Negotiation Techniques PDF

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 2. Separate the PEOPLE from the...

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 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 men, "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 man. I send him on replacement only when it's a key man missing, otherwise I send Smith or someone else. It's just that with the flu going around there've been a lot of point men 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: "Mr. 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, Mr. 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, Mr. Monteiro." Now what? Does the insurance company lawyer press the Commissioner on this point, making him angry and probably not getting anywhere? His company does a lot of business in this state. A good relationship with the Commissioner is important. Should he let the matter rest, 13 then, even though he 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 posi- tions. 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. 14  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 sep- arately 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 dif- 15 ference. 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 landlady negotiating the renewal of a lease: TENANTS PERCEPTIONS LANDLADY'S PERCEPTIONS The rent is already too high. The rent has not been increased for a long time. With other costs going up, I can't afford to With other costs going up, I need more pay more for housing. rental income. The apartment needs painting. He has given that apartment heavy wear and tear. I know people who pay less for a I know people who pay more for a comparable apartment. comparable apartment. Young people like me can't afford to pay Young people like him tend to make noise high rents. and to be hard on an apartment. The rent ought to be low because the We landlords should raise rents in order to neighborhood is rundown. improve the quality of the neighborhood. I am a desirable tenant with no dogs or cats. His hi-fi drives me crazy. I always pay the rent whenever she asks for He never pays the rent until I ask for it. it. She is cold and distant; she never asks me I am a considerate person who never how things are. intrudes on a tenant's privacy. 16  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 some 150 nations gathered together 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 indus- trialized 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 17 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 sim- ple. 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. 18  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 (he 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 19 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 20 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 negotiations 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 ex- plain 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 21 agreement on how to decide a case. Try putting yourself in that role, treating your opposite number as a fellow judge with whom you are 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 Wood-row 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. 22  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 differing 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. 23  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 inter- ests 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 24  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 thirty dollars exceeds his interest in the shoes. For you, the situation is reversed: you like the shoes better than the thirty 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 un- expressed, 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. 25  AS OF: Spring 1980 Presently Perceived Choice of: An Iranian student leader Question Faced: "Shall I press for immediate release of the American hostages?" IF I SAY YES IF I SAY NO — I sell out the Revolution. + I uphold the Revolution. — I will be criticized as pro-American. + I will be praised for defending Islam. — The others will probably not agree with + We will probably all stick together. me; if they do and we release the hostages, then: + We get fantastic TV coverage to tell the world about our grievances. — Iran looks weak. + Iran looks strong. — We back down to the U.S. + We stand up to the U.S. — We get nothing (no Shah, no money). + We have a chance of getting something (at — We do not know what the U.S. will do. least our money back). + The hostages provide some protection against U.S. intervention. BUT: BUT: + There is a chance that economic sanctions — Economic sanctions will no doubt might end. continue. + Our relations with other nations, — Our relations with other nations, especially in Europe, may improve. especially in Europe, will suffer. — Inflation and economic problems will continue. — There is a risk that the U.S. might take military action (but a martyr's death is the most glorious). HOWEVER: + The U.S. may make further commitments about our money, nonintervention, ending sanctions, etc. + We can always release the hostages later. 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 tune to release them. In constructing the other side's presently perceived choice the first question to ask is "Whose decision do I want to affect?" The second question 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? 26  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 sensitive. To understand that negotiator's interests means to understand the variety of somewhat differing interests that he needs to take into account. The most powerful interests are basic human needs. In searching for the basic interests behind a declared position, look particularly for those bedrock concerns which motivate all people. If you can take care of such basic needs, you increase the chance both of reaching agreement and, if an agreement is reached, of the other side's keeping to it. Basic human needs include: security economic well-being a sense of belonging recognition control over one's life As fundamental as they are, basic human needs are easy to overlook. In many negotiations, we tend to think that the only interest involved is money. Yet even in a negotiation over a monetary figure, such as the amount of alimony to be specified in a separation agreement, much more can be involved. What does a wife really want in asking for $500 a week in alimony? 27 Certainly she is interested in her economic well-being, but what else? Possibly she wants the money in order to feel psychologically secure. She may also want it for recognition: to feel that she is treated fairly and as an equal. Perhaps the husband can ill afford to pay $500 a week, and perhaps his wife does not need that much, yet she will likely accept less only if her needs for security and recognition are met in other ways. What is true for individuals remains equally true for groups and nations. Negotiations are not likely to make much progress as long as one side believes that the fulfillment of their basic human needs is being threatened by the other. In negotiations between the United States and Mexico, the U.S. wanted a low price for Mexican natural gas. Assuming that this was a negotiation over money, the U.S. Secretary of Energy refused to approve a price increase negotiated with the Mexicans by a U.S. oil consortium. Since the Mexicans had no other potential buyer at the time, he assumed that they would then lower their asking price. But the Mexicans had a strong interest not only in getting a good price for their gas but also in being treated with respect and a sense of equality. The U.S. action seemed like one more attempt to bully Mexico; it produced enormous anger. Rather than sell their gas, the Mexican government began to burn it off, and any chance of agreement on a lower price became politically impossible. To take another example, in the negotiations over the future of Northern Ireland, Protestant leaders tend to ignore the Catholics' need for both belonging and recognition, for being accepted and treated as equals. In turn, Catholic leaders often appear to give too little weight to the Protestants' need to feel secure. Treating Protestant fears as "their problem" rather than as a legitimate concern needing attention makes it even more difficult to negotiate a solution. Make a list. To sort out the various interests of each side, it helps to write them down as they occur to you. This will not only help you remember them; it will also enable you to improve the quality of your assessment as you learn new information and to place interests in their estimated order of importance. Furthermore, it may stimulate ideas for how to meet these interests. Talking about interests The purpose of negotiating is to serve your interests. The chance of that happening increases when you communicate them. The other side may not know what your interests are, and you may not know theirs. One or both of you may be focusing on past grievances instead of on future concerns. Or you may not even be listening to each other. How do you discuss interests constructively without getting locked into rigid positions? If you want the other side to take your interests into account, explain to them what those interests are. A member of a concerned citizens' group complaining about a construction project in the neighborhood should talk explicitly about such issues as ensuring children's safety and getting a good night's sleep. An author who wants to be able to give a great many of his books away should discuss the matter with his publisher. The publisher has a shared interest in promotion and may be willing to offer the author a low price. Make your interests come alive. If you go with a raging ulcer to see a doctor, you should not hope for much relief if you describe it as a mild stomachache. It is your job to have the other side understand exactly how important and legitimate your interests are. One guideline is be specific. Concrete details not only make your description credible, they add impact. For example: "Three times in the last week, a child was almost run over by one of your trucks. About eight-thirty Tuesday morning that huge red gravel truck of yours, going north at almost forty miles an hour, had to swerve and barely missed hitting seven-year-old Loretta Johnson." As long as you do not seem to imply that the other side's interests are unimportant or illegitimate, you can afford to take a strong stance in setting forth the seriousness of your concerns. Inviting the other side to "correct me if I'm wrong" shows your openness, and if they 28 do not correct you, it implies that they accept your description of the situation. Part of the task of impressing the other side with your interests lies in establishing the legitimacy of those interests. You want them to feel not that you are attacking them personally, but rather that the problem you face legitimately demands attention. You need to convince them that they might well feel the same way if they were in your shoes. "Do you have children? How would you feel if trucks were hurtling at forty miles per hour down the street where you live?" Acknowledge their interests as part of the problem. Each of us tends to be so concerned with his or her own interests that we pay too little heed to the interests of others. People listen better if they feel that you have understood them. They tend to think that those who understand them are intelligent and sympathetic people whose own opinions may be worth listening to. So if you want the other side to appreciate your interests, begin by demonstrating that you appreciate theirs. "As I understand it, your interests as a construction company are basically to get the job done quickly at minimum cost and to preserve your reputation for safety and responsibility in the city. Have I understood you correctly? Do you have other important interests?" In addition to demonstrating that you have understood their interests, it helps to acknowledge that their interests are part of the overall problem you are trying to solve. This is especially easy to do if you have shared interests: "It would be terrible for all of us if one of your trucks hit a child." Put the problem before your answer. In talking to someone who represents a construction company, you might say, "We believe you should build a fence around the project within forty-eight hours and beginning immediately should restrict the speed of your trucks on Oak Street to fifteen miles an hour. Now let me tell you why...." If you do, you can be quite certain that he will not be listening to the reasons. He has heard your position and is no doubt busy preparing arguments against it. He was probably disturbed by your tone or by the suggestion itself. As a result, your justification will slip by him altogether. If you want someone to listen and understand your reasoning, give your interests and reasoning first and your conclusions or proposals later. Tell the company first about the dangers they are creating for young children and about your sleepless nights. Then they will be listening carefully, if only to try to figure out where you will end up on this question. And when you tell them, they will understand why. Look forward, not back. It is surprising how often we simply react to what someone else has said or done. Two people will often fall into a pattern of discourse that resembles a negotiation, but really has no such purpose whatsoever. They disagree with each other over some issue, and the talk goes back and forth as though they were seeking agreement. In fact, the argument is being carried on as a ritual, or simply a pastime. Each is engaged in scoring points against the other or in gathering evidence to confirm views about the other that have long been held and are not about to be changed. Neither party is seeking agreement or is even trying to influence the other. If you ask two people why they are arguing, the answer will typically identify a cause, not a purpose. Caught up in a quarrel, whether between husband and wife, between company and union, or between two businesses, people are more likely to respond to what the other side has said or done than to act in pursuit of their own long-term interests. "They can't treat me like that. If they think they're going to get away with that, they will have to think again. I'll show them." The question "Why?" has two quite different meanings. One looks backward for a cause and treats our behavior as determined by prior events. The other looks forward for a purpose and treats our behavior as subject to our free will. We need not enter into a philosophical debate between free will and determinism in order to decide how to act. Either we have free will or it is determined that we behave as if we do. In either case, we make choices. We can choose to look back or to look forward. You will satisfy your interests better if you talk about where you would like to go rather than about where you have come from. Instead of arguing with the other side about the past — 29 about last quarter's costs (which were too high), last week's action (taken without adequate authority), or yesterday's performance (which was less than expected) — talk about what you want to have happen in the future. Instead of asking them to justify what they did yesterday, ask, "Who should do what tomorrow?" Be concrete but flexible. In a negotiation you want to know where you are going and yet be open to fresh ideas. To avoid having to make a difficult decision on what to settle for, people will often go into a negotiation with no other plan than to sit down with the other side and see what they offer or demand. How can you move from identifying interests to developing specific options and still remain flexible with regard to those options? To convert your interests into concrete options, ask yourself, "If tomorrow the other side agrees to go along with me, what do I now think I would like them to go along with?" To keep your flexibility, treat each option you formulate as simply illustrative. Think in terms of more than one option that meets your interests. "Illustrative specificity" is the key concept. Much of what positional bargainers hope to achieve with an opening position can be accomplished equally well with an illustrative suggestion that generously takes care of your interest. For example, in a baseball contract negotiation, an agent might say that $5,000,000 a year would be the kind of figure that should satisfy Henderson's interest in receiving the salary he feels he is worth. Something on the order of a five-year contract should meet his need for job security." Having thought about your interests, you should go into a meeting not only with one or more specific options that would meet your legitimate interests but also with an open mind. An open mind is not an empty one. Be hard on the problem, soft on the people. You can be just as hard in talking about your interests as any negotiator can be in talking about his position. In fact, it is usually advisable to be hard. It may not be wise to commit yourself to your position, but it is wise to commit yourself to your interests. This is the place in a negotiation to spend your aggressive energies. The other side, being concerned with their own interests, will tend to have overly optimistic expectations of the range of possible agreements. Often the wisest solutions, those that produce the maximum gain for you at the minimum cost to the other side, are produced only by strongly advocating your interests. Two negotiators, each pushing hard for their interests, will often stimulate each other's creativity in thinking up mutually advantageous solutions. The construction company, concerned with inflation, may place a high value on its interest in keeping costs down and in getting the job done on time. You may have to shake them up. Some honest emotion may help restore a better balance between profits and children's lives. Do not let your desire to be conciliatory stop you from doing justice to your problem. "Surely you're not saying that my son's life is worth less than the price of a fence. You wouldn't say that about your son. I don't believe you're an insensitive person, Mr. Jenkins. Let's figure out how to solve this problem." If they feel personally threatened by an attack on the problem, they may grow defensive and may cease to listen. This is why it is important to separate the people from the problem. Attack the problem without blaming the people. Go even further and be personally supportive: Listen to them with respect, show them courtesy, express your appreciation for their time and effort, emphasize your concern with meeting their basic needs, and so on. Show them that you are attacking the problem, not them. One useful rule of thumb is to give positive support to the human beings on the other side equal in strength to the vigor with which you emphasize the problem. This combination of support and attack may seem inconsistent. Psychologically, it is; the inconsistency helps make it work. A well-known theory of psychology, the theory of cognitive dissonance, holds that people dislike inconsistency and will act to eliminate it. By attacking a problem, such as speeding trucks on a neighborhood street, and at the same time giving the company representative positive support, you create cognitive dissonance for him. To overcome this dissonance, he will be 30 tempted to dissociate himself from the problem in order to join you in doing something about it. Fighting hard on the substantive issues increases the pressure for an effective solution; giving support to the human beings on the other side tends to improve your relationship and to increase the likelihood of reaching agreement. It is the combination of support and attack which works; either alone is likely to be insufficient. Negotiating hard for your interests does not mean being closed to the other side's point of view. Quite the contrary. You can hardly expect the other side to listen to your interests and discuss the options you suggest if you don't take their interests into account and show yourself to be open to their suggestions. Successful negotiation requires being both firm and open. 4. Invent OPTIONS for Mutual Gain The case of Israel and Egypt negotiating over who should keep how much of the Sinai Peninsula illustrates both a major problem in negotiation and a key opportunity. The problem is a common one. There seems to be no way to split the pie that leaves both parties satisfied. Often you are negotiating along a single dimension, such as the amount of territory, the price of a car, the length of a lease on an apartment, or the size of a commission on a sale. At other times you face what appears to be an either/or choice that is either markedly favorable to you or to the other side. In a divorce settlement, who gets the house? Who gets custody of the children? You may see the choice as one between winning and losing — and neither side will agree to lose. Even if you do win and get the car for $5,000, the lease for five years, or the house and kids, you have a sinking feeling that they will not let you forget it. Whatever the situation, your choices seem limited. The Sinai example also makes clear the opportunity. A creative option like a demilitarized Sinai can often make the difference between deadlock and agreement. One lawyer we know attributes his success directly to his ability to invent solutions advantageous to both his client and the other side. He expands the pie before dividing it. Skill at inventing options is one of the most useful assets a negotiator can have. Yet all too often negotiators end up like the proverbial sisters who quarreled over an orange. After they finally agreed to divide the orange in half, the first sister took her half, ate the fruit, and threw away the peel, while the other threw away the fruit and used the peel from her half in baking a cake. All too often negotiators "leave money on the table" — they fail to reach agreement when they might have, or the agreement they do reach could have been better for each side. Too many negotiations end up with half an orange for each side instead of the whole fruit for one and the whole peel for the other. Why? DIAGNOSIS As valuable as it is to have many options, people involved in a negotiation rarely sense a need for them. In a dispute, people usually believe that they know the right answer — their view should prevail. In a contract negotiation they are equally likely to believe that their offer is reasonable and should be adopted, perhaps with some adjustment in the price. All available an- swers appear to lie along a straight line between their position and yours. Often the only creative thinking shown is to suggest splitting the difference. In most negotiations there are four major obstacles that inhibit the inventing of an abundance of options: (1) premature judgment; (2) searching for the single answer; (3) the as- sumption of a fixed pie; and (4) thinking that "solving their problem is their problem." In order to overcome these constraints, you need to understand them. Premature judgment Inventing options does not come naturally. Not inventing is the normal state of affairs, even when you are outside a stressful negotiation. If you were asked to name the one person in the world most deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, any answer you might start to propose would 31 immediately encounter your reservations and doubts. How could you be sure that that person was the most deserving? Your mind might well go blank, or you might throw out a few answers that would reflect conventional thinking: "Well, maybe the Pope, or the President." Nothing is so harmful to inventing as a critical sense waiting to pounce on the drawbacks of any new idea. Judgment hinders imagination. Under the pressure of a forthcoming negotiation, your critical sense is likely to be sharper. Practical negotiation appears to call for practical thinking, not wild ideas. Your creativity may be even more stifled by the presence of those on the other side. Suppose you are negotiating with your boss over your salary for the coming year. You have asked for a $4,000 raise; your boss has offered you $1,500, a figure that you have indicated is unsatisfactory. In a tense situation like this you are not likely to start inventing imaginative solutions. You may fear that if you suggest some bright half-baked idea like taking half the increase in a raise and half in additional benefits, you might look foolish. Your boss might say, "Be serious. You know better than that. It would upset company policy. I am surprised that you even suggested it." If on the spur of the moment you invent a possible option of spreading out the raise over time, he may take it as an offer: " I'm prepared to start negotiating on that basis." Since he may take whatever you say as a commitment, you will think twice before saying anything. You may also fear that by inventing options you will disclose some piece of information that will jeopardize your bargaining position. If you should suggest, for example, that the company help finance the house you are about to buy, your boss may conclude that you intend to stay and that you will in the end accept any raise in salary he is prepared to offer. Searching for the single answer In most people's minds, inventing simply is not part of the negotiating process. People see their job as narrowing the gap between positions, not broadening the options available. They tend to think, "We're having a hard enough time agreeing as it is. The last thing we need is a bunch of different ideas." Since the end product of negotiation is a single decision, they fear that free- floating discussion will only delay and confuse the process. If the first impediment to creative thinking is premature criticism, the second is premature closure. By looking from the outset for the single best answer, you are likely to short-circuit a wiser decision-making process in which you select from a large number of possible answers. The assumption of a fixed pie A third explanation for why there may be so few good options on the table is that each side sees the situation as essentially either/or — either I get what is in dispute or you do. A negotiation often appears to be a "fixed-sum" game; $100 more for you on the price of a car means $100 less for me. Why bother to invent if all the options are obvious and I can satisfy you only at my own expense? Thinking that "solving their problem is their problem" A final obstacle to inventing realistic options lies in each side's concern with only its own immediate interests. For a negotiator to reach an agreement that meets his own self-interest he needs to develop a solution, which also appeals to the self-interest of the other. Yet emotional involvement on one side of an issue makes it difficult to achieve the detachment necessary to think up wise ways of meeting the interests of both sides: "We've got enough problems of our own; they can look after theirs." There also frequently exists a psychological reluctance to accord any legitimacy to the views of the other side; it seems disloyal to think up ways to satisfy them. Shortsighted self-concern thus leads a negotiator to develop only partisan positions, partisan arguments, and one-sided solutions. PRESCRIPTION To invent creative options, then, you will need (1) to separate the act of inventing options from the act of judging them; (2) to broaden the options on the table rather than look for a single 32 answer; (3) to search for mutual gains; and (4) to invent ways of making their decisions easy. Each of these steps is discussed below. Separate inventing from deciding Since judgment hinders imagination, separate the creative act from the critical one; separate the process of thinking up possible decisions from the process of selecting among them. Invent first, decide later. As a negotiator, you will of necessity do much inventing by yourself. It is not easy. By definition, inventing new ideas requires you to think about things that are not already in your mind. You should therefore consider the desirability of arranging an inventing or brainstorming session with a few colleagues or friends. Such a session can effectively separate inventing from deciding. A brainstorming session is designed to produce as many ideas as possible to solve the problem at hand. The key ground rule is to postpone all criticism and evaluation of ideas. The group simply invents ideas without pausing to consider whether they are good or bad, realistic or unrealistic. With those inhibitions removed, one idea should stimulate another, like firecrackers setting off one another. In a brainstorming session, people need not fear looking foolish since wild ideas are explicitly encouraged. And in the absence of the other side, negotiators need not worry about disclosing confidential information or having an idea taken as a serious commitment. There is no one right way to run a brainstorming session. Rather, you should tailor it to your needs and resources. In doing so, you may find it useful to consider the following guidelines. Before brainstorming: 1. Define your purpose. Think of what you would like to walk out of the meeting with. 2. Choose a few participants. The group should normally be large enough to provide a stimulating interchange, yet small enough to encourage both individual participation and free- wheeling inventing — usually between five and eight people. 3. Change the environment. Select a time and place distinguishing the session as much as possible from regular discussions. The more different a brainstorming session seems from a normal meeting, the easier it is for participants to suspend judgment. 4. Design an informal atmosphere. What does it take for you and others to relax? It may be talking over a drink, or meeting at a vacation lodge in some picturesque spot, or simply taking off your tie and jacket during the meeting and calling each other by your first names. 5. Choose a facilitator. Someone at the meeting needs to facilitate — to keep the meeting on track, to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak, to enforce any ground rules, and to stimulate discussion by asking questions. Daring brainstorming: 1. Seat the participants side by facing the problem. The physical reinforces the psychological. Physically sitting side by side can reinforce the mental attitude of tackling a common problem together. People facing each other tend to respond personally and engage in dialogue or argument; people sitting side by side in a semicircle of chairs facing a blackboard tend to respond to the problem depicted there. 2. Clarify the ground rules, including the no-criticism rule. If the participants do not all know each other, the meeting begins with introductions all around, followed by clarification of the ground rules. Outlaw negative criticism of any kind. Joint inventing produces new ideas because each of us invents only within the limits set by our working assumptions. If ideas are shot down unless they appeal to all participants, the implicit goal becomes to advance an idea that no one will shoot down. If, on the other hand, wild ideas are encouraged, even those that in fact lie well outside the realm of the possible, the group 33 may generate from these ideas other options that are possible and that no one would previously have considered. Other ground rules you may want to adopt are to make the entire session off the record and to refrain from attributing ideas to any participant. 3. Brainstorm. Once the purpose of the meeting is clear, let your imaginations go. Try to come up with a long list of ideas, approaching the question from every conceivable angle. 4. Record the ideas in full view. Recording ideas either on a blackboard or, better, on large sheets of newsprint gives the group a tangible sense of collective achievement; it reinforces the no-criticism rule; it reduces the tendency to repeat; and it helps stimulate other ideas. After brainstorming: 1. Star the most promising ideas. After brainstorming, relax the no-criticism rule in order to winnow out the most promising ideas. You are still not at the stage of deciding; you are merely nominating ideas worth developing further. Mark those ideas that members of the group think are best. 2. Invent improvements for promising ideas. Take one promising idea and invent ways to make it better and more realistic, as well as ways to carry it out. The task at this stage is to make the idea as attractive as you can. Preface constructive criticism with: "What I like best about that idea is.... Might it be better if... ?" 3. Set up a time to evaluate ideas and decide. Before you break up, draw up a selective and improved list of ideas from the session and set up a time for deciding which of these ideas to advance in your negotiation and how. Consider brainstorming with the other side. Although more difficult than brainstorming with your own side, brainstorming with people from the other side can also prove extremely valuable. It is more difficult because of the increased risk that you will say something that prejudices your interests despite the rules established for a brainstorming session. You may disclose confidential information inadvertently or lead the other side to mistake an option you devise for an offer. Nevertheless, joint brainstorming sessions have the great advantages of producing ideas which take into account the interests of all those involved, of creating a climate of joint problem-solving, and of educating each side about the concerns of the other. To protect yourself when brainstorming with the other side, distinguish the brainstorming session explicitly from a negotiating session where people state official views and speak on the record. People are so accustomed to meeting for the purpose of reaching agreement that any other purpose needs to be clearly stated. To reduce the risk of appearing committed to any given idea, you can make a habit of advancing at least two alternatives at the same time. You can also put on the table options with which you obviously disagree. "I could give you the house for nothing, or you could pay me a million dollars in cash for it, or...." Since you are plainly riot proposing either of these ideas, the ones which follow are labeled as mere possibilities, not proposals. To get the flavor of a joint brainstorming session, let us suppose the leaders of a local union are meeting with the management of a coal mine to brainstorm on ways to reduce un- authorized one- or two-day strikes. Ten people — five from each side — are present, sitting around a table facing a blackboard. A neutral facilitator asks the participants for their ideas, and writes them down on the blackboard. FACILITATOR: OK, now let's see what ideas you have for dealing with this problem of unauthorized work stoppages. Let's try to get ten ideas on the blackboard in five minutes. OK, let's start. Tom? TOM (UNION): Foremen ought to be able to settle a union member's grievance on the spot. FACILITATOR: Good, I've got it down. Jim, you've got your hand up. JIM (MANAGEMENT): A union member ought to talk to his foreman about a problem before taking any action that —— TOM (UNION): They do, but the foremen don't listen. FACILITATOR: Tom, please, no criticizing yet. We agreed to postpone that until later, OK? How about you, Jerry? You look like you've got an idea. 34  JERRY (UNION): When a strike issue comes up, the union members should be allowed to meet in the bathhouse immediately. ROGER (MANAGEMENT): Management could agree to let the bathhouse be used for union meetings and could assure the employees' privacy by shutting the doors and keeping the foremen out. CAROL (MANAGEMENT): How about adopting the rule that there will be no strike without giving the union leaders and management a chance to work it out on the spot? JERRY (UNION): How about speeding up the grievance procedure and having a meeting within twenty-four hours if the foreman and union member don't settle it between themselves? KAREN (UNION): Yeah, And how about organizing some joint training for the union members and the foremen on how to handle their problems together? PHIL (UNION): If a person does a good job, let him know it. JOHN (MANAGEMENT): Establish friendly relations between union people and management people. FACILITATOR: That sounds promising, John, but could you be more specific? JOHN (MANAGEMENT): Well, how about organizing a union-management softball team? TOM (UNION): And a bowling team too. ROGER (MANAGEMENT): How about an annual picnic get-together for all the families? And on it goes, as the participants brainstorm lots of ideas. Many of the ideas might never have come up except in such a brainstorming session, and some of them may prove effective in reducing unauthorized strikes. Time spent brainstorming together is surely among the best-spent time in negotiation. But whether you brainstorm together or not, separating the act of developing options from the act of deciding on them is extremely useful in any negotiation. Discussing options differs radically from taking positions. Whereas one side's position will conflict with another's, options invite other options. The very language you use differs. It consists of questions, not assertions; it is open, not closed: "One option is.... What other options have you thought of?" "What if we agreed to this?" "How about doing it this way?" "How would this work?" "What would be wrong with that?" Invent before you decide. Broaden your options Even with the best of intentions, participants in a brainstorming session are likely to operate on the assumption that they are really looking for the one best answer, trying to find a needle in a haystack by picking up every blade of hay. At this stage in a negotiation, however, you should not be looking for the right path. You are developing room within which to negotiate. Room can be made only by having a substantial number of markedly different ideas — ideas on which you and the other side can build later in the negotiation, and among which you can then jointly choose. A vintner making a fine wine chooses his grapes from a number of varieties. A baseball team looking for star players will send talent scouts to scour the local leagues and college teams all over the nation. The same principle applies to negotiation. The key to wise decision-making, whether in wine-making, baseball, or negotiation, lies in selecting from a great number and variety of options. If you were asked who should receive the Nobel Peace Prize this year, you would do well to answer "Well, let's think about it" and generate a list of about a hundred names from diplomacy, business, journalism, religion, law, agriculture, politics, academia, medicine, and other fields, making sure to dream up a lot of wild ideas. You would almost certainly end up with a better decision this way than if you tried to decide right from the start. A brainstorming session frees people to think creatively. Once freed, they need ways to think about their problems and to generate constructive solutions. Multiply options by shuttling between the specific and the general: The Circle Chart. The task of inventing options involves four types of thinking. One is thinking about a particular problem — the factual situation you dislike, for example, a smelly, polluted river that runs by your land. The second type of thinking is descriptive analysis — you diagnose an existing situation in general terms. You sort problems into categories and tentatively suggest causes. The 35 river water may have a high content of various chemicals, or too little oxygen. You may suspect various upstream industrial plants. The third type of thinking, again in general terms, is to consider what ought, perhaps, to be done. Given the diagnoses you have made, you look for prescriptions that theory may suggest, such as reducing chemical effluent, reducing diversions of water, or bringing fresh water from some other river. The fourth and final type of thinking is to come up with some specific and feasible suggestions for action. Who might do what tomorrow to put one of these general approaches into practice? For instance, the state environmental agency might order an upstream industry to limit the quantity of chemical discharge. The Circle Chart on the next page illustrates these four types of thinking and suggests them as steps to be taken in sequence. If all goes well, the specific action invented in this way will, if a