Don't Negotiate Like a Dick

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/23950335@N07/ a dick Don’t negotiate Like a dick Integrative negotiation advice from Roger Fisher and William Ury

2. there is a widely held misunderstanding about what great negotiation is

3. and that misconception is that great negotiation is fair for all sides

4. i’ll let you in on a little secret

5. great negotiation is not about being fair

6. your choices are not limited to win-lose (unfair outcomes) or win-win (fair outcomes)

7. in fact, there is a third option

8. and that is what great negotiation is all about

9. the key to understanding this third option is to disabuse yourself of the notion that win-win is about being fair

10. what you’ve been defining as win-win, is actually lose-lose

11. let me explain by way of an example and a story

12. by way of example, let’s assume that we are negotiating over 100% of something

13. win-lose occurs when we split the 100% in an unfair distribution, let’s say i get 60% and you get 40%

14. in this case, i win and you lose

15. and as a result, we may have damaged our long-term relationship a bit 

16. then there is the case where we split the 100% fairly

17. i get 50% and you get 50%

18. in practice, this is what most of us call win-win

19. but in fact, this is lose-lose

20. although we may remain friends after the encounter

21. both of us end up equally disappointed with what we got

22. so if win-lose is unfair and unhappy negotiation and lose-lose is fair, but unsatisfying negotiation, then what is win-win?

23. win-win negotiation happens when each of us gets 100%. * win-win negotiation is also known as integrative (not distributive) negotiation is defined in greater detail by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their seminal book, Getting to Yes

24. huh?!?!

25. how can two people get 100% of 100%

26. easy

27. turn the original 100% into 200%

28. you do this with creativityand by listening to, and understanding, the underlying interests of each party

29. here is a story from Fisher & Ury that demonstrates the magic of 200%….

30. a mother returns home from a long day at the office and finds her two daughters in the kitchen fighting

31. they are screaming at each other and locked in a tug of war

32. the mother sees that they are fighting over an orange

33. she forcefully separates the girls

34. and with both the girls complaining loudly, she grabs a sharp knife from the counter top

35. no, this is not a greek tragedy and there will be no infanticide

36. instead, quietly and confidently, she cuts the orange in half and gives each girl half of the fruit

37. proud to have once more demonstrated mother’s wisdom at finding a win-win solution, and enjoying the relative quiet that has now descended, she starts to leave the kitchen

38. but she stops short of the door as something incredibly odd happens

39. the first daughter peels the half orange, throws the peel in the garbage shoot and eats the fruit

40. she then goes to the refrigerator to look for a bit more food, as she remains a bit hungry

41. simultaneously, and to the great surprise of the mother, the second daughter peels the orange and throws the fruit down the garbage shoot!

42. the second daughter then goes to the counter top and starts calculating ingredients to bake half an orange cake, since she has only half the needed orange peel

43. oh dear

44. you see what has happened right?

45. both daughters could have had 100% of what they wanted, but instead, because of the seductive fallacy of fairness, they got 50%

46. what the mother should have done, before jumping straight to the solution based on the apparent positions of the children (I want the orange)

47. was to ask, “why”

48. why do you want the orange?

49. and this leads to real win-win negotiation

50. so when you are negotiating with partners, employees, bosses, vendors, children, or friends