Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In is a book by Roger Fisher and William Ury (Bhandari, 2021) that explains techniques to achieve successful negotiation. The book is informative, with different negotiation techniques, such as hard or soft negotiation. The book aids the reader in becoming a good negotiator, an unavoidable human activity. The parts of the book I gained from is first principled negotiation, known as negotiation on metrics, based on four parts: people, interests, opinion and criteria. The method solves issues arising from bargaining over positions to reach an agreement. The second thing that caught my attention is the use of BATNA. The acronym stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, which is used in situations of position bargains in which the other party seems stronger. BATNA is based on the creation of actions in case of failure to agree, the transformation of the best ideas into options and finally, the selection of the best option.
The book critically delves into BATNA to aid a negotiator in cases of failed agreement. A BATNA is based on having an option that when the negotiation seems pointless or even less lucrative, another option can be selected to protect a negotiator from losses and other reasons. BATNA is essential to have for any negotiator. First, it provides power to a negotiator in that they know they have an alternative to that of negotiation. It guarantees leverage in that one is independent of negotiation. The second advantage to having a BATNA is that it protects weaker negotiators not precisely in the act of negotiation by maybe in resources or numbers. If one negotiator is more powerful, they might monopolize the negotiation; hence a backdoor such as BATNA prevents unfairness. BATNA also aids in enabling an individual to make the most of their assets. Making the most of your assets improves the chances of a successful and fulfilling agreement.
As already dictated in the name, BATNA is used when one of the negotiators is more powerful and hence has more leverage to protect the other negotiator from a bad deal. BATNA is used where both parties have failed to reach a favourable agreement hence the chase for another option. In any negotiation, BATNA must be present for each negotiator for successful outcomes.
Tricky tactics are the unfair ways a party can gain an illegitimate advantage when the negotiation terms have already been set. Tricky tactics must be handled to prevent an affair agreement. Tricky tactics are divided into psychological warfare, deliberate deception and positional pressure tactics. Examples of tricky tactics include escalating demands, refusing to demand, throwing the other party off balance, deceiving, or going against the agreed-upon terms. A practical, real-life example of a tricky tactic is when Hitler used it in an agreement with Neville Chamberlain, a German Prime Minister at the time (this eventually led to the second world war) (Jenkins, 2019). The best tactic to use in cases of tricky tactics is principled negotiation, which entails the following steps. First, point out the tricky tactic, which reduces its effectiveness. The second step is discussing the tactic and the rule of the game and, hopefully, coming to a peaceful understanding. Some techniques to aid in handling tricky tactics are not attacking the party directly, inventing options for mutual gain, insisting on using objective criteria and focusing on interests other than position.
A positional bargain is the act of negotiators fighting for their stands in negotiation and later trying to reach a final consensus that is agreed upon by both parties. Positional arguments sometimes fail, hence collapsing the entire agreement procedure and even possibly rupturing the relationship between the parties. The positional argument needs to be revised because, first, the parties might stick to their positions and protect them. This often deflects the reason for the negotiation by bringing in an ego game, resulting in unwise agreements. The process also fails since each party may need to be open to accepting the other party’s interests. Positional argument leads to unwise agreements, and inefficient negotiations disrupt negotiation or anger each party. An example of a positional argument is that of the Soviet Union and the United States on the ban on nuclear testing where a positional argument broke out with the Soviet Union wanting a maximum of 3 inspections per year of nuclear activity and the United States, on the other hand, wanting a minimum of then inspections per year.
Principled negotiation involves four elements: people, interests, options and criteria. Each element is vital for successful negotiations. From this point of people, any people’s problems should be kept separate in any negotiation to avoid disrupting the negotiation. The second element, interest, is that the negotiation’s interest should be kept in mind. Interest should be the core value and not the position to achieve the negotiation’s goals. Options are a negotiator’s choices in reaching their desired goals; a negotiator should look into the different options to achieve the best outcome. Finally, criteria or better-known objective criteria, allow the negotiation to be fair based on other determining factors other than the interests of the people examples of such criterion is market value.
In recent times, an example of a negotiation that has been able to be successful is the China, Russia, and Iran union. The negotiations used principles from the book, such as principled negotiation, by focusing on interests such as regional peace, trade and good relations rather than positional bargaining. This has proved successful with activities such as their joint naval drills (Russia-China Relations Sarah Kirchberger Svenja Sinjen Nils Wörmer Editors Emerging Alliance or Eternal Rivals? n.d.).
In conclusion, the book is quite informative and educational. The book profoundly teaches proper negotiation methods to result in successful outcomes. Methods such as principled negotiation have taught me a lot about how to handle people during a notation, how to achieve your interests, look into options for best choices and put objective criteria into discussions for fair agreements. The book has good descriptions and real-world examples to bring understanding. I recommend it to anyone since negotiation is an unavoidable part of life.
Works Cited
Bhandari, Ritu. “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving in.” (2021): 7.
Sheldon-Duplaix, Alexandre. “Russia-China naval partnership and its significance.” Russia-China Relations: Emerging Alliance or Eternal Rivals (2022): 101-120.
Jenkins, Peter S., and Peter S. Jenkins. “The Appeasement of Nazi Germany.” War and Happiness: The Role of Temperament in the Assessment of Resolve (2019): 155-176.
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