Getting to YES PDF - Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

001  Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgements Introduction I THE PROBLEM 1 Don’t Bargain Over Positions II THE METHOD 2 Separate the People from the Problem 3 Focus on Interests, Not Positions 4 Invent Options...

001  Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgements Introduction I THE PROBLEM 1 Don’t Bargain Over Positions II THE METHOD 2 Separate the People from the Problem 3 Focus on Interests, Not Positions 4 Invent Options for Mutual Gain 5 Insist on Using Objective Criteria III YES, BUT... 6 What If They Are More Powerful? - (Develop Your BATNA-Best Alternative To a... 7 What If They Won’t Play? - (Use Negotiation jujitsu) 8 What If They Use Dirty Tricks? - (Taming the Hard Bargainer) IV IN CONCLUSION In Conclusion V TEN QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK ABOUT GETTING TO YES Ten Questions People Ask About Getting to YES A Note on the Harvard Negotiation Project FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE Praise for Getting to YES “Getting to YES has an unrivaled place in the literature of dispute resolution. No other book in the field comes close to its impact on the way practitioners, teachers, researchers, and the public approach negotiation.” —National Institute for Dispute Resolution Forum “Getting to YES is a highly readable and practical primer on the fundamentals of negotiation. All of us, as negotiators dealing with personal, community, and business problems, need to improve our skills in conflict resolution and agreement making. This concise volume is the best place to begin.”—John T. Dunlop “This splendid book will help turn adversarial battling into hardheaded problem solving.”—Averell Harriman “Getting to YES is a highly readable, uncomplicated guide to resolving conflicts of every imaginable dimension. It teaches you how to win without compromising friendships. I wish I had written it!”—Ann Landers “Getting to YES is powerful, incisive, persuasive. Not a bag of tricks but an overall approach. Perhaps the most useful book you will ever read.”—Elliot Richardson “Simple but powerful ideas that have already made a contribution at the international level are here made available to all. Excellent advice on how to approach a negotiating problem.” —Cyrus Vance  PENGUIN BOOKS Getting to YES The authors of this book have been working together since 1977. Roger Fisher teaches negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he is Williston Professor of Law Emeritus and director of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Raised in Illinois, he served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Force, in Paris with the Marshall Plan, and in Washington, D.C., with the Department of Justice. He has also practiced law in Washington and served as a consultant to the Department of Defense. He was the originator and executive editor of the award-winning television series The Advocates. He consults widely with governments, corporations, and individuals through Conflict Management, Inc., and the Conflict Management Group of Cambridge, Massachusetts. William Ury cofounded Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, where he directs the Negotiation Network. He has served as a mediator and advisor in negotiations and now serves as an advisor to the International Negotiation Network at the Carter Center of Emory University. Formerly on the faculty of Harvard Business School, Ury has taught negotiation to corporate executives, labor leaders, and government officials around the world. He has also served as a consultant to the White House on establishing nuclear risk reduction centers in Washington and Moscow. Ury’s most recent book is Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People. Raised in California and Switzerland, he received his undergraduate degree from Yale and his doctorate in anthropology from Harvard. Bruce Patton, deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, is the Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. A lawyer, he teaches negotiation to diplomats and corporate executives around the world and works as a negotiation consultant and mediator in international, corporate, labor- management, and family settings. Associated with the Conflict Management organizations, which he cofounded in 1984, he has both graduate and undergraduate degrees from Harvard. Books by Roger Fisher Beyond Machiavelli (with Elizabeth Kopelman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, 1994) Getting Together: Building Relationships As We Negotiate (with Scott Brown, 1988) Improving Compliance with International Law (1981) International Mediation: A Working Guide; Ideas for the Practitioner (with William Ury, 1978) International Crises and the Role of Law: Points of Choice (1978) Dear Israelis, Dear Arabs: A Working Approach to Peace (1972) International Conflict for Beginners (1969) International Conflict and Behavioral Science: The Craigville Papers (Editor and co-author, 1964) Books by William Ury Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People (1991) Windows of Opportunity: From Cold War to Peaceful Competition in U.S.—Soviet Relations (Edited with Graham T. Allison and Bruce J. Allyn, 1989) Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict (with Jeanne M. Brett and Stephen B. Goldberg, 1988) Beyond the Hotline: How Crisis Control Can Prevent Nuclear War (1985)  PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi -110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Copyright © Roger Fisher and William Ury, 1981,1991  All rights reserved Research at Harvard University is undertaken with the expectation of publication. In such publication the authors alone are responsible for statements of fact, opinions, recommendations, and conclusions expressed. Publication in no way implies approval or endorsement by Harvard University, any of its faculties, or by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. eISBN : 978-1-440-67310-8 The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. http://us.penguingroup.com  To our fathers, WALTER T. FISHER AND MELVIN C. URY, who by example taught us the power of principle. Preface to the Second Edition During the last ten years negotiation as a field for academic and professional concern has grown dramatically. New theoretical works have been published, case studies have been produced, and empirical research has been undertaken. Ten years ago very few professional schools offered courses on negotiation; now they are all but universal. Universities are beginning to appoint faculty who specialize in negotiation. Consulting firms now do the same in the corporate world. Against this changing intellectual landscape, the ideas in Getting to YES have stood up well. They have gained considerable attention and acceptance from a broad audience and are frequently cited as starting points for other work. Happily, they remain persuasive to the authors as well. Most questions and comments have focused on areas in which the book has proven ambiguous, or where readers have wanted more specific advice. We have tried to address the most important of these topics in this revision. Rather than tampering with the text (and asking readers who know it to search for changes), we have chosen to add new material in a separate section at the end of this second edition. The main text remains complete and unchanged from the original, except for updating the figures in examples to keep pace with inflation and rephrasing in a few places to clarify meaning and eliminate sexist language. We hope that our answers to “Ten Questions People Ask About Getting to YES” prove helpful and meet some of the interests readers have expressed. We address questions about (1) the meaning and limits of “principled” negotiation (it represents practical, not moral, advice) ; (2) dealing with someone who seems to be irrational or who has a different value system, outlook, or negotiating style; (3) questions about tactics, such as where to meet, who should make the first offer, and how to move from inventing options to making commitments; and (4) the role of power in negotiation. More extensive treatment of some topics will have to await other books. Readers interested in more detail about handling “people issues” in negotiation in ways that tend to establish an effective working relationship might enjoy Getting Together: Building Relationships as We Negotiate, by Roger Fisher and Scott Brown, also available from Penguin Books. If dealing with difficult people and situations is more your concern, look for Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People, by William Ury, published by Bantam Books. No doubt other books will follow. There is certainly much more to say about power, multilateral negotiations, cross-cultural transactions, personal styles, and many other topics. Once again we thank Marty Linsky, this time for taking a careful eye and a sharp pencil to our new material. Our special thanks to Doug Stone for his discerning critique, editing, and occasional rewriting of successive drafts of that material. He has an uncanny knack for catching us in an unclear thought or paragraph. Roger Fisher William Ury Bruce Patton For more than a dozen years, Bruce Patton has worked with us in formulating and explaining all of the ideas in this book. This past year he has pulled the laboring oar in converting our joint thinking into an agreed text. It is a pleasure to welcome Bruce, editor of the first edition, as a full co-author of this second edition. R.F. W.U. Acknowledgments This book began as a question: What is the best way for people to deal with their differences? For example, what is the best advice one could give a husband and wife getting divorced who want to know how to reach a fair and mutually satisfactory agreement without ending up in a bitter fight? Perhaps more difficult, what advice would you give one of them who wanted to do the same thing? Every day, families, neighbors, couples, employees, bosses, businesses, consumers, salesmen, lawyers, and nations face this same dilemma of how to get to yes without going to war. Drawing on our respective backgrounds in international law and anthropology and an extensive collaboration over the years with practitioners, colleagues, and students, we have evolved a practical method for negotiating agreement amicably without giving in. We have tried out ideas on lawyers, businessmen, government officials, judges, prison wardens, diplomats, insurance representatives, military officers, coal miners, and oil executives. We gratefully acknowledge those who responded with criticism and with suggestions distilled from their experience. We benefited immensely. In truth, so many people have contributed so extensively to our learning over the years that it is no longer possible to say precisely to whom we are indebted for which ideas in what form. Those who contributed the most understand that footnotes were omitted not because we think every idea original, but rather to keep the text readable when we owe so much to so many. We could not fail to mention, however, our debt to Howard Raiffa. His kind but forthright criticism has repeatedly improved the approach, and his notions on seeking joint gains by exploiting differences and using imaginative procedures for settling difficult issues have inspired sections on these subjects. Louis Sohn, deviser and negotiator extraordinaire, was always encouraging, always creative, always looking forward. Among our many debts to him, we owe our introduction to the idea of using a single negotiating text, which we call the One- Text Procedure. And we would like to thank Michael Doyle and David Straus for their creative ideas on running brainstorming sessions. Good anecdotes and examples are hard to find. We are greatly indebted to Jim Sebenius for his accounts of the Law of the Sea Conference (as well as for his thoughtful criticism of the method), to Tom Griffith for an account of his negotiation with an insurance adjuster, and to Mary Parker Follett for the story of two men quarreling in a library. We want especially to thank all those who read this book in various drafts and gave us the benefit of their criticism, including our students in the January Negotiation Workshops of 1980 and 1981 at Harvard Law School, and Frank Sander, John Cooper, and William Lincoln, who taught those workshops with us. In particular, we want to thank those members of Harvard’s Negotiation Seminar whom we have not already mentioned; they listened to us patiently these last two years and offered many helpful suggestions: John Dunlop, James Healy, David Kuechle, Thomas Schelling, and Lawrence Susskind. To all of our friends and associates we owe more than we can say, but the final responsibility for the content of this book lies with the authors; if the result is not yet perfect, it is not for lack of our colleagues’ efforts. Without family and friends, writing would be intolerable. For constructive criticism and moral support we thank Caroline Fisher, David Lax, Frances Turnbull, and Janice Ury. Without Francis Fisher this book would never have been written. He had the felicity of introducing the two of us some four years ago. Finer secretarial help we could not have had. Thanks to Deborah Reimel for her unfailing competence, moral support, and firm but gracious reminders, and to Denise Trybula, who never wavered in her diligence and cheerfulness. And special thanks to the people at Word Processing, led by Cynthia Smith, who met the test of an endless series of drafts and near impossible deadlines. Then there are our editors. By reorganizing and cutting this book in half, Marty Linsky made it far more readable. To spare our readers, he had the good sense not to spare our feelings. Thanks also to Peter Kinder, June Kinoshita, and Bob Ross. June struggled to make the language less sexist. Where we have not succeeded, we apologize to those who may be offended. We also want to thank Andrea Williams, our adviser; Julian Bach, our agent; and Dick McAdoo and his associates at Houghton Mifflin, who made the production of this book both possible and pleasurable. Finally, we want to thank Bruce Patton, our friend and colleague, editor and mediator. No one has contributed more to this book. From the very beginning he helped brainstorm and organize the syllogism of the book. He has reorganized almost every chapter and edited every word. If books were movies, this would be known as a Patton Production. Roger Fisher William Ury Introduction Like it or not, you are a negotiator. Negotiation is a fact of life. You discuss a raise with your boss. You try to agree with a stranger on a price for his house. Two lawyers try to settle a lawsuit arising from a car accident. A group of oil companies plan a joint venture exploring for offshore oil. A city official meets with union leaders to avert a transit strike. The United States Secretary of State sits down with his Soviet counterpart to seek an agreement limiting nuclear arms. All these are negotiations. Everyone negotiates something every day. Like Molière’s Monsieur Jourdain, who was delighted to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life, people negotiate even when they don’t think of themselves as doing so. You negotiate with your spouse about where to go for dinner and with your child about when the lights go out. Negotiation is a basic means of getting what you want from others. It is back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement when you and the other side have some interests that are shared and others that are opposed. More and more occasions require negotiation; conflict is a growth industry. Everyone wants to participate in decisions that affect them; fewer and fewer people will accept decisions dictated by someone else. People differ, and they use negotiation to handle their differences. Whether in business, government, or the family, people reach most decisions through negotiation. Even when they go to court, they almost always negotiate a settlement before trial. Although negotiation takes place every day, it is not easy to do well. Standard strategies for negotiation often leave people dissatisfied, worn out, or alienated —and frequently all three. People find themselves in a dilemma. They see two ways to negotiate: soft or hard. The soft negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily in order to reach agreement. He wants an amicable resolution; yet he often ends up exploited and feeling bitter. The hard negotiator sees any situation as a contest of wills in which the side that takes the more extreme positions and holds out longer fares better. He wants to win; yet he often ends up producing an equally hard response which exhausts him and his resources and harms his relationship with the other side. Other standard negotiating strategies fall between hard and soft, but each involves an attempted trade-off between getting what you want and getting along with people. There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft, but rather both 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 is hard on the merits, soft on the people. It employs no tricks and no posturing. 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. This book is about the method of principled negotiation. The first chapter describes problems that arise in using the standard strategies of positional bargaining. The next four chapters lay out the four principles of the method. The last three chapters answer the questions most commonly asked about the method: What if the other side is more powerful? What if they will not play along? And what if they use dirty tricks? Principled negotiation can be used by United States diplomats in arms control talks with the Soviet Union, by Wall Street lawyers representing Fortune 500 companies in antitrust cases, and by couples in deciding everything from where to go for vacation to how to divide their property if they get divorced. Anyone can use this method. Every negotiation is different, but the basic elements do not change. Principled negotiation can be used whether there is one issue or several; two parties or many; whether there is a prescribed ritual, as in collective bargaining, or an impromptu free-for-all, as in talking with hijackers. The method applies whether the other side is more experienced or less, a hard bargainer or a friendly one. Principled negotiation is an all-purpose strategy. 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. I THE PROBLEM  1 Don’t Bargain Over Positions Whether a negotiation concerns a contract, a family quarrel, or a peace settlement among nations, people routinely engage in positional bargaining. Each side takes a position, argues for it, and makes concessions to reach a compromise. The classic example of this negotiating minuet is the haggling that takes place between a customer and the proprietor of a secondhand store: And so it goes, on and on. Perhaps they will reach agreement; perhaps not. 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 takes community interests into account.) The most common form of negotiation, illustrated by the above example, depends upon successively taking—and then giving up—a sequence of positions. Taking positions, as the customer and storekeeper do, serves some useful purposes in a negotiation. It tells the other side what you want; it provides an anchor in an uncertain and pressured situation; and it can eventually produce the terms of an acceptable agreement. But those purposes can be served in other ways. And positional bargaining fails to meet the basic criteria of producing a wise agreement, efficiently and amicably. Arguing over positions produces unwise agreements When negotiators bargain over positions, they tend to lock themselves into those positions. The more you clarify your position and defend it against attack, the more committed you become to it. The more you try to convince the other side of the impossibility of changing your opening position, the more difficult it becomes to do so. Your ego becomes identified with your position. You now have a new interest in “saving face”—in reconciling future action with past positions—making it less and less likely that any agreement will wisely reconcile the parties’ original interests. The danger that positional bargaining will impede a negotiation was well illustrated by the breakdown of the talks under President Kennedy for a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. A critical question arose: How many on- site inspections per year should the Soviet Union and the United States be permitted to make within the other’s territory to investigate suspicious seismic events? The Soviet Union finally agreed to three inspections. The United States insisted on no less than ten. And there the talks broke down—over positions— despite the fact that no one understood whether an “inspection” would involve one person looking around for one day, or a hundred people prying indiscriminately for a month. The parties had made little attempt to design an inspection procedure that would reconcile the United States’s interest in verification with the desire of both countries for minimal intrusion. As more attention is paid to positions, less attention is devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties. Agreement becomes less likely. Any agreement reached may reflect a mechanical splitting of the difference between final positions rather than a solution carefully crafted to meet the legitimate interests of the parties. The result is frequently an agreement less satisfactory to each side than it could have been. Arguing over positions Is Inefficient The standard method of negotiation may produce either agreement, as with the price of a brass dish, or breakdown, as with the number of on-site inspections. In either event, the process takes a lot of time. Bargaining over positions creates incentives that stall settlement. In positional bargaining you try to improve the chance that any settlement reached is favorable to you by starting with an extreme position, by stubbornly holding to it, by deceiving the other party as to your true views, and by making small concessions only as necessary to keep the negotiation going. The same is true for the other side. Each of those factors tends to interfere with reaching a settlement promptly. The more extreme the opening positions and the smaller the concessions, the more time and effort it will take to discover whether or not agreement is possible. The standard minuet also requires a large number of individual decisions as each negotiator decides what to offer, what to reject, and how much of a concession to make. Decision-making is difficult and time-consuming at best. Where each decision not only involves yielding to the other side but will likely produce pressure to yield further, a negotiator has little incentive to move quickly. Dragging one’s feet, threatening to walk out, stonewalling, and other such tactics become commonplace. They all increase the time and costs of reaching agreement as well as the risk that no agreement will be reached at all. Arguing over positions endangers an ongoing relationship Positional bargaining becomes a contest of will. Each negotiator asserts what he will and won’t do. The task of jointly devising an acceptable solution tends to become a battle. Each side tries through sheer will power to force the other to change its position. “I’m not going to give in. If you want to go to the movies with me, it’s The Maltese Falcon or nothing.” Anger and resentment often result as one side sees itself bending to the rigid will of the other while its own legitimate concerns go unaddressed. Positional bargaining thus strains and sometimes shatters the relationship between the parties. Commercial enterprises that have been doing business together for years may part company. Neighbors may stop speaking to each other. Bitter feelings generated by one such encounter may last a lifetime. When there are many parties, positional bargaining Is even worse Although it is convenient to discuss negotiation in terms of two persons, you and “the other side,” in fact, almost every negotiation involves more than two persons. Several different parties may sit at the table, or each side may have constituents, higher-ups, boards of directors, or committees with whom they must deal. The more people involved in a negotiation, the more serious the drawbacks to positional bargaining. If some 150 countries are negotiating, as in various United Nations conferences, positional bargaining is next to impossible. It may take all to say yes, but only one to say no. Reciprocal concessions are difficult: to whom do you make a concession? Yet even thousands of bilateral deals would still fall short of a multilateral agreement. In such situations, positional bargaining leads to the formation of coalitions among parties whose shared interests are often more symbolic than substantive. At the United Nations, such coalitions produce negotiations between “the” North and “the” South, or between “the” East and “the” West. Because there are many members in a group, it becomes more difficult to develop a common position. What is worse, once they have painfully developed and agreed upon a position, it becomes much harder to change it. Altering a position proves equally difficult when additional participants are higher authorities who, while absent from the table, must nevertheless give their approval. Being nice is no answer Many people recognize the high costs of hard positional bargaining, particularly on the parties and their relationship. They hope to avoid them by following a more gentle style of negotiation. Instead of seeing the other side as adversaries, they prefer to see them as friends. Rather than emphasizing a goal of victory, they emphasize the necessity of reaching agreement. In a soft negotiating game the standard moves are to make offers and concessions, to trust the other side, to be friendly, and to yield as necessary to avoid confrontation. The following table illustrates two styles of positional bargaining, soft and hard. Most people see their choice of negotiating strategies as between these two styles. Looking at the table as presenting a choice, should you be a soft or a hard positional bargainer? Or should you perhaps follow a strategy somewhere in between? The soft negotiating game emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining a relationship. Within families and among friends much negotiation takes place in this way. The process tends to be efficient, at least to the extent of producing results quickly. As each party competes with the other in being more generous and more forthcoming, an agreement becomes highly likely. But it may not be a wise one. The results may not be as tragic as in the O. Henry story about an impoverished couple in which the loving wife sells her hair in order to buy a handsome chain for her husband’s watch, and the unknowing husband sells his watch in order to buy beautiful combs for his wife’s hair. However, any negotiation primarily concerned with the relationship runs the risk of producing a sloppy agreement. More seriously, pursuing a soft and friendly form of positional bargaining makes you vulnerable to someone who plays a hard game of positional bargaining. In positional bargaining, a hard game dominates a soft one. If the hard bargainer insists on concessions and makes threats while the soft bargainer yields in order to avoid confrontation and insists on agreement, the negotiating game is biased in favor of the hard player. The process will produce an agreement, although it may not be a wise one. It will certainly be more favorable to the hard positional bargainer than to the soft one. If your response to sustained, hard positional bargaining is soft positional bargaining, you will probably lose your shirt. There Is an alternative If you do not like the choice between hard and soft positional bargaining, you can change the game.  The game of negotiation takes place at two levels. At one level, negotiation addresses the substance; at another, it focuses—usually implicitly—on the procedure for dealing with the substance. The first negotiation may concern your salary, the terms of a lease, or a price to be paid. The second negotiation concerns how you will negotiate the substantive question: by soft positional bargaining, by hard positional bargaining, or by some other method. This second negotiation is a game about a game—a “meta-game.” Each move you make within a negotiation is not only a move that deals with rent, salary, or other substantive questions; it also helps structure the rules of the game you are playing. Your move may serve to keep the negotiations within an ongoing mode, or it may constitute a game-changing move. This second negotiation by and large escapes notice because it seems to occur without conscious decision. Only when dealing with someone from another country, particularly someone with a markedly different cultural background, are you likely to see the necessity of establishing some accepted process for the substantive negotiations. But whether consciously or not, you are negotiating procedural rules with every move you make, even if those moves appear exclusively concerned with substance.  The answer to the question of whether to use soft positional bargaining or hard is “neither.” Change the game. At the Harvard Negotiation Project we have been developing an alternative to positional bargaining: a method of negotiation explicitly designed to produce wise outcomes efficiently and amicably. This method, called principled negotiation or negotiation on the merits, can be boiled down to four basic points. These four points define a straightforward method of negotiation that can be used under almost any circumstance. Each point deals with a basic element of negotiation, and suggests what you should do about it. The first point responds to the fact that human beings are not computers. We are creatures of strong emotions who often have radically different perceptions and have difficulty communicating clearly. Emotions typically become entangled with the objective merits of the problem. Taking positions just makes this worse because people’s egos become identified with their positions. Hence, before working on the substantive problem, the “people problem” should be disentangled from it and dealt with separately. Figuratively if not literally, the participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other. Hence the first proposition: Separate the people from the problem. The second point is designed to overcome the drawback of focusing on people’s stated positions when the object of a negotiation is to satisfy their underlying interests. A negotiating position often obscures what you really want. Compromising between positions is not likely to produce an agreement which will effectively take care of the human needs that led people to adopt those positions. The second basic element of the method is: Focus on interests, not positions. The third point responds to the difficulty of designing optimal solutions while under pressure. Trying to decide in the presence of an adversary narrows your vision. Having a lot at stake inhibits creativity. So does searching for the one right solution. You can offset these constraints by setting aside a designated time within which to think up a wide range of possible solutions that advance shared interests and creatively reconcile differing interests. Hence the third basic point: Before trying to reach agreement, invent options for mutual gain. Where interests are directly opposed, a negotiator may be able to obtain a favorable result simply by being stubborn. That method tends to reward intransigence and produce arbitrary results. However, you can counter such a negotiator by insisting that his single say-so is not enough and that the agreement must reflect some fair standard independent of the naked will of either side. This does not mean insisting that the terms be based on the standard you select, but only that some fair standard such as market value, expert opinion, custom, or law determine the outcome. By discussing such criteria rather than what the parties are willing or unwilling to do, neither party need give in to the other; both can defer to a fair solution. Hence the fourth basic point: Insist on using objective criteria. The method of principled negotiation is contrasted with hard and soft positional bargaining in the table below, which shows the four basic points of the method in boldface type. The four propositions of principled negotiation are relevant from the time you begin to think about negotiating until the time either an agreement is reached or you decide to break off the effort. That period can be divided into three stages: analysis, planning, and discussion. During the analysis stage you are simply trying to diagnose the situation—to gather information, organize it, and think about it. You will want to consider the people problems of partisan perceptions, hostile emotions, and unclear communication, as well as to identify your interests and those of the other side. You will want to note options already on the table and identify any criteria already suggested as a basis for agreement. During the planning stage you deal with the same four elements a second time, both generating ideas and deciding what to do. How do you propose to handle the people problems? Of your interests, which are most important? And what are some realistic objectives? You will want to generate additional options and additional criteria for deciding among them.  Again during the discussion stage, when the parties communicate back and forth, looking toward agreement, the same four elements are the best subjects to discuss. Differences in perception, feelings of frustration and anger, and difficulties in communication can be acknowledged and addressed. Each side should come to understand the interests of the other. Both can then jointly generate options that are mutually advantageous and seek agreement on objective standards for resolving opposed interests. To sum up, in contrast to positional bargaining, the principled negotiation method of focusing on basic interests, mutually satisfying options, and fair standards typically results in a wise agreement. The method permits you to reach a gradual consensus on a joint decision efficiently without all the transactional costs of digging in to positions only to have to dig yourself out of them. And separating the people from the problem allows you to deal directly and empathetically with the other negotiator as a human being, thus making possible an amicable agreement. Each of the next four chapters expands on one of these four basic points. If at any point you become skeptical, you may want to skip ahead briefly and browse in the final three chapters, which respond to questions commonly raised about the method. II THE METHOD 2 Separate the People from the Problem Everyone knows how hard it is to deal with a problem without people misunderstanding each other, getting angry or upset, and taking things personally. A union leader says to his crew, “All right, who called the walkout?” Jones steps forward. “I did. It was that bum foreman Campbell again. That was the fifth time in two weeks he sent me out of our group as a replacement. He’s got it in for me, and I’m tired of it. Why should I get all the dirty work?” Later the union leader confronts Campbell. “Why do you keep picking on Jones? He says you’ve put him on replacement detail five times in two weeks. What’s going on?” Campbell replies, “I pick Jones because he’s the best. I know I can trust him to keep things from fouling up in a group without its point person. I send him on replacement only when it’s a key person missing, otherwise I send Smith or someone else. It’s just that with the flu going around there’ve been a lot of point people out. I never knew Jones objected. I thought he liked the responsibility.” In another real-life situation, an insurance company lawyer says to the state insurance commissioner: “I appreciate your time, Commissioner Thompson. What I’d like to talk to you about is some of the problems we’ve been having with the presumption clause of the strict-liability regulations. Basically, we think the way the clause was written causes it to have an unfair impact on those insurers whose existing policies contain rate adjustment limitations, and we would like to consider ways it might be revised—” The Commissioner, interrupting: “Ms. Monteiro, your company had ample opportunity to voice any objection it had during the hearings my department held on those regulations before they were issued. I ran those hearings, Ms. Monteiro. I listened to every word of testimony, and I wrote the final version of the strict- liability provisions personally. Are you saying I made a mistake?” “No, but—” “Are you saying I’m unfair?” “Certainly not, sir, but I think this provision has had consequences none of us foresaw, and—” “Listen, Monteiro, I promised the public when I campaigned for this position that I would put an end to killer hair dryers and $10,000 bombs disguised as cars. And these regulations have done that. “Your company made a $50 million profit on its strict-liability policies last year. What kind of fool do you think you can play me for, coming in here talking about ‘unfair’ regulations and ‘unforeseen consequences’? I don’t want to hear another word of that. Good day, Ms. Monteiro.” Now what? Does the insurance company lawyer press the Commissioner on this point, making him angry and probably not getting anywhere? Her company does a lot of business in this state. A good relationship with the Commissioner is important. Should she let the matter rest, then, even though she is convinced that this regulation really is unfair, that its long-term effects are likely to be against the public interest, and that not even the experts foresaw this problem at the time of the original hearings? What is going on in these cases? Negotiators are people first A basic fact about negotiation, easy to forget in corporate and international transactions, is that you are dealing not with abstract representatives of the “other side,” but with human beings. They have emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds and viewpoints; and they are unpredictable. So are you. 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 counterreactions 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 interests of both parties. Failing to deal with others sensitively as human beings prone to human reactions can be disastrous for a negotiation. Whatever else you are doing at any point during a negotiation, from preparation to follow-up, it is worth asking yourself, “Am I paying enough attention to the people problem?” Every negotiator has two kinds of Interests: In the substance and In the relationship Every negotiator wants to reach an agreement that satisfies his substantive interests. That is why one negotiates. Beyond that, a negotiator also has an interest in his relationship with the other side. An antiques dealer wants both to make a profit on the sale and to turn the customer into a regular one. At a minimum, a negotiator wants to maintain a working relationship good enough to produce an acceptable agreement if one is possible given each side’s interests. Usually, more is at stake. Most negotiations take place in the context of an ongoing relationship where it is important to carry on each negotiation in a way that will help rather than hinder future relations and future negotiations. In fact, with many long-term clients, business partners, family members, fellow professionals, government officials, or foreign nations, the ongoing relationship is far more important than the outcome of any particular negotiation. The relationship tends to become entangled with the problem. A major consequence of the “people problem” in negotiation is that the parties’ relationship tends to become entangled with their discussions of substance. On both the giving and receiving end, we are likely to treat people and problem as one. Within the family, a statement such as “The kitchen is a mess” or “Our bank account is low” may be intended simply to identify a problem, but it is likely to be heard as a personal attack. Anger over a situation may lead you to express anger toward some human being associated with it in your mind. Egos tend to become involved in substantive positions.  Another reason that substantive issues become entangled with psychological ones is that people draw from comments on substance unfounded inferences which they then treat as facts about that person’s intentions and attitudes toward them. Unless we are careful, this process is almost automatic; we are seldom aware that other explanations may be equally valid. Thus in the union example, Jones figured that Campbell, the foreman, had it in for him, while Campbell thought he was complimenting Jones and doing him a favor by giving him responsible assignments. Positional bargaining puts relationship and substance in conflict. Framing a negotiation as a contest of will over positions aggravates the entangling process. I see your position as a statement of how you would like the negotiation to end; from my point of view it demonstrates how little you care about our relationship. If I take a firm position that you consider unreasonable, you assume that I also think of it as an extreme position; it is easy to conclude that I do not value our relationship—or you—very highly. Positional bargaining deals with a negotiator’s interests both in substance and in a good relationship by trading one off against the other. If what counts in the long run for your company is its relationship with the insurance commissioner, then you will probably let this matter drop. Or, if you care more about a favorable solution than being respected or liked by the other side, you can try to trade relationship for substance. “If you won’t go along with me on this point, then so much for you. This will be the last time we meet.” Yet giving in on a substantive point may buy no friendship; it may do nothing more than convince the other side that you can be taken for a ride. Separate the relationship from the substance; deal directly with the people problem Dealing with a substantive problem and maintaining a good working relationship need not be conflicting goals if the parties are committed and psychologically prepared to treat each separately on its own legitimate merits. Base the relationship on accurate perceptions, clear communication, appropriate emotions, and a forward-looking, purposive outlook. Deal with people problems directly; don’t try to solve them with substantive concessions. To deal with psychological problems, use psychological techniques. Where perceptions are inaccurate, you can look for ways to educate. If emotions run high, you can find ways for each person involved to let off steam. Where misunderstanding exists, you can work to improve communication. To find your way through the jungle of people problems, it is useful to think in terms of three basic categories: perception, emotion, and communication. The various people problems all fall into one of these three baskets. In negotiating it is easy to forget that you must deal not only with their people problems, but also with your own. Your anger and frustration may obstruct an agreement beneficial to you. Your perceptions are likely to be one-sided, and you may not be listening or communicating adequately. The techniques which follow apply equally well to your people problems as to those of the other side. Perception Understanding the other side’s thinking is not simply a useful activity that will help you solve your problem. Their thinking is the problem. Whether you are making a deal or settling a dispute, differences are defined by the difference between your thinking and theirs. When two people quarrel, they usually quarrel over an object—both may claim a watch—or over an event—each may contend that the other was at fault in causing an automobile accident. The same goes for nations. Morocco and Algeria quarrel over a section of the Western Sahara; India and Pakistan quarrel over each other’s development of nuclear bombs. In such circumstances people tend to assume that what they need to know more about is the object or the event. They study the watch or they measure the skid marks at the scene of the accident. They study the Western Sahara or the detailed history of nuclear weapons development in India and Pakistan. Ultimately, however, conflict lies not in objective reality, but in people’s heads. Truth is simply one more argument—perhaps a good one, perhaps not— for dealing with the difference. The difference itself exists because it exists in their thinking. Fears, even if ill-founded, are real fears and need to be dealt with. Hopes, even if unrealistic, may cause a war. Facts, even if established, may do nothing to solve the problem. Both parties may agree that one lost the watch and the other found it, but still disagree over who should get it. It may finally be established that the auto accident was caused by the blowout of a tire which had been driven 31,402 miles, but the parties may dispute who should pay for the damage. The detailed history and geography of the Western Sahara, no matter how carefully studied and documented, is not the stuff with which one puts to rest that kind of territorial dispute. No study of who developed what nuclear devices when will put to rest the conflict between India and Pakistan. As useful as looking for objective reality can be, it is ultimately the reality as each side sees it that constitutes the problem in a negotiation and opens the way to a solution. Put yourself in their shoes. How you see the world depends on where you sit. People tend to see what they want to see. Out of a mass of detailed information, they tend to pick out and focus on those facts that confirm their prior perceptions and to disregard or misinterpret those that call their perceptions into question. Each side in a negotiation may see only the merits of its case, and only the faults of the other side’s. The ability to see the situation as the other side sees it, as difficult as it may be, is one of the most important skills a negotiator can possess. It is not enough to know that they see things differently. If you want to influence them, you also need to understand empathetically the power of their point of view and to feel the emotional force with which they believe in it. It is not enough to study them like beetles under a microscope; you need to know what it feels like to be a beetle. To accomplish this task you should be prepared to withhold judgment for a while as you “try on” their views. They may well believe that their views are “right” as strongly as you believe yours are. You may see on the table a glass half full of cool water. Your spouse may see a dirty, half-empty glass about to cause a ring on the mahogany finish. Consider the contrasting perceptions of a tenant and a land-lady negotiating the renewal of a lease: Understanding their point of view is not the same as agreeing with it. It is true that a better understanding of their thinking may lead you to revise your own views about the merits of a situation. But that is not a cost of understanding their point of view, it is a benefit. It allows you to reduce the area of conflict, and it also helps you advance your newly enlightened self-interest. Don’t deduce their intentions from your fears. People tend to assume that whatever they fear, the other side intends to do. Consider this story from the New York Times: “They met in a bar, where he offered her a ride home. He took her down unfamiliar streets. He said it was a shortcut. He got her home so fast she caught the 10 o’clock news.” Why is the ending so surprising? We made an assumption based on our fears. It is all too easy to fall into the habit of putting the worst interpretation on what the other side says or does. A suspicious interpretation often follows naturally from one’s existing perceptions. Moreover, it seems the “safe” thing to do, and it shows spectators how bad the other side really is. But the cost of interpreting whatever they say or do in its most dismal light is that fresh ideas in the direction of agreement are spurned, and subtle changes of position are ignored or rejected.  Don’t blame them for your problem. It is tempting to hold the other side responsible for your problem. “Your company is totally unreliable. Every time you service our rotary generator here at the factory, you do a lousy job and it breaks down again.” Blaming is an easy mode to fall into, particularly when you feel that the other side is indeed responsible. But even if blaming is justified, it is usually counterproductive. Under attack, the other side will become defensive and will resist what you have to say. They will cease to listen, or they will strike back with an attack of their own. Assessing blame firmly entangles the people with the problem. When you talk about the problem, separate the symptoms from the person with whom you are talking. “Our rotary generator that you service has broken down again. That is three times in the last month. The first time it was out of order for an entire week. This factory needs a functioning generator. I want your advice on how we can minimize our risk of generator breakdown. Should we change service companies, sue the manufacturer, or what?” Discuss each other’s perceptions. One way to deal with differing perceptions is to make them explicit and discuss them with the other side. As long as you do this in a frank, honest manner without either side blaming the other for the problem as each sees it, such a discussion may provide the understanding they need to take what you say seriously, and vice versa. It is common in a negotiation to treat as “unimportant” those concerns of the other side perceived as not standing in the way of an agreement. To the contrary, communicating loudly and convincingly things you are willing to say that they would like to hear can be one of the best investments you as a negotiator can make. Consider the negotiation over the transfer of technology which arose at the Law of the Sea Conference. From 1974 to 1981 representatives of some 150 nations gathered in New York and Geneva to formulate rules to govern uses of the ocean from fishing rights to mining manganese in the deep seabed. At one point, representatives of the developing countries expressed keen interest in an exchange of technology; their countries wanted to be able to acquire from the highly industrialized nations advanced technical knowledge and equipment for deep-seabed mining. The United States and other developed countries saw no difficulty in satisfying that desire—and therefore saw the issue of technology transfer as unimportant. In one sense it was unimportant to them, but it was a great mistake for them to treat the subject as unimportant. By devoting substantial time to working out the practical arrangements for transferring technology, they might have made their offer far more credible and far more attractive to the developing countries. By dismissing the issue as a matter of lesser importance to be dealt with later, the industrialized states gave up a low-cost opportunity to provide the developing countries with an impressive achievement and a real incentive to reach agreement on other issues. Look for opportunities to act inconsistently with their perceptions. Perhaps the best way to change their perceptions is to send them a message different from what they expect. The visit of Egypt’s President Sadat to Jerusalem in November 1977 provides an outstanding example of such an action. The Israelis saw Sadat and Egypt as their enemy, the man and country that launched a surprise attack on them four years before. To alter that perception, to help persuade the Israelis that he too desired peace, Sadat flew to the capital of his enemies, a disputed capital which not even the United States, Israel’s best friend, had recognized. Instead of acting as an enemy, Sadat acted as a partner. Without this dramatic move, it is hard to imagine the signing of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Give them a stake in the outcome by making sure they participate in the process. If they are not involved in the process, they are hardly likely to approve the product. It is that simple. If you go to the state insurance commissioner prepared for battle after a long investigation, it is not surprising that he is going to feel threatened and resist your conclusions. If you fail to ask an employee whether he wants an assignment with responsibility, don’t be surprised to find out that he resents it. If you want the other side to accept a disagreeable conclusion, it is crucial that you involve them in the process of reaching that conclusion. This is precisely what people tend not to do. When you have a difficult issue to handle, your instinct is to leave the hard part until last. “Let’s be sure we have the whole thing worked out before we approach the Commissioner.” The Commissioner, however, is much more likely to agree to a revision of the regulations if he feels that he has had a part in drafting it. This way the revision becomes just one more small step in the long drafting process that produced his original regulation rather than someone’s attempt to butcher his completed product.  In South Africa, white moderates were trying at one point to abolish the discriminatory pass laws. How? By meeting in an all-white parliamentary committee to discuss proposals. Yet, however meritorious those proposals might prove, they would be insufficient, not necessarily because of their substance, but because they would be the product of a process in which no blacks were included. The blacks would hear, “We superior whites are going to figure out how to solve your problems.” It would be the “white man’s burden” all over again, which was the problem to start with. Even if the terms of an agreement seem favorable, the other side may reject them simply out of a suspicion born of their exclusion from the drafting process. Agreement becomes much easier if both parties feel ownership of the ideas. The whole process of negotiation becomes stronger as each side puts their imprimatur bit by bit on a developing solution. Each criticism of the terms and consequent change, each concession, is a personal mark that the negotiator leaves on a proposal. A proposal evolves that bears enough of the suggestions of both sides for each to feel it is theirs. To involve the other side, get them involved early. Ask their advice. Giving credit generously for ideas wherever possible will give them a personal stake in defending those ideas to others. It may be hard to resist the temptation to take credit for yourself, but forbearance pays off handsomely. Apart from the substantive merits, the feeling of participation in the process is perhaps the single most important factor in determining whether a negotiator accepts a proposal. In a sense, the process is the product. Face-saving: Make your proposals consistent with their values. In the English language, “face-saving” carries a derogatory flavor. People say, “We are doing that just to let them save face,” implying that a little pretense has been created to allow someone to go along without feeling badly. The tone implies ridicule. This is a grave misunderstanding of the role and importance of face-saving. Face-saving reflects a person’s need to reconcile the stand he takes in a negotiation or an agreement with his principles and with his past words and deeds. The judicial process concerns itself with the same subject. When a judge writes an opinion on a court ruling, he is saving face, not only for himself and for the judicial system, but for the parties. Instead of just telling one party, “You win,” and telling the other, “You lose,” he explains how his decision is consistent with principle, law, and precedent. He wants to appear not as arbitrary, but as behaving in a proper fashion. A negotiator is no different. Often in a negotiation people will continue to hold out not because the proposal on the table is inherently unacceptable, but simply because they want to avoid the feeling or the appearance of backing down to the other side. If the substance can be phrased or conceptualized differently so that it seems a fair outcome, they will then accept it. Terms negotiated between a major city and its Hispanic community on municipal jobs were unacceptable to the mayor—until the agreement was withdrawn and the mayor was allowed to announce the same terms as his own decision, carrying out a campaign promise. Face-saving involves reconciling an agreement with principle and with the self-image of the negotiators. Its importance should not be underestimated. Emotion In a negotiation, particularly in a bitter dispute, feelings may be more important than talk. The parties may be more ready for battle than for cooperatively working out a solution to a common problem. People often come to a negotiation realizing that the stakes are high and feeling threatened. Emotions on one side will generate emotions on the other. Fear may breed anger, and anger, fear. Emotions may quickly bring a negotiation to an impasse or an end. First recognize and understand emotions, theirs and yours. Look at yourself during the negotiation. Are you feeling nervous? Is your stomach upset? Are you angry at the other side? Listen to them and get a sense of what their emotions are. You may find it useful to write down what you feel—perhaps fearful, worried, angry—and then how you might like to feel—confident, relaxed. Do the same for them. In dealing with negotiators who represent their organizations, it is easy to treat them as mere mouthpieces without emotions. It is important to remember that they too, like you, have personal feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams. Their careers may be at stake. There may be issues on which they are particularly sensitive and others on which they are particularly proud. Nor are the problems of emotion limited to the negotiators. Constituents have emotions too. A constituent may have an even more simplistic and adversarial view of the situation. Ask yourself what is producing the emotions. Why are you angry? Why are they angry? Are they responding to past grievances and looking for revenge? Are emotions spilling over from one issue to another? Are personal problems at home interfering with business? In the Middle East negotiation, Israelis and Palestinians alike feel a threat to their existence as peoples and have developed powerful emotions that now permeate even the most concrete practical issue, like distribution of water in the West Bank, so that it becomes almost impossible to discuss and resolve. Because in the larger picture both peoples feel that their own survival is at stake, they see every other issue in terms of survival. Make emotions explicit and acknowledge them as legitimate. Talk with the people on the other side about their emotions. Talk about your own. It does not hurt to say, “You know, the people on our side feel we have been mistreated and are very upset. We’re afraid an agreement will not be kept even if one is reached. Rational or not, that is our concern. Personally, I think we may be wrong in fearing this, but that’s a feeling others have. Do the people on your side feel the same way?” Making your feelings or theirs an explicit focus of discussion will not only underscore the seriousness of the problem, it will also make the negotiations less reactive and more “pro-active.” Freed from the burden of unexpressed emotions, people will become more likely to work on the problem. Allow the other side to let off steam. Often, one effective way to deal with people’s anger, frustration, and other negative emotions is to help them release those feelings. People obtain psychological release through the simple process of recounting their grievances. If you come home wanting to tell your husband about everything that went wrong at the office, you will become even more frustrated if he says, “Don’t bother telling me; I’m sure you had a hard day. Let’s skip it.” The same is true for negotiators. Letting off steam may make it easier to talk rationally later. Moreover, if a negotiator makes an angry speech and thereby shows his constituency that he is not being “soft,” they may give him a freer hand in the negotiation. He can then rely on a reputation for toughness to protect him from criticism later if he eventually enters into an agreement. Hence, instead of interrupting polemical speeches or walking out on the other party, you may decide to control yourself, sit there, and allow them to pour out their grievances at you. When constituents are listening, such occasions may release their frustration as well as the negotiator’s. Perhaps the best strategy to adopt while the other side lets off steam is to listen quietly without responding to their attacks, and occasionally to ask the speaker to continue until he has spoken his last word. In this way, you offer little support to the inflammatory substance, give the speaker every encouragement to speak himself out, and leave little or no residue to fester. Don’t react to emotional outbursts. Releasing emotions can prove risky if it leads to an emotional reaction. If not controlled, it can result in a violent quarrel. One unusual and effective technique to contain the impact of emotions was used in the 1950s by the Human Relations Committee, a labor-management group set up in the steel industry to handle emerging conflicts before they became serious problems. The members of the committee adopted the rule that only one person could get angry at a time. This made it legitimate for others not to respond stormily to an angry outburst. It also made letting off emotional steam easier by making an outburst itself more legitimate: “That’s OK. It’s his turn.” The rule has the further advantage of helping people control their emotions. Breaking the rule implies that you have lost self-control, so you lose some face. Use symbolic gestures. Any lover knows that to end a quarrel the simple gesture of bringing a red rose goes a long way. Acts that would produce a constructive emotional impact on one side often involve little or no cost to the other. A note of sympathy, a statement of regret, a visit to a cemetery, delivering a small present for a grandchild, shaking hands or embracing, eating together— all may be priceless opportunities to improve a hostile emotional situation at small cost. On many occasions an apology can defuse emotions effectively, even when you do not acknowledge personal responsibility for the action or admit an intention to harm. An apology may be one of the least costly and most rewarding investments you can make. Communication Without communication there is no negotiation. Negotiation is a process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching a joint decision. Communication is never an easy thing, even between people who have an enormous background of shared values and experience. Couples who have lived with each other for thirty years still have misunderstandings every day. It is not surprising, then, to find poor communication between people who do not know each other well and who may feel hostile and suspicious of one another. Whatever you say, you should expect that the other side will almost always hear something different. There are three big problems in communication. First, negotiators may not be talking to each other, or at least not in such a way as to be understood. Frequently each side has given up on the other and is no longer attempting any serious communication with it. Instead they talk merely to impress third parties or their own constituency. Rather than trying to dance with their negotiating partner toward a mutually agreeable outcome, they try to trip him up. Rather than trying to talk their partner into a more constructive step, they try to talk the spectators into taking sides. Effective communication between the parties is all but impossible if each plays to the gallery. Even if you are talking directly and clearly to them, they may not be hearing you. This constitutes the second problem in communication. Note how often people don’t seem to pay enough attention to what you say. Probably equally often, you would be unable to repeat what they had said. In a negotiation, you may be so busy thinking about what you are going to say next, how you are going to respond to that last point or how you are going to frame your next argument, that you forget to listen to what the other side is saying now. Or you may be listening more attentively to your constituency than to the other side. Your constituents, after all, are the ones to whom you will have to account. for the results of the negotiation. They are the ones you are trying to satisfy. It is not surprising that you should want to pay close attention to them. But if you are not hearing what the other side is saying, there is no communication. The third communication problem is misunderstanding. What one says, the other may misinterpret. Even when negotiators are in the same room, communication from one to the other can seem like sending smoke signals in a high wind. Where the parties speak different languages the chance for misinterpretation is compounded. For example, in Persian, the word “compromise” apparently lacks the positive meaning it has in English of “a midway solution both sides can live with,” but has only a negative meaning as in “our integrity was compromised.” Similarly, the word “mediator” in Persian suggests “meddler,” someone who is barging in uninvited. In early 1980 U.N. Secretary General Waldheim flew to Iran to seek the release of American hostages. His efforts were seriously set back when Iranian national radio and television broadcast in Persian a remark he reportedly made on his arrival in Tehran: “I have come as a mediator to work out a compromise.” Within an hour of the broadcast, his car was being stoned by angry Iranians. What can be done about these three problems of communication? Listen actively and acknowledge what is being said. The need for listening is obvious, yet it is difficult to listen well, especially under the stress of an ongoing negotiation. Listening enables you to understand their perceptions, feel their emotions, and hear what they are trying to say. Active listening improves not only what you hear, but also what they say. If you pay attention and interrupt occasionally to say, “Did I understand correctly that you are saying that... ?” the other side will realize that they are not just killing time, not just going through a routine. They will also feel the satisfaction of being heard and understood. It has been said that the cheapest concession you can make to the other side is to let them know they have been heard. Standard techniques of good listening are to pay close attention to what is said, to ask the other party to spell out carefully and clearly exactly what they mean, and to request that ideas be repeated if there is any ambiguity or uncertainty. Make it your task while listening not to phrase a response, but to understand them as they see themselves. Take in their perceptions, their needs, and their constraints. Many consider it a good tactic not to give the other side’s case too much attention, and not to admit any legitimacy in their point of view. A good negotiator does just the reverse. Unless you acknowledge what they are saying and demonstrate that you understand them, they may believe you have not heard them. When you then try to explain a different point of view, they will suppose that you still have not grasped what they mean. They will say to themselves, “I told him my view, but now he’s saying something different, so he must not have understood it.” Then instead of listening to your point, they will be considering how to make their argument in a new way so that this time maybe you will fathom it. So show that you understand them. “Let me see whether I follow what you are telling me. From your point of view, the situation looks like this....” As you repeat what you understood them to have said, phrase it positively from their point of view, making the strength of their case clear. You might say, “You have a strong case. Let me see if I can explain it. Here’s the way it strikes me....” Understanding is not agreeing. One can at the same time understand perfectly and disagree completely with what the other side is saying. But unless you can convince them that you do grasp how they see it, you may be unable to explain your viewpoint to them. Once you have made their case for them, then come back with the problems you find in their proposal. If you can put their case better than they can, and then refute it, you maximize the chance of initiating a constructive dialogue on the merits and minimize the chance of their believing you have misunderstood them. Speak to be understood. Talk to the other side. It is easy to forget sometimes that a negotiation is not a debate. Nor is it a trial. You are not trying to persuade some third party. The person you are trying to persuade is seated at the table with you. If a negotiation is to be compared with a legal proceeding, the situation resembles that of two judges trying to reach agreement on how to decide a case. Try putting yourself in that role, treating your opposite number as a fellow judge with whom are you attempting to work out a joint opinion. In this context it is clearly unpersuasive to blame the other party for the problem, to engage in name-calling, or to raise your voice. On the contrary, it will help to recognize explicitly that they see the situation differently and to try to go forward as people with a joint problem. To reduce the dominating and distracting effect that the press, home audiences, and third parties may have, it is useful to establish private and confidential means of communicating with the other side. You can also improve communication by limiting the size of the group meeting. In the negotiations over the city of Trieste in 1954, for example, little progress was made in the talks among Yugoslavia, Britain, and the United States until the three principal negotiators abandoned their large delegations and started meeting alone and informally in a private house. A good case can be made for changing Woodrow Wilson’s appealing slogan “Open covenants openly arrived at” to “Open covenants privately arrived at.” No matter how many people are involved in a negotiation, important decisions are typically made when no more than two people are in the room. Speak about yourself, not about them. In many negotiations, each side explains and condemns at great length the motivations and intentions of the other side. It is more persuasive, however, to describe a problem in terms of its impact on you than in terms of what they did or why: “I feel let down” instead of “You broke your word.” “We feel discriminated against” rather than “You’re a racist.” If you make a statement about them that they believe is untrue, they will ignore you or get angry; they will not focus on your concern. But a statement about how you feel is difficult to challenge. You convey the same information without provoking a defensive reaction that will prevent them from taking it in. Speak for a purpose. Sometimes the problem is not too little communication, but too much. When anger and misperception are high, some thoughts are best left unsaid. At other times, full disclosure of how flexible you are may make it harder to reach agreement rather than easier. If you let me know that you would be willing to sell a house for $80,000, after I have said that I would be willing to pay as much as $90,000, we may have more trouble striking a deal than if you had just kept quiet. The moral is: Before making a significant statement, know what you want to communicate or find out, and know what purpose this information will serve. Prevention works best The techniques just described for dealing with problems of perception, emotion, and communication usually work well. However, the best time for handling people problems is before they become people problems. This means building a personal and organizational relationship with the other side that can cushion the people on each side against the knocks of negotiation. It also means structuring the negotiating game in ways that separate the substantive problem from the relationship and protect people’s egos from getting involved in substantive discussions. Build a working relationship. Knowing the other side personally really does help. It is much easier to attribute diabolical intentions to an unknown abstraction called the “other side” than to someone you know personally. Dealing with a classmate, a colleague, a friend, or even a friend of a friend is quite different from dealing with a stranger. The more quickly you can turn a stranger into someone you know, the easier a negotiation is likely to become. You have less difficulty understanding where they are coming from. You have a foundation of trust to build upon in a difficult negotiation. You have smooth, familiar communication routines. It is easier to defuse tension with a joke or an informal aside. The time to develop such a relationship is before the negotiation begins. Get to know them and find out about their likes and dislikes. Find ways to meet them informally. Try arriving early to chat before the negotiation is scheduled to start, and linger after it ends. Benjamin Franklin’s favorite technique was to ask an adversary if he could borrow a certain book. This would flatter the person and give him the comfortable feeling of knowing that Franklin owed him a favor. Face the problem, not the people. If negotiators view themselves as adversaries in a personal face-to-face confrontation, it is difficult to separate their relationship from the substantive problem. In that context, anything one negotiator says about the problem seems to be directed personally at the other and is received that way. Each side tends to become defensive and reactive and to ignore the other side’s legitimate interests altogether. A more effective way for the parties to think of themselves is as partners in a hardheaded, side-by-side search for a fair agreement advantageous to each. Like two shipwrecked sailors in a lifeboat at sea quarreling over limited rations and supplies, negotiators may begin by seeing each other as adversaries. Each may view the other as a hindrance. To survive, however, those two sailors will want to disentangle the objective problems from the people. They will want to identify the needs of each, whether for shade, medicine, water, or food. They will want to go further and treat the meeting of those needs as a shared problem, along with other shared problems like keeping watch, catching rainwater, and getting the lifeboat to shore. Seeing themselves as engaged in side-by-side efforts to solve a mutual problem, the sailors will become better able to reconcile their conflicting interests as well as to advance their shared interests. Similarly with two negotiators. However difficult personal relations may be between us, you and I become better able to reach an amicable reconciliation of our various interests when we accept that task as a shared problem and face it jointly. To help the other side change from a face-to-face orientation to side-by-side, you might raise the issue with them explicitly. “Look, we’re both lawyers [diplomats, businessmen, family, etc.]. Unless we try to satisfy your interests, we are hardly likely to reach an agreement that satisfies mine, and vice versa. Let’s look together at the problem of how to satisfy our collective interests.” Alternatively, you could start treating the negotiation as a side-by-side process and by your actions make it desirable for them to join in. It helps to sit literally on the same side of a table and to have in front of you the contract, the map, the blank pad of paper, or whatever else depicts the problem. If you have established a basis for mutual trust, so much the better. But however precarious your relationship may be, try to structure the negotiation as a side-by-side activity in which the two of you—with your different interests and perceptions, and your emotional involvement—jointly face a common task. Separating the people from the problem is not something you can do once and forget about; you have to keep working at it. The basic approach is to deal with the people as human beings and with the problem on its merits. How to do the latter is the subject of the next three chapters.  3 Focus on Interests, Not Positions Consider the story of two men quarreling in a library. One wants the window open and the other wants it closed. They bicker back and forth about how much to leave it open: a crack, halfway, three quarters of the way. No solution satisfies them both. Enter the librarian. She asks one why he wants the window open: “To get some fresh air.” She asks the other why he wants it closed: “To avoid the draft.” After thinking a minute, she opens wide a window in the next room, bringing in fresh air without a draft. For a wise solution reconcile Interests, not positions This story is typical of many negotiations. Since the parties’ problem appears to be a conflict of positions, and since their goal is to agree on a position, they naturally tend to think and talk about positions—and in the process often reach an impasse. The librarian could not have invented the solution she did if she had focused only on the two men’s stated positions of wanting the window open or closed. Instead she looked to their underlying interests of fresh air and no draft. This difference between positions and interests is crucial. Interests define the problem. The basic problem in a negotiation lies not in conflicting positions, but in the conflict between each side’s needs, desires, concerns, and fears. The parties may say: “I am trying to get him to stop that real estate development next door.” Or “We disagree. He wants $100,000 for the house. I won’t pay a penny more than $95,000.” But on a more basic level the problem is: “He needs the cash; I want peace and quiet.” Or “He needs at least $100,000 to settle with his ex-wife. I told my family that I wouldn’t pay more than $95,000 for a house.”  Such desires and concerns are interests. Interests motivate people; they are the silent movers behind the hubbub of positions. Your position is something you have decided upon. Your interests are what caused you to so decide. The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty blocked out at Camp David in 1978 demonstrates the usefulness of looking behind positions. Israel had occupied the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula since the Six Day War of 1967. When Egypt and Israel sat down together in 1978 to negotiate a peace, their positions were incompatible. Israel insisted on keeping some of the Sinai. Egypt, on the other hand, insisted that every inch of the Sinai be returned to Egyptian sovereignty. Time and again, people drew maps showing possible boundary lines that would divide the Sinai between Egypt and Israel. Compromising in this way was wholly unacceptable to Egypt. To go back to the situation as it was in 1967 was equally unacceptable to Israel. Looking to their interests instead of their positions made it possible to develop a solution. Israel’s interest lay in security; they did not want Egyptian tanks poised on their border ready to roll across at any time. Egypt’s interest lay in sovereignty; the Sinai had been part of Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs. After centuries of domination by Greeks, Romans, Turks, French, and British, Egypt had only recently regained full sovereignty and was not about to cede territory to another foreign conqueror. At Camp David, President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel agreed to a plan that would return the Sinai to complete Egyptian sovereignty and, by demilitarizing large areas, would still assure Israeli security. The Egyptian flag would fly everywhere, but Egyptian tanks would be nowhere near Israel. 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 interests, you can often find an alternative position which meets not only your interests but theirs as well. In the Sinai, demilitarization was one such alternative. Reconciling interests rather than compromising between positions also works because behind opposed positions lie many more interests than conflicting ones. Behind opposed positions lie shared and compatible interests, as well as conflicting ones. We tend to assume that because the other side’s positions are opposed to ours, their interests must also be opposed. If we have an interest in defending ourselves, then they must want to attack us. If we have an interest in minimizing the rent, then their interest must be to maximize it. In many negotiations, however, a close examination of the underlying interests will reveal the existence of many more interests that are shared or compatible than ones that are opposed. For example, look at the interests a tenant shares with a prospective landlord: 1. Both want stability. The landlord wants a stable tenant; the tenant wants a permanent address. 2. Both would like to see the apartment well maintained. The tenant is going to live there; the landlord wants to increase the value of the apartment as well as the reputation of the building. 3. Both are interested in a good relationship with each other. The landlord wants a tenant who pays the rent regularly; the tenant wants a responsive landlord who will carry out the necessary repairs. They may have interests that do not conflict but simply differ. For example: 1. The tenant may not want to deal with fresh paint, to which he is allergic. The landlord will not want to pay the costs of repainting all the other apartments. 2. The landlord would like the security of a down payment of the first month’s rent, and he may want it by tomorrow. The tenant, knowing that this is a good apartment, may be indifferent on the question of paying tomorrow or later. When weighed against these shared and divergent interests, the opposed interests in minimizing the rent and maximizing the return seem more manageable. The shared interests will likely result in a long lease, an agreement to share the cost of improving the apartment, and efforts by both parties to accommodate each other in the interest of a good relationship. The divergent interests may perhaps be reconciled by a down payment tomorrow and an agreement by the landlord to paint the apartment provided the tenant buys the paint. The precise amount of the rent is all that remains to be settled, and the market for rental apartments may define that fairly well. Agreement is often made possible precisely because interests differ. You and a shoe-seller may both like money and shoes. Relatively, his interest in the fifty dollars exceeds his interest in the shoes. For you, the situation is reversed: you like the shoes better than the fifty dollars. Hence the deal. Shared interests and differing but complementary interests can both serve as the building blocks for a wise agreement. How do you Identify Interests? The benefit of looking behind positions for interests is clear. How to go about it is less clear. A position is likely to be concrete and explicit; the interests underlying it may well be unexpressed, intangible, and perhaps inconsistent. How do you go about understanding the interests involved in a negotiation, remembering that figuring out their interests will be at least as important as figuring out yours? Ask “Why?” One basic technique is to put yourself in their shoes. Examine each position they take, and ask yourself “Why?” Why, for instance, does your landlord prefer to fix the rent—in a five-year lease—year by year? The answer you may come up with, to be protected against increasing costs, is probably one of his interests. You can also ask the landlord himself why he takes a particular position. If you do, make clear that you are asking not for justification of this position, but for an understanding of the needs, hopes, fears, or desires that it serves. “What’s your basic concern, Mr. Jones, in wanting the lease to run for no more than three years?” Ask “Why not?” Think about their choice. One of the most useful ways to uncover interests is first to identify the basic decision that those on the other side probably see you asking them for, and then to ask yourself why they have not made that decision. What interests of theirs stand in the way? If you are trying to change their minds, the starting point is to figure out where their minds are now.  Consider, for example, the negotiations between the United States and Iran in 1980 over the release of the fifty-two U.S. diplomats and embassy personnel held hostage in Tehran by student militants. While there were a host of serious obstacles to a resolution of this dispute, the problem is illuminated simply by looking at the choice of a typical student leader. The demand of the United States was clear: “Release the hostages.” During much of 1980 each student leader’s choice must have looked something like that illustrated by the balance sheet below. As OF: Spring 1980 Currently Perceived Choice of: An Iranian student leader Question Faced: “Shall I press for immediate release of the American hostages?” If a typical student leader’s choice did look even approximately like this, it is understandable why the militant students held the hostages so long: As outrageous and illegal as the original seizure was, once the hostages had been seized it was not irrational for the students to keep holding them from one day to the next, waiting for a more promising time to release them. In constructing the other side’s currently perceived choice the first question to ask is “Whose decision do I want to affect?” The second decision is what decision people on the other side now see you asking them to make. If you have no idea what they think they are being called on to do, they may not either. That alone may explain why they are not deciding as you would like. Now analyze the consequences, as the other side would probably see them, of agreeing or refusing to make the decision you are asking for. You may find a checklist of consequences such as the following helpful in this task: Impact on my interests Will I lose or gain political support? Will colleagues criticize or praise me? Impact on the group’s interests What will be the short-term consequences? The long-term consequences? What will be the economic consequences (political, legal, psychological, military, etc.)? What will be the effect on outside supporters and public opinion? Will the precedent be good or bad?  Will making this decision prevent doing something better? Is the action consistent with our principles? Is it “right”? Can I do it later if I want? In this entire process it would be a mistake to try for great precision. Only rarely will you deal with a decision-maker who writes down and weighs the pros and cons. You are trying to understand a very human choice, not making a mathematical calculation. Realize that each side has multiple interests. In almost every negotiation each side will have many interests, not just one. As a tenant negotiating a lease, for example, you may want to obtain a favorable rental agreement, to reach it quickly with little effort, and to maintain a good working relationship with your landlord. You will have not only a strong interest in affecting any agreement you reach, but also one in effecting an agreement. You will be simultaneously pursuing both your independent and your shared interests. A common error in diagnosing a negotiating situation is to assume that each person on the other side has the same interests. This is almost never the case. During the Vietnam war, President Johnson was in the habit of lumping together all the different members of the government of North Vietnam, the Vietcong in the south, and their Soviet and Chinese advisers and calling them collectively “he.” “The enemy has to learn that he can’t cross the United States with impunity. He is going to have to learn that aggression doesn’t pay.” It will be difficult to influence any such “him” (or even “them”) to agree to anything if you fail to appreciate the differing interests of the various people and factions involved. Thinking of negotiation as a two-person, two-sided affair can be illuminating, but it should not blind you to the usual presence of other persons, other sides, and other influences. In one baseball salary negotiation the general manager kept insisting that $500,000 was simply too much for a particular player, although other teams were paying at least that much to similarly talented players. In fact the manager felt his position was unjustifiable, but he had strict instructions from the club’s owners to hold firm without explaining why, because they were in financial difficulties that they did not want the public to hear about. Whether it is his employer, his client, his employees, his colleagues, his family, or his wife, every negotiator has a constituency to whose interests he is