Let's face it. We have to negotiate everyday from trivial issues such as negotiating with your wife or children what to have for dinner to important negotiations at work, in personal lives, etc. Negotiation is a facet of life which we cannot ignore and some of us may dread the very mention of the word. I like this book by Roger Fisher and William Ury (with Bruce Patton, editor) as the objective of the negotiation by the Authors are to make sure the negotiated agreement is as fair as possible to the negotiating parties and the book always emphasize the importance of conducting negotiation with integrity, honesty and respect. What I liked most about the book is the message that we should never bargain over positions which is counterproductive and diminishes the prospect of an acceptable agreement for all parties. Instead of negotiating over positions, we should always deliberate on the reasons behind our terms and to work out creative solutions together which is acceptable to the negotiating parties.
The following are excerpts from the book which I am sharing with all of you (words in blue are my own opinion):
1) Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at least not damage the relationship between the parties.
2) When negotiations bargain over positions, they tend to lock themselves into those positions. The more you clarify your position and defend it against attack, the more committed you become to it. The more you try to convince the other side of the impossibility of changing your opening position, the more difficult it becomes to do so. Your ego becomes identified with your position. You now have a new interest in "saving face" - in reconciling future action with past positions - making it less and less likely that any agreement will wisely reconcile the parties' original interests. (It is important to bear in mind in negotiations that we should not start the negotiation over our positions but rather the interests/rationale behind our terms so that we are not locked in counterproductive argument in defending our positions)
3) ........ pursuing a soft and friendly form of positional bargaining makes you vulnerable to someone who plays a hard game of positional bargaining. In positional bargaining, a hard game dominates a soft one.
4) If your response to sustained, hard positional bargaining is soft positional bargaining, you will probably lose your shirt.
5) ........ alternative to positional bargaining: a method of negotiation explicitly designed to produce wise outcomes efficiently and amicably........... principled negotiation or negotiation on merits, can be boiled down to four basic points.
People: Separate the people from the problem.
Interests: Focus on interests, not positions.
Options: Invent multiple options looking for mutual gains before deciding what to do.
Criteria: Insist that the result be based on some objective standard.
6) To sum up, in contrast to positional bargaining, the principled negotiation method of focusing on basic interests, mutually satisfying options, and fair standards typically results in a wise agreement. The method permits you to reach a gradual consensus on a joint decision efficiently without all the transactional costs of digging in to positions only to have to dig yourself out of them.
7) 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?" (Negotiation involves people and as such, it is natural that we pay attention to people as well)
8) 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.
9) 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.
10) 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. (Important point!)
11) Agreement becomes much easier if both parties feel ownership of the ideas.
12) Face-saving involves reconciling an agreement with principle and with the self-image of the negotiators. Its importance should not be underestimated.
13) Many emotions in negotiation are driven by a core set of five interests: autonomy, the desire to make your own choices and control your own fate; appreciation, the desire to be recognized and valued; affiliation, the desire to belong as an accepted member of some peer group; role, the desire to have a meaningful purpose; and status, the desire to feel fairly seen and acknowledged. Trampling on these interests tends to generate strong negative emotions. Attending to them can build rapport and a positive climate for problem-solving negotiation.
14) 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.
15) The more quickly you can turn a stranger into someone you know, the easier a negotiation is likely to become.
16) ....... however precarious your relationship may be, try to structure the negotiation as a side-by-side activitiy in which the two of you - with your different interests and perceptions, and your emotional involvement - jointly face a common task.
17) 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.
18) Inviting the other side to "correct me if I'm wrong" shows your openness, and if they do not correct you, it implies that they accept your description of the situation.
19) 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. (Being a good listener is also important in negotiation)
20) If you want someone to listen and understand your reasoning, give your interests and reasoning first and your conclusions or proposals later.
21) You will satisfy your interests better if you talk about where you would like to go rather than about where you have come from.
22) 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.
23) Show them that you are attacking the problem, not them.
24) Successful negotiation requires being both firm and open.
25) Skill at inventing options is one of the most useful assets a negotiator can have.
26) 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 assumption of a fixed pie; and (4) thinking that "solving their problem is their problem."
27) Outlaw negative criticism of any kind. (On brainstorming)
28) At the very least, if you and the other side cannot reach first-order agreement, you can usually reach second-order agreement - that is, agree on where you disagree, so that you both know the issues in dispute, which are not always obvious.
29) As a negotiator, you will almost always want to look for solutions that will leave the other side satisfied as well. If the customer feels cheated in a purchase, the store owner has also failed; he may lose a customer and his reputation may suffer.
30) Look for items that are of low cost to you and high benefit to them, and vice versa.
31) To produce an outcome independent of will, you can use either fair standards for the substantive question or fair procedures for resolving the conflicting interests. Consider, for example, the age-old way to divide a piece of cake between two children: one cuts and the other chooses. Neither can complain about an unfair division. (I just like the example of children dividing a piece of cake. Simple and elegant solution)
32) Never yield to pressure, only to principle.
33) Silence is one of your best weapons. Use it. If they have made an unreasonable proposal or an attack you regard as unjustified, the best thing to do may be to sit there and not say a word. If you have asked an honest question to which they have provided an insufficient answer, just wait. People tend to feel uncomfortable with silence, particularly if they have doubts about the merits of something they have said.
34) When you ask questions, pause. Don't take them off the hook by going right on with another question or some comment of your own.
35) Making yourself open to correction and persuasion is a pillar in the strategy of principled negotiation.
36) A good negotiator rarely makes an important decision on the spot. The psychological pressure to be nice and to give in is too great. A little time and distance help disentangle the people from the problem.
37) One way to try to head off this problem (ambiguous authority) is to clarify early in the negotiation that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," so that any effort to reopen one issue automatically reopens all issues.
38) You must decide on your own whether you want to use tactics you would consider improper and in bad faith if used against you. (For me, we should not go down to the same low level as those who use dirty tactics. We must be aware though when dirty tactics are being used against us but we must not let it taint us)
39) No one, however, can make you skillful but yourself. Reading a pamphlet on Royal Canadian Air Force fitness program will not make you physically fit. Studying books on tennis, swimming, riding a bicycle, or riding a horse will not make you an expert. (From today onwards, I would embrace challenging negotiation rather than avoid it. This is the only way I can get better at it. Technical people such as engineer would do well to remember that our learning should not be confined to technical knowledge only and "other" skills such as negotiation will make us a better engineer, consultant and probably a better person as well)
40) Many people tend to measure success by how far the other party has moved. Even if the first figure is a wholly arbitrary assertion of "sticker price" or "retail value," buyers will often feel happy about getting something for less. They have not checked the market. They do not know what their best alternative would cost, so they derive satisfaction from paying less than the first "asking price." (This may be the same tactic used by retailers by promoting sales campaign or warehouse sale where on the surface, it appears prices have been slashed and unsuspecting customers thought that they have gotten themselves a good bargain. It is important for consumers to check the market price!)
41) The best rule of thumb is to be optimistic - to let your reach exceed your grasp. Without wasting a lot of resources on hopeless causes, recognize that many things are worth trying for even if you may not succeed. The more you try for, the more you are likely to get. Studies of negotiation consistently show a strong correlation between aspiration and result. Within reason, it pays to think positively.
42) Your reputation for honesty and fair-dealing may be your single most important asset as a negotiator.
43) On inventing an elegant option, consider the sealed-bid stamp auction. The auctioneer would like bidders to offer the most they might conceivably be willing to pay for the stamps in question. Each potential buyer, however, does not want to pay more than necessary. In a regular sealed-bid auction each bidder tries to offer slightly more than their best guess of what others will bid, which is often less than the bidder would be willing to pay. But in a stamp auction the rules state that the highest bidder gets the stamps at the price of the second-highest bid. Buyers can safely bid exactly as much as they would be willing to pay to get the stamps, because the auctioneer guarantees that they will not have to pay it! No bidder is left wishing that he or she had bid more, and the high bidder is happy to pay less than was offered. The auctioneer is happy knowing that the difference between the highest and second-highest bids is usually smaller than the overall increase in the level of bids under this system versus regular sealed-bid auction. (This is an elegant solution and I would think it will work beautifully for other bids such as construction contracts, consultancy works, etc. where currently, the lowest bid is usually awarded the works and many times, it ends up with less than satisfactory results)
44) Convincing the other side that you are asking for no more than is fair is one of the most powerful arguments you can make.
In summary, this is a good book on principled negotiation which has certainly opened my eyes. Previously, I tried to avoid tough negotiation as the experience is often unpleasant as it involves the test of will between two opposing parties. After reading this book, I would look at negotiation as a process to obtain a fair and satisfactory agreement for both parties and the process should not be viewed negatively. For without negotiation, there would never be a way to move forward.
That's all folks. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Let us hope that the year 2014 will be a peaceful year with conflicts resolved through principled negotiation.
