Getting to Yes in your negotiations

1. Getting to Yesin your negotiations Randy Richards St. Ambrose University Tuesday 5.16, Sessions 4 and 5 12:00 to 1:30 and 2:00 to 3:00

2. Agenda • The Problem • Positions • The Method • 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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Concentrate on communication • Listen actively and acknowledge • Speak to be understood • Speak about you, not them • Speak for a purpose

8. Start before problems arise • Build a working relationship immediately • Focus on the problem, not them

9. Focus on interests not positions • Reconcile interests • Identify their interests • Talk openly about interests

10. Reconcile Interests • Interests define the problem • Behind positions lie interests • Interest categories • Compatible • Shared • Conflicting

11. Identify their interests • Ask “Why?” • Ask “Why not?” • What are their other choices? • Multiple interests • Recall our earlier class discussions of this • Interests: the power of basic human needs • Making lists

12. 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

13. Invent options for mutual gain • Diagnosing the problem • Solving the problem

14. 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.

15. Prescription methods • Separate inventing from deciding • Broaden your options • Look for mutual gains • Make their decision easy

16. Separate inventing from deciding • Before brainstorming • During brainstorming • After brainstorming • Helping them brainstorm 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Invent Options First Decide which is best

17. Broaden your options • 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)

18. Circle Chart for Inventing Options Step III: Approaches Possible strategies Theoretical fixes Broad ideas about what to do Step II: Analysis Sort symptoms into groups Possible causes What’s missing Barriers to solving Step I: Problem What’s wrong? Symptoms? Reality vs Desired Future Step IV: Action Ideas What specific steps Goals Verify

19. 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?

20. Make their decision easy • Whose shoes? • What decision? • When threatening is not enough

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. Fair standards 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 Developing objective criteria Criteria need to be independent of each side’s will Legitimate and practical

25. 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.

26. The joint search for objective criteria • What is fair to both sides? • What is your theory about what is fair? • Agree first on principles.

27. 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

28. 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!!!!

29. Yes, but . . . • What if they • are more powerful? • won’t negotiate? • won’t negotiate fairly?

30. 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

31. 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.

32. 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

33. 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. What if they won’t negotiate fairly?

34. Questions?