Invent Options for Mutual Gain (Part III) [ARR]

Annie's Reading Room

Ok, so you’ve conducted the first two steps to invent new and creative options -- separating inventing from deciding and broadening your options. Now onto seeking mutual gain and making their decision easy.

Look for mutual gain

Invent Options for
Mutual Gain

The third major block for creative problem solving lies in the assumption of a fixed pie: the less for you, the more fore me. Rarely if ever is this assumption true. Here are some ways around that type of “fixed pie” thinking: 

Identify shared interests. Three points about shared interests are worth remembering. First, shared interests lie latent in every negotiation. They may not be immediately obvious. Second, shared interests are opportunities, not godsends. To be of use, you need to make something out of them. It helps to make a shared interest explicit and to formulate it as a shared goal. In other words, make it concrete and future oriented. Third, stressing your shared interests can make the negotiation smoother and more amicable. 

Dovetail differing interests.  Although it may seem counterintuitive, agreement is often based on disagreement.  For example, think about purchasing stock. What makes “the deal” is that the buyer believes the stock with go up and the seller believes it will go down. The difference in belief provides the base for a deal. Here is a way of parsing out your different interests:

One party cares for:                                        Other party cares for:

Form                                                               Substance

Economic considerations                               Political considerations

Internal considerations                                   External considerations

Symbolic considerations                                Practical considerations

Immediate future                                            More distant future

Ad hoc results                                                The relationship

Hardware                                                        Ideology

Progress                                                          Respect for tradition

Precedent                                                        This case

Prestige, reputation                                         Results

Political points                                                Group welfare

Ask for their preferences. One way to dovetail interests is to invent several options all equally acceptable to you and ask the other side which they prefer. You can then take that option, work with it some more, and again present two or more variants, asking which one they prefer. In this way, without anyone’s making a decision, you can improve a plan until you can find no more joint gains.

Make their decision easy

To overcome the short sightedness that results from looking too narrowly at one’s immediate self-interest, you will want to put yourself in their shoes. Without some option that appeals to them, there is likely to be no agreement at all.

Whose shoes? It will be easier to understand the other side’s needs if you pick one person – probably the person with whom you are dealing – rather than a large abstract institution, like “Houston” or the “University of California.”

What decision?  One effective way to develop solutions easy for the other side to accept is to shape them so that they will appear legitimate. The other side is more likely to accept a solution if it is seems the right thing to do – right in terms of being fair, legal, honorable, and so forth.

Making threats is not enough.  We often try to influence others by threats and warnings of what will happen if they do not decide as we would like. Offers are usually more effective. Concentrate both on making them aware of the consequences they can expect if they do decide as you wish and on improving those consequences from their point of view. 

Next week we begin the final chapter of the method of negotiating: Insist on using objective criteria.