Negotiation Strategies: A highly effective framework that will ensure success

Negotiating an agreement without giving in

The Problem:

Don’t bargain over positions

• Arguing over positions produces unwise outcomes
• Arguing over positions is inefficient
• Arguing over positions endangers an ongoing relationship
• When there are many parties, positional bargaining is even worse
• Being nice is no answer

‍

The Method:

Separate the people from the problem

• Negotiators are people first
• Every negotiator has two kinds of interests: in the substance and in the relationship
• The relationship tends to become entangled with the problem
• Positional bargaining puts relationship and substance in conflict
• Disentangle the relationship from the substance; deal directly with the people problem
• Perception
• Put yourself in their shoes
• Don’t deduce their intentios from your fears
• Don’t blame them for your problem
• Discuss each other’s perceptions
• Look for opportunities to act inconsistently with their perceptions
• Give them a stake in the outcome by making sure they participate in the process
• Face-saving: Make your proposals consistent with their values
• Emotion
• First recognize and understand emotions, theirs and yours
• Pay attention to core concerns
• Consider the role of identity
• Make emotions explicit and acknowledge them as legitimate
• Allow the other side to let off steam
• Don’t react to emotional outbursts
• Use symbolic gestures
• Communication
• Listen activey and acknowledge what is being said
• Speak to be understood
• Speak about yourself, not about them
• Speak for a purpose
• Prevention works best
• Build a working relationship
• Face the problem, not the people

Focus on interests, not positions

• For a wise solution reconcile interests, not positions
• Interests define the problem
• Behind opposed positions lie shared and compatible interests, as well as conflicting ones

‍

Invent options for mutual gain

• Diagnosis
• Premature judgment
• Searching for the single answer
• The assumption of a fixed pie
• Thinking that solving their problem is their problem
• Prescription
• Separate inventing from deciding
• Broaden your options
• Look for mutual gain
• Make their decision easy

Insist on using objective criteria

• Deciding on the basis of will is costly
• The case for using objective criteria
• Principled negotiation produces wise agreements amicably and efficiently
• Developing objective criteria
• Fair standards
• Fair procedures
• Negotiating with objective criteria
• Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria
• Reason and be open to reason
• Never yield to pressure