
• Second, even if you are talking to directly to someone they may not be listening to you. In a negotiation, people focus so much on what they are going to say next or how they should to respond to all the points that they forget to listen. Learn how to listen.
• Third, misunderstanding.
• Things to do to rectify:
• Listen actively and acknowledge what is being said. The cheapest concession in the works is letting the other side know they’ve been heard.
• Clarify exactly what they mean, repeat if there is ambiguity. Maybe you repeat/paraphrase what they say. Acknowledge legitimacy of the other side’s viewpoint.
• Speak to the other side and speak to be understood. A negotiation is not a debate or a trial.
• Improve communication by reducing the number of people involved.
• Speak about yourself and not about the other party’s actions. Something like, “I feel hurt” versus “your actions were wrong and hurt me”.
• Be careful of over communication.
• Prevention works best. Best time to handle people problems is before they become people problems. Build good relationships.
• Face the problem not the people. An awesome way to do this is to have a whiteboard with the problem. That way your team is on one side and the problem on the other, quite literally.

Chapter 3 focus on interests not positions

• Understand desires behind interests and try to reconcile interests rather than compromising between positions. Behind opposed positions lie shared interests.
• Interests are harder to look for compared to the positions. Ask why and why not.
• Look at basic human needs: security, economic well being, sense of belonging, recognition and control over one’s life.
• Talk about interests, write them down in a list. Explain your interests and make sure they’re heard. Be specific and concrete.
• Put the problem before the answer. Give your reasoning first and conclusions later.
• Don’t quarrel for the sake of it or because of other reasons.
• Be concrete but flexible. Be hard on the problem and soft on the people. Make your interests very clear. Successful negotiation requires being both firm and open.

Chapter 4 invent options for mutual gain

• Expand the pie before dividing it. All intermediary answers lie in the distance between your answer and theirs. Obstacles that inhibit multiple options: premature judgement, looking for the one answer, assumption of a fixed pie and thinking that solving their problem is their problem.
• Premature judgement: inventing options does not come naturally especially in a stressful negotiation situation.
• Offers are usually more effective than threats. In complex situations creative invention is an absolute necessity.

Chapter 5: insist on using objective criteria

• No negotiation will be successful if you put your position against theirs.
• Principled negotiation brings agreement amicably. Objective criteria need to be free of each sides will.
• Negotiating with objective criteria:
• Frame each question as a joint search for objective criteria
• Reason and be open to train add to which standards should be applied
• Never yield to pressure only to principles.
• Agree first on principles. Reason and be open to reason. A principled negotiator is open to reasoned persuasion on it’s merits rather than a positional bargainer.

Part III yes but…

Chapter 6 what if they are more powerful

• BATNA best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Know your BATNA and measure against that.
• The better your BATNA the greater your power. Vigorous research of what you will do if you don’t reach an agreement will strengthen your position. Attractive BATNAs are something you develop and work on, improving some of the practical ideas and then choosing the best.
• Letting the other side know about your BATNA depends on how they might perceive it. If they think you have a bad alternative when in fact you have an attractive BATNA you should definitely tell them. If in general you have a great BATNA you should maybe tell them.
• Also consider the other side’s BATNA. The more you know about their position the better you can negotiate. If they overestimate their BATNA you may want to lower it.

Chapter 7 what if they won’t play

• What if the other side just tries to attack you and not look at the problem merits? If they won’t play this game, then you can defeat them by simply playing a new one where you only focus on merits and interests called principled negotiation. Second way is negotiation jujitsu and third is inviting a third party.
• Negotiation jujitsu: when they attack your ideas, don’t defend, web they attack you don’t become defensive, when they assert themselves firmly don’t try to poke holes. Basically like jujitsu avoid putting your strength directly against them and instead direct or channel their strength to finding common grounds.
• Their attach consists of three things: asserting themselves forcefully, attacking your ideas and attacking you. Don’t attack or accept their ideas if they attack you. Instead accept them as one possible option, look for the underlying motivations and search for other ways to reach those. Don’t defend your ideas, invite criticism and advice. Understand their position and find out their infringement interests, improve your ideas in that direction. This way you turn criticism into a critical ingredient for agreement.
• Sometimes turning it around and asking for advice includes them in the process.
• When the other side attacks you personally, resist temptation to reciprocate or defend yourself. Instead just allow them to let off steam.
• Instead ask questions and pause. Don’t throw statements as they gather more resistance. Questions can lead the other side to face the actual problems. Silence is one of the best weapons.
• You call in a third party if principled negotiation has failed.

Chapter 8 what if they use dirty tricks

• Recognize the dirty tactic, raise it explicitly and question its legitimacy and desirability and then negotiate over it. Bringing it up explicitly makes it less effective and makes the other side worry about alienating you completely.
• Tricky habits can be of the kids: deliberate deception, psychological warfare and positional pressure tactics,good guy bad guy routine
• Deliberate deception: phony numbers, ambiguous authority and dubious intentions.
• Psychological warfare: stressful situations to make you feel , personal attacks ( recognizing it will help here)
• Good guy bad guy is a type of manipulation. Recognize it. Threats usually work in the opposite way.
• Pressure tactics: Talking strongly refusing to negotiate, extreme demands, escalating demands.
• Hardhearted partner techniques: blaming some unknown person, recognize it and call for a meeting with that person or ask in writing.
• A calculated delay and take it or leave it tactic.
• Overall maybe start by saying the rules of the game.

Part IV conclusion

Practice :)