Tag: Negotiation

Roger Fisher on a Better Way to Negotiate, Part 2

Reading Time: 8 minutes

In Part 1 of our series on the best-selling negotiation book Getting to Yes, we covered Roger Fisher’s four-part framework on Principled Negotiation — his “way out” of highly contentious negotiation. To review, the four parts were as follows:

  1. Separate the People from the Problem
  2. Focus on Interests, Not Positions
  3. Invent Options for Mutual Gain
  4. Insist on Objective Criteria

Habitual use of these four criteria is a way to build, or at least not destroy, win-win relationships in the process of negotiation. The truth is we all must negotiate from time to time. Refusing to negotiate is a strategy in and of itself — and usually a pretty bad one relative to the alternatives.

Fisher’s framework brings up some obvious follow-on questions: What if the other side is more powerful? What if they refuse to play by your rules? What if they play dirty?

Let’s check out a few.

(Don’t want to read online? Purchase a sexy PDF of the two-part series for only $3.99.)

Negotiate Fairly

What if they are more Powerful?

We’re all afraid of being taken advantage of in a negotiation. Our tendency to demand fairness is a big part of it, as is our tendency to try to minimize future regret. In a negotiation with a more “powerful” part, it would seem at times like our only play is to make a stand — demand that they meet us or we will not negotiate. That turns out to be a bad play sometimes, and completely unnecessary at other times.

To combat this, Roger Fisher introduced a concept that a lot of people know the name of but not how to use: the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. He addresses the basic problem of powerlessness first:

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 interest as well as possible.

The common tactics are to either cave very easily, thus ending the negotiation and any possible bitterness, or to set a “bottom line” and walk away if it’s not met. They’re both weak responses: The “softie” tactic almost assures you’ll take a deal that’s not in your best interest, while the “bottom line” mentality makes you rigid, unable to learn and adapt during the negotiation process and probably too focused on one single variable at the expense of other ones. (Lack of creativity.)

The better approach to understand your BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. It’s simple to understand in the context of a job offer negotiation: If you lose this negotiation, what alternatives do you have? If you set your “bottom line” too high and you lose, are you on the street? Or, do you have a great second or third option to go to?

While the BATNA acronym is useful and explanatory, it’s really just a dressed-up version of the elementary concept we call opportunity cost, which is constantly at play in life. Realizing that opportunity cost is a “superpower” in negotiation, we can derive the following:

  1. He with the best opportunity cost holds the power. Let’s say you’re negotiating with a large car dealership over the price of a new sedan. Who holds the power? On the surface it might look like the dealer does, given their stature in power. But if you have three dealerships in a 30-mile radius which can sell you the same car, the power is yours, not the dealer’s. When you enter into negotiation, you can almost always afford to lose and go down the street to another dealership, find a different type of car to buy, change your mind and go used, or even keep your current car longer. (That’s one reason why the car business is such a tough one.) Point being, size does not = power. Opportunity cost = power.
  2. Developing alternative opportunities is the way to gain power. If you’re afraid you’re entering into a job negotiation with no power, your best bet probably isn’t to play hardball, it’s to develop other job offers, or even figure out if you can afford to start your own business. Once you can afford to walk away, the power shifts at least slightly. Raise your opportunity cost bar to shift the odds and make the negotiation a little more fair.
  3. Think about their opportunity cost as much as your own. Can they afford to lose? If not, you probably have more power than you think.
  4. If they win the opportunity cost battle, argue on merit. Roger Fisher makes this final point well: To the extent that they have muscle and you have principle, the larger a role you can establish for principle, the better off you are. If your opportunity costs are weak, you must resort to making it clear that the house is objectively worth X, that you deserve to be paid Y, or that a drawn-out fight will only ruin your relationship. This goes back to insisting on objective criteria.

What if they Won’t Play?

A problem arises if you aren’t successful in shifting the negotiation to objective criteria or creating win-wins. Sometimes the other side simply takes a position and stubbornly (often irrationally) holds their ground. What then? There are two approaches.

The first tactic Fisher argues for is Negotiation Jujitsu. In other words, using their own forcefulness against them. Not playing their game. It’s nuanced and we won’t try to cover it all here — the book does it well. But the salient point is that you can’t react emotionally to forceful negotiation. Let them criticize, let them attack if they must. But your job is to keep asking objective questions. “You say you won’t accept less than $2,000 — where do you get that figure from? What makes you say that this is a fair number?” Keep things in the realm of objectivity and don’t get them further entrenched by “attacking back.”

Another part of the jujitsu is to explain to them the consequences of adopting an extreme position. Ask them, hypothetically, what would happen if things went the way they preferred. Fisher gives the example of an Arab-Israeli negotiation where an American was able to get the Arab contingent to understand that if the Israelis gave in entirely, their people would castigate them back home. It was enough to end that line of negotiation.

The last jujitsu tactic is to take criticism unusually well — not allowing the discussion to get personal, even if the other side wants to make it so. I understand you don’t want to be taken advantage of, neither do I — can you explain how your proposal is fair to me as well as you? Can you explain how my position could be altered to be more fair? What would you do if you were in my position? Soliciting an adversary for advice can be disarming if used wisely. All it takes is tamping down your ego. Good lines of inquiry don’t criticize, they probe and try to be helpful. And when you do so, simply pausing and letting the other side talk themselves into or out of a corner can work as well. Use silence to your advantage if you’re making sense and they’re reacting emotionally.

***

The second approach is to use a third-party to mediate. Have them draft up a solution as impartially as possible, with both parties giving input, and the final decision being a mere “yes” or “no” by each party. This can simplify and de-personalize the process.

If you cannot change the process to one of seeking a solution on its merits, perhaps a third party can. More easily than one of those directly involved, a mediator can separate the people from the problem and direct the discussion to interests and options. Further, he or she can often suggest some impartial basis for resolving differences. A third party can also separate inventing from decision-making, reduce the number of decisions required to reach agreement, and help the sprites know what they will get when they do decide. One process designed to enable a third party to do all this is known as the one-text procedure.

The essence of that procedure is to have a draft drawn up that best satisfies both sides impartially and without pre-commitment. The final decision for each party is a simple “yes” or “no” to the draft solution. You can do it yourself, asking for opinions and revisions as you go along, or have a third party take it on. In either case, you’re trying to change the game rather than fight a losing battle.

What if they Play Dirty?

A tricky tactic is defined as one that fails the test of reciprocity — they are designed to benefit one side only, and most often, the other side is not supposed to know they’re being used . Some of the most common dirty tactics include: Using phony facts, introducing phony authority, hiding dubious intentions, psychological manipulation, refusal to negotiate, and good-cop, bad-cop type routines. There are too many to enumerate, but the basic answer to all of them will be to refer back to the four central ideas of principle negotiation. You need to point out and negotiate the rules of the game itself when you suspect you’re becoming a victim of “tricky tactics” which you’re not supposed to know about.

There are three steps in negotiating the rules of the negotiating game where the other side seems to be using a tricky tactic: recognize the tactic, raise the issue explicitly, and question the tactics’s legitimacy and desirability — negotiate over it.

You have to know what is going on to be able to do something about it. Learn to spot particular ploys that indicate deception, those designed to make you uncomfortable, and those which lock the other side into their position. Often just recognizing a tactic will neutralize it. Realizing, for example, that the other side is attacking you personally in order to impair your judgment may well frustrate the effort.

The book has some great examples of dirty tactics in play, which are good to refer to. Another book to pick up some of these ploys is Cialdini’s Influence, one of the great books written to protect people against manipulation. However you learn them, it’s good to learn them well. Once you can see that it’s happening, you need to gently, non-threateningly, point out what’s going on and ask to return to principles, or to excuse yourself momentarily. These things serve to defuse an embarrassing situation. And never forget that the best defense in most cases is a worthy set of alternative opportunities, what Fisher calls the BATNA. These give you the ability to walk away if you feel yourself being manipulated with no recourse.

***

Negotiating is difficult. It’s a part of life that some people enjoy and some do not, leading to outcomes in the vein of the old saying Don’t ever wrestle with a pig — you’ll both get dirty but the pig will like it. Strong-willed negotiators have a natural advantage over those of us more averse to confrontation, and yet if we push back, stalemate is a usual result. Adopting the Principled Negotiation approach, rooted deeply in human nature, seems to give us the best chance of getting fair results for all involved.

Still Interested? Check out Fisher’s bestselling book, read Part 1 of our two-part series, or check out our post on Fisher’s approach to giving better feedback in the workplace.

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Roger Fisher on a Better Way to Negotiate, Part 1

Reading Time: 11 minutes

“Peace is not a piece of paper,
but a way of dealing with conflict when it arises.”
— Roger Fisher

***

(Don’t want to read online? Purchase a sexy PDF of the two-part series for only $3.99.)

Why are most negotiations so awful? Why do we go into them ready to defend our turf to the death, only to find that our opponent is doing the same? Roger Fisher argues that this is a natural outcome, but one that we need to learn to avoid if we’re going to get things done and maintain good relationships in life. His bestseller Getting to Yes shows the way.

gettingtoyes
Fisher graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1948, in the same class as Charlie Munger, and by 1958 he was a full-time professor. Over a long career specializing in high-stakes negotiation, Fisher played a role in the outcome of the Camp David Accords, the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran, and the apartheid negotiations in South Africa, among other events. He operated at the highest level. (We’ve covered his ideas on giving better feedback before.)

In 1981, Fisher released his magnum opus, Getting to Yes, a short treatise on negotiating in a different way. Fisher recognized that the contentious, heels-dug-in style of most negotiators failed because it either failed to get results, or if it did, destroyed a relationship in the process. He asked the simple question: If being a hard-ass is one style and being a softie is another, is there a third, better style?

Yes there is, and Fisher called it Principled Negotiation. While most businesspeople are now aware of the term Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, and most are familiar with the phrase Hard on the issues, soft on the people, very few know that Fisher introduced those concepts in his bestselling book, and even fewer have actually read and applied what he had to teach.

So, how do we negotiate better?

An Intro to Principled Negotiation

How does principled negotiation differ from the traditional kind? It’s an attempt to create a win-win in a situation that doesn’t obviously offer one. And as we know, of the four kinds of possible relationships, win-win is the only sustainable one over time. That’s why we want to learn Fisher’s approach. Here’s how he describes it:

There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft, but rather hard and soft. The method of principled negotiation developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project is to decide issues on their merits rather than through a haggling process focused on what each side says it will and won’t do. It suggests that you look for mutual gains whenever possible, and that where your interests conflict, you should insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side. The method of principled negotiation shows you how to obtain what you are entitled to and still be decent. It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.

The most wonderful part of Fisher’s ideas on negotiation is that they don’t require any secrecy. In fact, Fisher thinks it’s just the opposite, saying that Unlike almost all other strategies, if the other side learns this one, it does not become more difficult to use; it becomes easier. If they read this book, all the better. That’s our kind of strategy.

Step One: Separate the People from the Problem

Early in the book, Fisher lays out the goal of better negotiation with three criteria.

Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at least not damage the relationship between the parties. (A wise agreement can be defined as one that meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible, resolves conflicting interests fairly, is durable, and take community interests into account.)

The first step of the process is to separate the people from the problem. Fisher’s method of depersonalizing in negotiation is the same method he advises to give better feedback. Why? Because it works! People are emotional creatures — you and I included. In order to deal with each other fairly, we must do our best to move from personal attack into the realm of reason and merit, even when our every fiber is telling us to attack. If we don’t, we miss a chance to build the exact sort of win-win relationship we’d love to have. We fail to understand people.

This human aspect of negotiation can be either helpful or disastrous. The process of working out an agreement may produce a psychological commitment to a mutually satisfactory outcome. A working relationship where trust, understanding, respect, and friendship are built up over time can make each new negotiation smoother and more efficient. And people’s desire to feel good about themselves, and their concern for what others will think of them, can often make them more sensitive to another negotiator’s interests.

On the other hand, people get angry, depressed, fearful, hostile, frustrated, and offended. They have egos that are easily threatened. They see the world from their own personal vantage point, and they frequently confuse their perceptions with reality. Routinely, they fail to interpret what you say in the way you intend and do not mean what you understand them to say. Misunderstanding can reinforce prejudice and lead to reactions that produce counteractions in a vicious circle; rational exploration of possible solutions becomes impossible and a negotiation fails. The purpose of the game becomes scoring points, confirming negative impressions, and apportioning blame at the expense of the substantive interest of both parties.

It’s important to understand the point: There are major transmission errors in a negotiating process. What’s heard is frequently not what’s said or intended. And once a negative feedback loop has been initiated, it can be very hard to pull out. A certain critical mass of bad blood ends the negotiation. This doesn’t have to happen — one thing that separates us from lesser animals is the ability to resist our baser instincts when we know it’s a bad idea, and negotiation is an arena where we’d be wise to learn how to do so.

***

There are three areas to manage: Perception, Emotion, and Communication. Our biggest problem with perception seems to be successfully putting ourselves in the shoes of our adversary, or even seeing them as an adversary to start with. It’s almost impossible to influence somebody who you don’t empathetically understand, except through brute force — something we’re clearly not after. To be clear, just because you understand someone’s position doesn’t mean you agree with it. You may well change your mind, but even without that it allows you to consider the problem on its merits.

The emotional side is fairly simple: How do you feel during a negotiation and how does the other side feel? Fisher makes a great point in the book that we don’t need to be afraid to make our own emotions or theirs explicit: I feel like you have not been fair with me thus far, and in order for us to make progress, we will need to establish mutual fairness as a goal. Otherwise, I think we will run into a stalemate.

The communication problem isn’t hard for anyone in a relationship to understand. When we’re in a contentious negotiation, both sides feel like they’re not being heard. Solving that problem requires deep listening skills and as with the perception issue, requires us to understand the person on the other side of the table at their level, not at ours. This feels impossible and unnatural, but it works. Think of the last time you felt someone truly understood and empathized with you. Did you feel contentious towards them?

In the end, the environment we want to create is that of two people sitting next to each other, trying to solve a problem together. Even if you don’t have a great relationship with the other party, or any relationship at all, it helps to make the other person feel like you’re in it together. Which brings us to the next point.

Focus on Interests, Not Positions

This is the simplest and probably the most important aspect on principled negotiation: What do I really want? And what does the other guy really want? It’s the difference between saying you want an open window when what you really want is fresh air.

It’s not always as clear as it seems. Let’s take the case of a couple arguing over who’s going to do the dishes. Both people, in the moment, start to feel like it’s really about the damn dishes. But when we step back, we realize it’s probably more about fairness — we want to feel like both parties are chipping in. A sense of fairness is a deeply held human need. And thus, if we focus on creating fairness and using the elementary idea of leading by going first, then we can end the negotiation fairly. (I’ll do the dishes tonight and then we’ll trade every night, sound good?)

It’s this basic method of figuring out what you want and what they want, and satisfying each, that leads us to win-win style outcomes. Viewing a negotiation as something to be “won” is the best way to lose.

Reconciling interests rather than positions works for two reasons. First, for every interest there usually exist several possible positions that could satisfy it. All too often people simply adopt the most obvious position, as Israel did, for example, in announcing that they intended to keep part of the Sinai. When you do look behind opposed positions for the motivating interest, you can often find an alternative position which meets not only our interests but theirs as well.

At the end of the day, all humans have the same basic needs like food, shelter, well-being, belonging, respect, and autonomy. Never violate these in a negotiation.

Invent Options for Mutual Gain

The key here is that we avoid being rigid in our solutions, and if we’ve taken the prior step seriously by focusing on interests, we can start getting creative with our problem-solving.

Let’s imagine you’re renting an apartment. It’s easy to think that you and the landlord are at odds — you want to pay the least amount of money and they want you to pay the most amount of money over the period of the rental. But that’s the wrong way to consider the problem. What you really want is to pay a fair price for a clean and well-maintained living space that you won’t get kicked out of. What the landlord wants is steady rent from a respectful tenant who won’t trash the place and is easy to deal with. Actually, most of your interests probably overlap. If you start any negotiation with that in mind, you’ll find it easier to get along.

Let’s say you’re at odds regarding who pays for repairs: Agreeing to share the cost of repairs as long as they’re completed promptly is where overlapping interests and incentives might create an agreement that could have been contentious. Outline the split, define what promptly means, and you have a settled point. If you were rigid about the problem — I refuse to pay for repairs! — you’d have lost.

Fisher lays out four pretty good reasons we fail to do this:

In most negotiations there are four obstacles that inhibit the inventing of an abundance of options: (1) Premature judgment; (2) searching for the single answer; (3) the assumption of a fixed pie; and (4) thinking that “solving their problem is their problem”.

Any negotiation can get pretty complex when all relevant interests are brought to the table, but the principle to heed is pretty simple: Where do our interests overlap, and where do they not? In the cases where they don’t, what is a mutually satisfying solution? This takes some creative thinking, of course. Rigidity doesn’t work. But if you realize that the car salesman is trying to make a living and wants a quick sale, and you want a good car at a low price, it’s not impossible to mutually satisfy those goals or exit the negotiation if they can’t both be met. The “combat of negotiation” is only in our minds.

This doesn’t mean you’d want to fold to end the negotiation without argument, or to give in. That’s the “softie” style of negotiation. You should have your needs fairly satisfied. But you don’t need to do so at the expense of the other party if it can at all be avoided. Win-lose will eventually haunt you, whether you realize it or not.

Insist on Using Objective Criteria

What is fair? Sometimes in the process of trying to satisfy mutual interests we hit a roadblock in determining just what fair actually means. If two parties can’t agree here, it’s hard to create a win-win solution that maintains and builds the relationship. The usual way is to have a contest of wills. It’s worth $50. No, it’s worth $75! No, $50! And so on.

To solve this, Fisher insists on finding objective criteria by which to measure the fairness of proposed solutions. He’s gives a good example of how this can work in practice.

Suppose you have entered into a fixed-price construction contract for your house that calls for reinforced concrete foundations but fails to specify how deep they should be. The contractor suggests two feet. You think five feet is closer to the usual depth for your type of house.

Now suppose the contractor says: “I went along with you on steel girders for the roof. It’s your turn to go along with me on shallower foundations.” No owner in his right mind would yield. Rather than horse-trade, you would insist on deciding the issue in terms of objective safety standards. “Look, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe two feet is enough. What I want are foundations strong enough and deep enough to hold up the building safely. Does the government have standard specifications for these soil conditions? How deep are the foundations of other buildings in this area? What is the earthquake risk here? where do you suggest we look for standards to resolve this question?”

It is no easier to build a good contract than it is to build strong foundation. If relying on objective standards applies so clearly to a negotiation between the house owner and a contractor, why not to business deals, collective bargaining, legal settlements, and international negotiations?

The idea is to stick to principles over back-and-forth wagering. Refuse to trade tit for tat without setting some standards upon which the decision can be made. Are there a set of precedent transactions? Is there a market for the item? Is there an agreed upon method somewhere? Fisher refers to the sound parenting idea of having one child cut the piece of cake and the other choose the piece. No one can cry foul.

And so there are three main principles to abide by:

Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria.

Reason and be open to reason as to which standards are most appropriate and how they should be applied.

Never yield to pressure, only to principle.

[…]

Pressure can take many forms: a bribe, a threat, a manipulative appeal to trust, or a simple refusal to budge. In all these cases, the principled response is the same: invite them to state their reasoning, suggest objective criteria you think apply, and refuse to budge except on this basis. Never yield to pressure, only to principle.

The last is worth cogitating on. When the heat comes, as it can in many negotiations, can you stick to your guns? If you’re in a traditional battle of wills, you may not be able to. But if you’ve taken some of the steps outlined here and stuck to objective criteria, sticking to the issue and not the person, you may find it’s a lot easier to hold your ground. In this way, fairness is helpful to you as much as to the other party.

Still Interested? Check out the book for a lot more depth on these topics. In Part 2, we address some negotiating questions like What if they are more powerful?, What if they won’t play?, and What if they use dirty tricks? Stay tuned.

***

Two related Farnam Street Posts:

Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp On How to Provide Feedback. When was the last time you really felt your feedback improved someone else’s life, whether it was your spouse’s cooking or your employee’s performance? The problem is that we forget we’re giving feedback to a fellow human being, not an advice-taking robot.

Dan Ariely takes us to Grand Bazaar to demonstrate the psychology of Negotiation.

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Seymour Schulich on Deals, Business, Decisions and Life

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Seymour Schulich, one of Canada’s most successful businessmen and author of Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons offers some indispensable business wisdom.

  1. Business is a means to an end not an end in itself. Nobody on his or her deathbed says, “I wish I had spent more time in the office.”
  2. Never quit a job unless you have another job. My father taught me this great truth. You are perceived as more valuable if you are working than if you’re unemployed. You may feel staying employed doesn’t give you the time or latitude to seek a better job. This is a dangerous delusion—don’t succumb to it.
  3. Always ask the question “If this decision is wrong, is it going to be painful or fatal?” Company builders and business leaders keep away from “bet the company” investments.
  4. Keep away from advisors/consultants. If they knew how to make money, they would. These folks are like the fellow who knows a thousand ways to make love but doesn’t know any women.
  5. The best test of a deal’s true attraction is to ask your partners, employees, directors, family, and so on, “Would you put your own money in this deal?” It’s amazing how often the answer to this question is, “No! This is good for the company, but I’ll take a pass.” These deals are invariably losers.
  6. Always have at least two people from your side present at any negotiating or deal-making sessions. This gives you time to think, plus an ally with whom to compare perceptions.
  7. Never confront or threaten people or institutions who have more power than you. Examples: police, customs agents, the sec, Ontario Securities Commission, tax agents of the government, or politicians.
  8. In dealing with the media, never forget to qualify your statements with “not for attribution” and “off the record” where appropriate. Journalists value their contacts and will usually respect a source’s desires.
  9. In negotiations, always try to get the other party to name its asking price. It may often be far lower than your maximum offer. If the other party won’t name a price, start very low. You can always go up.
  10. Almost everything in life is easier to get into than get out of.
  11. Never bid against yourself. Only raise your bid to top a real counter bid, not an imaginary one.

(Image source)

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