Getting to Yes: "Yes, But..." [ARR]

Annie's Reading Room

We have been learning so many good techniques, but in the process of negotiating, you are bound to run into people who don’t “play nice.” Thus begins the first of three chapters with the overarching theme of…

"Yes, But…"

What if they are more powerful?

Of what use is talking about interests, options, and standards if the other side has a stronger bargaining position? What do you do if the other side it richer or better connected, or if they have a larger staff or more powerful weapons?

Protect yourself

In response to power, the most any method of negotiation can do is to meet two objectives: first, to protect you against making an agreement you should reject and second, to help you make the most of the assets you do have so that any agreement you reach will satisfy your interests as well as possible.

The costs of using a bottom line. Having a bottom line makes it easier to resist pressure and temptations of the moment. However, the protection afforded by adopting a bottom line involves high costs.  It limits your ability to benefit from what you learn during negotiation. By definition, a bottom line is a position that is not to be changed. To that extent you have shut your ears, deciding in advance that nothing the other party says could cause you to raise or lower that bottom line.

A bottom line also inhibits imagination. It reduces the incentive to invent a tailor-made solution that would reconcile differing interests in a way more advantageous for you and them.

Is there an alternative?

"Yes, But..."

Know your BATNA. If you’ve been around the business-world block, you’ve probably heard the acronym  BATNA, or, your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.  The reason you negotiate is to produce something better than the results you can obtain without negotiating. That’s your BATNA. That is the standard against which any proposed agreement should be measured.

The insecurity of an unknown BATNA. In most circumstances, the danger is being too committed to reaching agreement. Not having developed any alternative to a negotiated solution, you are unduly pessimistic about what would happen if negotiations broke off.

Formulate a trip wire.  This is to give you early warning that the content of a possible agreement is beginning to run the risk of being too unattractive. A trip wire should provide you with some margin in reserve. If after reaching the standard reflected in your trip wire you decide to call in a mediator, you have left him something on your side to work with.

Making the most of your assets

Protecting yourself against a bad agreement is one thing. Making the most of the assets you have to produce a good agreement is another. How do you do this? Again, the answer lies in your BATNA.

The better your BATNA, the greater your power. People think of negotiating power as being determined by resources like wealth, political connections, physical strength, friends, and military might. In fact, relative negotiating power of two parties depends primarily upon how attractive to each is the option of not reaching an agreement.

Develop your BATNA. Generating BATNAs requires three distinct operations: 1) inventing a list of actions you might conceivably take if no agreement is reached; 2) improving some of the more promising ideas and converting them into practical alternatives; and 3) selecting, tentatively, the one alternative that seems best. 

Consider the other side’s BATNA. The more you can learn about their alternatives, the better prepared you are for negotiation. Their BATNA may be better for them than any fair solution you can imagine. If both sides have attractive BATNA’s, the best outcome of the negotiation – for both parties – may be not to reach agreement.

When the other side is powerful

If the other side has big guns, you do not want to turn a negotiation into a gunfight. The stronger they appear in terms of physical or economic power, the more you benefit by negotiating on the merits.

I’m particularly looking forward to next week’s chapter.

Question: What if they Won’t Play?

Answer: Use Negotiation Jujitsu