Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Getting to Yes, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Effective Negotiation
Negotiation as the Pursuit of Interests
The Value of Working Relationships
Power Imbalance
Preparation and Flexibility
Summary
Analysis
The authors admit that negotiations always ultimately involve competing interests, and sometimes these cannot simply be circumvented or reconciled. They explain that most people approach negotiations by declaring that they are willing to do some things and unwilling to do others. The authors have already explained why it is unwise to turn negotiations into a mere conflict of wills through positional bargaining. The alternative is to base them on objective, agreed-upon criteria.
Until this point in the book, the authors have consistently emphasized the importance of seeking out shared and complementary interests in negotiations that might initially look zero-sum. However, here they admit that not everything can be win-win, and principled negotiators need a strategy for dealing with situations where parties’ interests truly are diametrically opposed. When they say that positional bargaining resolves these situations through a conflict of wills, what they mean is that positional bargainers stake out their opposed positions and then use various tactics unrelated to the actual negotiation. They resort to manipulating, exhausting, and taunting each other in order to try and get the other side to make concessions. But then, neither has incentive to make concessions because neither is offering anything in exchange. As a result, the negotiation simply becomes about who is more stubborn and, often, more willing to play dirty. This tendency is responsible for the worst effects of positional bargaining—particularly its tediousness and its nasty consequences for personal relationships between negotiators.
Themes
The authors point out that nobody would let a contractor build their house on shoddy foundations because there are objective, measurable standards that need to be followed for a house to be safe. Similarly, business negotiations should be based on objective figures that measure things like “fairness, efficiency, or scientific merit.” Staying consistent with precedent and common industry practice helps produce wise agreements, build confidence on all sides, and sustain amicable relationships. It also saves a lot of time, compared to positional bargaining.
The authors’ point is deceptively simple: objective criteria both foster better decisions and prevent conflict. This is the “principled” part of principled negotiation: negotiators should agree on principles (objective criteria) to resolve their differences. “Fairness, efficiency, [and] scientific merit” are natural candidates because they are totally independent of all the negotiating parties, so they can’t reasonably be seen as biased toward any of them.
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For instance, during the Law of the Sea Conference, the United States and India chose opposite positions on whether mining companies should have to pay a fee to start mining. They initially refused to budge, but when they looked at an economic model developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both reconsidered their initial positions. Neither one had to unilaterally back down, and they eventually reached a solution.
The MIT model was valuable not only because it provided a fair response to the mining dispute but also because of the role it played in the negotiation process: it served as a stepping stone to agreement and allowed both India and the U.S. to retract their original positions while saving face.
Themes
The authors offer strategies for “developing objective criteria.” Sometimes, there are various available standards for negotiators to use—for instance, there are several different ways to determine the value of a car. Scientific assessments, professional norms, principles of equality, and adherence to precedent or tradition are all possible sources of objective criteria, which have to be agreed upon by and applied to both sides in order to produce a wise agreement. It is helpful to ask whether the other side would agree to the terms if the situation were flipped—for instance, many nations insist that they deserve self-determination but deny it to others.
The authors admit that it is impossible to agree on a single, absolute definition of what is “objective.” But when they talk about “objective” criteria, what they really mean are independent criteria that all parties can agree upon. Because they are independent and agreed upon, these criteria are likely to be fair and equally applicable to both sides. Still, the parties actually need to go through the process of reaching an agreement, and there is no hard-and-fast rule for convincing the other side which standard is legitimate, as this largely depends upon the specific situation.
Themes
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In addition to fair criteria, negotiators should choose fair procedures. The Law of the Sea Conference established that private companies would always have to propose two mining sites, and then the UN-owned common mining company would take whichever it preferred. This is like the classic “‘one cuts, the other chooses’” strategy for dividing desserts. A similar strategy is to choose a procedure before deciding who will be on which side. For instance, during a divorce, parents can decide visitation rights before determining who will have custody. Other easy solutions include “taking turns, drawing lots, [and] letting someone else decide.”
Like criteria used to settle conflicting interests, procedures written into a negotiated agreement are fair and objective when they do not arbitrarily favor anyone over anyone else and are acceptable to all parties involved. They should be reciprocal, meaning it does not matter who is on what side. In “one cuts, the other chooses,” the cutter has an incentive to cut equally; “taking turns” works when having the first shot at something is not inherently advantageous; “drawing lots” is random; and so on. Of course, many people already intuitively use these procedures to deal with their differences.
Themes
The authors highlight three main points of “negotiating with objective criteria.” The first is that people should frame their negotiations as “joint search[es] for objective criteria.” They should seek to understand why the other side makes a certain offer and come to agreement about the principles underlying the decision process before applying them to reach a fair outcome.
It is important to mount a “joint search for objective criteria” in order for these criteria to really be objective: if one side insistently pushes a certain set of criteria, it is probably biased toward them. Crucially, negotiators should approach this search for criteria by asking what the most reasonable way to address their dispute would be, not by examining how each criteria implicates their side’s interests.
Themes
The second strategy for using objective criteria in a negotiation is to be open-minded about the criteria proposed by the opposition. One danger of negotiating based on principles is that the different sides might see their difference in position as reflecting a deeper difference in principles, then give up on resolving it. Instead, both sides should examine the arguments for and against different objective standards. It can be legitimate to combine two equally reasonable objective standards (like something’s market value and its price minus depreciation). It can also be fair to get third party opinions about standards.
Negotiators must be open to the other side’s proposals precisely because there is no infallible formula for choosing objective criteria. Reaching a fair, reasoned agreement about standards is ultimately more important than what specific standards are chosen, so it is essential to approach the search for criteria as principled negotiation (and not as positional bargaining).
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The authors’ third rule for using objective criteria in negotiations is to “never yield to pressure” but always be willing to yield to principles. People might try to trade favors by giving up on one issue in exchange for getting their way on another, unrelated one. But this does not affect principled negotiators, who should only care about the reasons and principles behind a position. By insisting upon objective criteria, a negotiator can force the other side to state their position in terms of objective merits.
Positional bargaining runs on pressure, while effective negotiators run on principles. Even when it seems favorable, “yield[ing] to pressure” ultimately sets a precedent for addressing disagreements through positional bargaining, and so it is usually counterproductive in the long term. Just as it is possible to divert conversation from positions to principles by asking why the other side holds its positions, it is possible to start searching for objective criteria by asking why the other side wants to resolve a certain disagreement in a particular way.
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Principled negotiators should avoid accepting arbitrary standards unless the other side completely refuses to budge and an unfair agreement turns out to be better than none at all, even considering the damage it will cause to a negotiator’s reputation. While principled negotiation is always a better strategy than positional bargaining, in other words, it is not completely foolproof.
Although principled negotiators can often persuade positional bargainers to start thinking in terms of interests and principles, at the end of the day, it is sometimes impossible to get them to agree to even the most fair and objective of agreements. Although positional bargainers can take advantage of whatever favorable position they might have in order to force an agreement, by doing so, they are likely to worsen their reputations and outcomes in the long run.
Themes
The authors end the chapter with the example of a man whose car has been destroyed arguing over compensation with the insurance company. The insurance adjuster initially refuses to explain how it decides to give the man $13,600, but the man continually pushes the adjuster to justify this amount by comparing it to used cars that have the same specifications, mileage, and technology as his car. He ultimately gets $18,024 from the insurance company.
In this example, the insurance company initially tries to give the man as little as possible and sidestep questions of principle. But when forced to justify its offer in terms of the car’s fair market value, the company is forced to offer more. Had the man simply asked for a bigger payout, however, it is unlikely that he would have succeeded. This shows how negotiating based upon objective criteria can help fairly and amicably resolve conflicts of interest. It is also hugely advantageous for relatively less powerful people who happen to have principle on their side.
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