This presentation had been used internally in a Lunch & Learn session at KMS Technology which is one of the types of knowledge sharing at KMS Technology Vietnam (www.kms-technology.com)

1. Getting to Yes
Authors: Roger Fisher and William Ury
Book Sharing from Ms. Mai Le
Engineering Manager at KMS Technology Vientnam
www.kms-technology.com
1

2. Why this book?

3. About the Authors
• Roger Fisher: Williston Professor of Law and
Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project
• William Ury: Director of the Negotiation
Network at Harvard University and Associate
Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project

4. Table of Content
• The Problem
• The Method
• Yes, But…
• In Conclusion
• 10 Questions People Ask

5. THE PROBLEM

6. Positional Negotiation
• Produces unwise agreements
• Inefficient
• Endangers an ongoing relationship
• Gets worse with many parties involved
• Soft/Hard positional negotiation

7. Principled Negotiation
• People: Separate the people from the problem
• Interests: Focus on interests, not positions
• Options: Invent options for mutual gain
• Criteria: Insist on using objective criteria

8. Positional vs Principled Negotiation
Soft Hard Principled
• Participants are friends • Participants are adversaries • Participants are problem-solvers
• The goal is agreement • The goal is victory • The goal is a wise outcome
reached efficiently and amicably
• Make concessions to cultivate the • Demand concessions as a • Separate the people from the
relationship condition of the relationship problem
• Be soft on the people and the • Be hard on the problem and the • Be soft on the people, hard on
problem people the problem
• Trust others • Distrust others • Proceed independent of trust
• Change your position easily • Dig in to your position • Focus on interests, not positions
• Make offers • Make threats • Explore interests
• Disclose your bottom line • Mislead as to your bottom line • Avoid having a bottom line
• Accept one-sided losses to reach • Demand one-sided gains as the • Invent options for mutual gain
agreement price of agreement
• Search for the single answer: the • Search for the single answer: the • Develop multiple options to
one they will accept one you will accept choose from; decide later
• Insist on agreement • Insist on your position • Insist on using objective criteria
• Try to avoid a contest of will • Try to win a contest of will • Try to reach a result based on
standards independent of will
• Yield to pressure • Apply pressure • Reason and be open to reasons;
yield to principle, not pressure

9. THE METHOD

10. 1. Separate the PEOPLE from the problem
• Separate the relationship from the substance;
deal directly with the people problem
• Prevention works best
• Side-by-side search for a fair agreement

11. Deal with people problem
• Perception
– Put yourself in their shoes
– Discuss perceptions explicitly
– Look for facts inconsistent with their perceptions
– Give them a stake in the outcome by participating in the process
– Face-saving: make proposals consistent with their values
• Emotion
– Make emotions explicit, acknowledge them as valid
– Allow the other side to let off steam
– Don't react to emotional outbursts
– Use symbolic gestures
• Communication
– Listen actively and acknowledge what is being said
– Speak to be understood
– Speak about yourself, not about them
– Speak for a purpose

12. 2. Focus on INTERESTs, not Positions
• Interests define the problem
• How to identify interests
– Ask "Why?“, "Why not?"
– Realize that each side has multiple interests
– The most powerful interests: basic human needs
• Talk about interests
– Make your interests come alive: be specific
– Acknowledge their interests as part of the problem
– Put the problem before your answer
– Look forward, not back
– Be concrete but flexible
– Be hard on the problem, soft on the people

13. 3. Invent OPTIONS for Mutual Gain
• DIAGNOSIS: 4 major obstacles
– Premature judgment
– Searching for the single answer
– The assumption of a fixed pie
– Thinking that "solving their problem is their problem.“
• PRESCRIPTION
– Invent first, decide later
– Broaden options
– Search for mutual gains
– Make their decisions easy

14. Conduct Brainstorming
• Before brainstorming
– Define your purpose
– Choose a few participants
– Change the environment
– Design an informal atmosphere
– Choose a facilitator
• During brainstorming
– Seat the participants side by facing the problem
– Clarify the ground rules, including the no-criticism rule
– Brainstorm
– Record the ideas in full view
• After brainstorming
– Star the most promising ideas
– Invent improvements for promising ideas
– Set up a time to evaluate ideas and decide
• Consider brainstorming with the other side

15. Broaden options
• Circle charts
• Look through the eyes of different experts
• Invent agreements of different strengths
• Change the scope of a proposed agreement

16. Look for mutual gain
• Identify shared interests
• Dovetail differing interests
• Ask for their preferences

17. Make their decision easy
• Whose shoes? Focus on one person
• What decision? Give an easy decision
• Make offers, consider consequences

18. 4. Insist on using Objective CRITERIA
• Commit to reaching a solution based on principles
• Develop objective criteria
– Fair standards: market value, scientific judgment,
professional standards, moral standards, tradition…
– Fair procedures: “one cuts, the other chooses”, “taking
turns”, “drawing lots”, “letting someone else decide”…
• Negotiate with objective criteria
– Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria
– Reason and be open to reason
– Never yield to pressure, only to principle

19. YES, BUT…

20. Yes, But…
• What if they are more powerful?
• What if they won’t play?
• What if they use dirty tricks?

21. 1. What if they are more powerful?
• Negotiate on merits, develop your BATNA to increase your
negotiating power
• 2 Objectives
– Protect you against making an agreement you should reject
– Make the most of the assets you do have
• How
– The cost of using a bottom line
– Develop your BATNA
– Judge every offer against your BATNA
– Consider of exposing our BATNA
– Consider the other side’s BATNA
– Formulate a trip wire

22. 2. What If They Won’t Play?
• Center on what you do – principled negotiation
• Focus on what they may do – negotiation jujitsu
• Focus on what a third party can do – one-text
procedure

23. Negotiation Jujitsu
• Do not push back – sidestep their attack and deflect
it against the problem
– Treat their position as an option, ask for reason behind
– Invite criticism and advices on your ideas
– Recast an attack on you as an attack on the problem
– Use questions instead of statements
– Use silence

24. One-text procedure
• Use of mediator
• Mediator works with 2 sides, prepare drafts
from their interests until no more
improvements can be made, provide the final
one-text, leave option of Yes and No to related
parties

25. 3. What if they use dirty tricks?
• Recognize the tactic
• Raise the issue explicitly
• Question the tactic’s legitimacy and desirability
• Use principled negotiation: people, interest,
options and objective criteria
• Turn to your BATNA and walk out as last resort
• Don’t be a victim: be prepared to fight dirty
bargaining tactics

26. Some common tricky tactics
• Deliberate deception: phony facts, ambiguous
authority, dubious intentions
• Psychological warfare
– Stressful situations
– Personal attacks
– The good-guy/bad-guy
– Threats

27. Common tricky tactics (cont.)
• Positional pressure tactics
– Refusal to negotiate: talk about their refusal to negotiate, insist on
using principles
– Extreme demands: ask for principled justification of their position
until it looks ridiculous even to them
– Escalating demands: call it to their attention, take a break, insist on
principles
– Lock-in tactics: depends on communication -> interrupt the
communication
– Hardhearted partner: get agreement to the principles involved in
writing, speak directly with the “hardhearted” partner
– A calculated delay: look for objective conditions that can be used to
establish deadlines
– “Take it or leave it”: consider ignoring it first, introduce more
solutions, if you use this tactic, let them know what they will have to
lose if no agreement is reached and look for a face-saving way

28. IN CONCLUSION

29. • You knew it all the time
• Learn from doing
• “Winning”

30. Take-away Slide
• Principled Negotiation
– People: Separate the people from the problem
– Interests: Focus on interests, not positions
– Options: Invent options for mutual gain
– Criteria: Insist on using objective criteria
• Develop your BATNA (Best Alternative To a
Negotiated Alternative) to increase
negotiating power
• Don’t be a victim of dirty bargain tricks

31. 10 QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK

32. 10 Frequent Questions
1. Does positional bargaining ever make sense?
2. What if the other side believes in a different standard of fairness?
3. Should I be fair if I don’t have to be?
4. What do I do if the people are the problem?
5. When does it make sense NOT to negotiate?
6. How should I adjust my negotiating approach to account for
differences of personality, gender, culture and so on?
7. How do I decide things like: where should we meet? Who should
make the first offer? How high should I start?
8. Concretely, how do I move from inventing options to making
commitments?
9. How do I try out these ideas without taking too much risk?
10. Can the way I negotiate really make a difference, if the other side
is more powerful? How to I enhance my “negotiating power”?

33. More questions?