Become a Better Negotiator: Getting Past No

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Getting Past No

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Getting Past No• Negotiating in difficult

situations• Author: William Ury• Follow up to Getting to Yes: 33

years ago with mentor Roger Fisher

• Address challenge of adversarial conflict and increasing need for cooperative negotiation

• 10 years after Getting to yes, Ury wrote Getting Past No; 23 years ago

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Author: Dr. William Ury

• Harvard• PhD Social

anthropology• Mediator and Advisor– Nuclear Risk Reduction– Strikes– Wars

• TED talk

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Negotiation Revolution• A generation ago decisions

were made hierarchically• People at the top gave the

orders and the people on the bottom simply followed them

• That is changing: family, work, politics negotiation is becoming the preeminent form of decision making

• Participatory

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Breakthrough Negotiation• Getting Past No distills

experiences as negotiator and mediator in business, political and interpersonal situations

• Many useful techniques, but it is difficult to remember in the heat of negotiating

• Therefore, this book organizes them into an All Purpose, Five Step Strategy

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Getting Past No

• Shows how to navigate the obstacles that stand between you and Yes.

• You get to the most satisfying solutions and the optimal relationship when both sides are doing their best to engage the very real problems dividing them.

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Why is this Important

• Life skills necessary for successful negotiations

• Goal: make our lives happier, more prosperous and the world a better place

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Breaking through Barriers to Cooperation

• We want to get to yes, but often the answer we get back is NO.

• Dismissive: – too expensive– We tried it before– Store policy

• Irritable spouse• Domineering boss• Rigid sales person• Impossible teenager

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Negotiations Shape Our Lives• Think for a moment about

how you make important decisions in you life – the decisions that have the greatest impact on your performance at work and your satisfaction at home

• How many of those decisions can you make unilaterally and how many do you have to reach with others – through negotiation?

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Performance at WorkSatisfaction at Home

• Negotiation is not limited to the activity of sitting across a table discussing a contentious issue; it is the informal activity you engage in whenever you try to get something you want from another person.

• Negotiations shape our lives

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Joint Problem Solving• Soft on people, hard on

the problem• Interests not positions• Each side’s interests:

– Concerns– Needs– Fears– Desires

• That underlie and motivate your opposing positions

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Generate Options• Options for meeting those

interests• Goal is to reach a mutually

satisfactory agreement in an efficient and amicable fashion

• Joint problem-solving generates better results for both sides

• Cutting out posturing• Better working relationships• Better Future outcomes

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Five Barriers to Cooperation• Easy to say• Hard to do• Hard to apply in the real

world of stresses and strains, temptations and tempests

• Ferocious emotional battles• Familiar routines and

positions• Be taken advantage of

• Your Reaction• Their Emotion• Their Position• Their Dissatisfaction• Their Power

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Your Reaction• Human beings are reaction

machines• Feel you are being attacked,

natural reaction is to strike back

• Perpetuates action-reaction cycle

• Or impulsively give in• You lose and having

demonstrated weakness, expose yourself to exploitation going forward

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Their Emotion

• Other side’s negative emotions

• Behind attacks may lie anger and hostility

• Behind rigid positions may lie fear and distrust

• Convinced they are right and you are wrong, they refuse to listen

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Their Position• Other side’s positional

behavior: habit of digging into a position and trying to get you to give in

• Tactics they first learned in the sandbox

• In their eyes, the only alternative is for them to give in – and the certainly don’t want to do that

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Their Dissatisfaction

• The other side is not interested in reaching an outcome because they do not see how it will benefit them

• Fear losing face if they have to back down

• If it is your idea, they may reject it for that reason alone

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Their Power• If the other side sees the

negotiation as a win-lose proposition, they will be determined to beat you

• They may be guided by the precept: “What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is negotiable.”

• If they can get what they want by power plays, why should they cooperate with you?

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Deal with Attacks and Tricks• It is easy to believe that

stonewalling, sandbagging, attacks and tricks are just part of the other side’s basic nature, and that there is little you can do to change such difficult behavior.

• But you can affect this behavior if you can deal successfully with the underlying motivations

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The Goal:Joint Problem Solving

Barriers to Cooperation Strategy:Breakthrough Negotiation

People Sitting Side by Side Your ReactionTheir Emotion

Go to the BalconyStep to Their Side

Facing the Problem Their Position Reframe

Reaching a Mutually Satisfactory Agreement

Their DissatisfactionTheir Power

Build a Golden BridgeUse Power to Educate

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Breakthrough Negotiation

• Five step strategy for breaking through each of the five barriers

• To get to where you want to go you need to tack – zigzag your way toward your destination

• Indirect Action• Change the game

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Tacking

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Indirect Action• Rather than pounding in a

new idea from the outside, you encourage them to reach for it from within

• Rather than telling them what to do, you let them figure it out

• Rather than pressuring them to change their mind, you create an environment in which they can learn

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Indirect Action• Rather than pounding in a

new idea from the outside, you encourage them to reach for it from within

• Rather than telling them what to do, you let them figure it out

• Rather than pressuring them to change their mind, you create an environment in which they can learn

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Step 1: Go to the Balcony• First barrier is you natural

reaction– Striking Back– Giving In– Breaking off

• Suspending that reaction• Regain your mental balance• Stay focused • Pause and breath• Don’t get mad, don’t get

even, Get What You Want

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Don’t React: Go to the Balcony

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Step 2: Step to Their Side• Overcome the other side’s

negative emotions– Defensiveness– Fear– Suspicion– Hostility

• Resist being drawn in• Help them regain their mental

balance– Listening– Respect– Acknowledging– Agreeing

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Don’t Argue: Step to Their Side

Rarely is it advisable to meet prejudices and passions head on. Instead, it is best to appear to conform to them in order to gain time to combat them. One must know how to sail with a contrary wind and to tack until one meets a wind in the right direction– Fortune de Felice, 1778

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Step 3: Reframe• Tackle the problem

together• Hard to do if they dig into

their position and try to get you to give in

• Natural to want to reject their position, but do the opposite:

• Accept what they say and reframe it as an attempt to deal with the problem

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Don’t Reject: Reframe• Take their position and

probe behind it: “tell me more. Help me understand why you want that.”

• Ask problem solving questions

• Act as if they are your partners genuinely interested in solving the problem.

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Craft Against Vice I Will Apply William Shakespeare

Measure for Measure

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Step 4: Build Them a Golden Bridge

• The other side may be dissatisfied, unconvinced of the benefits of agreement

• You may feel like pushing them, but this will only make them more resistant

• Do the opposite• Bridge the gap between their

interests and yours• Involve them in the process• Incorporate their ideas• Help them save face and make the

outcome look like a victory for them

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Don’t Push: Build Them a Golden Bridge

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Step 5: Use Power to Educate• Despite your best efforts, the

other side may still refuse to cooperate, believing they can beat you at the power game.

• Threats and coercion often backfire and lead to costly and futile battles

• Use power not to escalate but to educate about the costs of not agreeing

• Demonstrate your BATNA• Make sure they know the

golden bridge is always available

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Don’t Escalate; Educate

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• The best general is the one who never fights– Sun Tzu

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Preparation WorksheetInterestsMine Theirs

Options123

456

Standards12

34

BATNAMine TheirsProposals• Aspire to• Content with• Live with