GettingtoYes(英)-《谈判力》无需让步的说服艺
Getting
to
YES Negotiating an agreement without giving in
Roger Fisher and William Ury
With Bruce Patton, Editor
Second edition by Fisher, Ury and Patton
RANDOM HOUSE BUSINESS BOOKS
GETTING TO YES
The authors of this book have been working together since 1977.
Roger Fisher teaches negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he is Williston Professor of Law and Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Raised in Illinois, he served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Force, in Paris with the Marshall Plan, and in Washington, D.C., with the Department of Justice. He has also practiced law in Washington and served as a consultant to the Department of Defense. He was the originator and executive editor of the award-winning series The Advocates. He consults widely with governments, corporations, and individuals through Conflict Management, Inc., and the Conflict Management Group.
William Ury, consultant, writer, and lecturer on negotiation and mediation, is Director of the Negotiation Network at Harvard University and Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project. He has served as a consultant and third party in disputes ranging from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to U.S.-Soviet arms control to intracorporate conflicts to labor-management conflict at a Kentucky coal mine. Currently, he is working on ethnic conflict in the Soviet Union and on teacher-contract negotiations in a large urban setting. Educated in Switzerland, he has degrees from Yale in Linguistics and Harvard in anthropology.
Bruce Patton, Deputy Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, is the Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches negotiation. A lawyer, he teaches negotiation to diplomats and corporate executives around the world and works as a negotiation consultant and mediator in international, corporate, labor-management, and family settings. Associated with the Conflict Management organizations, which he co founded in 1984, he has both graduate and undergraduate degrees from Harvard.
Books by Roger Fisher
International Conflict and Behavioral Science: The Craigville Papers (editor and co-author, 1964)
International Conflict for Beginners (1969)
Dear Israelis, Dear Arabs: A Working Approach to Peace
(1972)
International Crises and the Role of Law: Points of Choice (1978)
International Mediation: A Working Guide; Ideas for the Practitioner (with William Ury, 1978)
Improving Compliance with International Law (1981) Getting Together: Building Relationships As We Negotiate (1988)
Books by William Ury
Beyond the Hotline: How Crisis Control Can Prevent Nuclear War (1985)
Windows of Opportunity: From Cold War to Peaceful Competition in U.S.-Soviet Relations (edited with Graham T. Allison and Bruce J. Allyn, 1989)
Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict (with Jeanne M. Brett and Stephen B. Goldberg, 1988)
Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People (1991)
Contents
Acknowledgments (4)
Preface to the Second Edition (5)
Introduction (6)
I THE PROBLEM (7)
1.D ON'T B ARGAIN O VER P OSITIONS (7)
II THE METHOD (13)
2. S EPARATE THE PEOPLE FROM THE P ROBLEM (13)
3. F OCUS ON INTERESTS, N OT P OSITIONS (23)
4. I NVENT OPTIONS FOR M UTUAL G AIN (31)
5. I NSIST ON U SING O BJECTIVE CRITERIA (42)
III YES, BUT (49)
6. W HAT I F T HEY A RE M ORE P OWERFUL? (50)
7. W HAT I F T HEY W ON'T P LAY? (54)
8. W HAT IF T HEY U SE D IRTY T RICKS? (64)
IV IN CONCLUSION (71)
V TEN QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK (72)
A BOUT G ETTING TO YES (72)
Acknowledgments
This book began as a question: What is the best way for people to deal with their differences? For example, what is the best advice one could give a husband and wife getting divorced who want to know how to reach a fair and mutually satisfactory agreement without ending up in a bitter fight? Perhaps more difficult, what advice would you give one of them who wanted to do the same thing? Every day, families, neighbors, couples, employees, bosses, businesses, consumers, salesmen, lawyers, and nations face this same dilemma of how to get to yes without going to war. Drawing on our respective backgrounds in international law and anthropology and an extensive collaboration over the years with practitioners, colleagues, and students, we have evolved a practical method for negotiating agreement amicably without giving in.
We have tried out ideas on lawyers, businessmen, government officials, judges, prison wardens, diplomats, insurance representatives, military officers, coal miners, and oil executives. We gratefully acknowledge those who responded with criticism and with suggestions distilled from their experience. We benefited immensely.
In truth, so many people have contributed so extensively to our learning over the years that it is no longer possible to say precisely to whom we are indebted for which ideas in what form. Those who contributed the most understand that footnotes were omitted not because we think every idea original, but rather to keep the text readable when we owe so much to so many.
We could not fail to mention, however, our debt to Howard Raiffa. His kind but forthright criticism has repeatedly improved the approach, and his notions on seeking joint gains by exploiting differences and using imaginative procedures for settling difficult issues have inspired sections on these subjects. Louis Sohn, deviser and negotiator extraordinaire, was always encouraging, always creative, always looking forward. Among our many debts to him, we owe our introduction to the idea of using a single negotiating text, which we call the One-Text Procedure. And we would like to thank Michael Doyle and David Straus for their creative ideas on running brainstorming sessions.
Good anecdotes and examples are hard to find. We are greatly indebted to Jim Sebenius for his accounts of the Law of the Sea Conference (as well as for his thoughtful criticism of the method), to Tom Griffith for an account of his negotiation with an insurance adjuster, and to Mary Parker Follett for the story of two men quarreling in a library.
We want especially to thank all those who read this book in various drafts and gave us the benefit of their criticism, including our students in the January Negotiation Workshops of 1980 and 1981 at Harvard Law School, and Frank Sander, John Cooper, and William Lincoln who taught those workshops with us. In particular, we want to thank those members of Harvard's Negotiation Seminar whom we have not already mentioned; they listened to us patiently these last two years and offered many helpful suggestions: John Dunlop, James Healy, David Kuechle, Thomas Schelling, and Lawrence Susskind. To all of our friends and associates we owe more than we can say, but the final responsibility for the content of this book lies with the authors; if the result is not yet perfect, it is not for lack of our colleagues efforts.
Without family and friends, writing would be intolerable. For constructive criticism and moral support we thank Caroline Fisher, David Lax, Frances Turnbull, and Janice Ury.
Without Francis Fisher this book would never have been written. He had the felicity of introducing the two of us some four years ago.
Finer secretarial help we could not have had. Thanks to Deborah Reimel for her unfailing competence, moral support, and firm but gracious reminders, and to Denise Trybula, who never wavered in her diligence and cheerfulness. And special thanks to the people at Word Processing, led by Cynthia Smith, who met the test of an endless series of drafts and near impossible deadlines.
Then there are our editors. By reorganizing and cutting this book in half, Marty Linsky made it far more readable. To spare our readers, he had the good sense not to spare our feelings.
Thanks also to Peter Kinder, June Kinoshita, and Bob Ross. June struggled to make the language less sexist. Where we have not succeeded, we apologize to those who may be offended. We also want to thank Andrea Williams, our adviser: Julian Bach, our agent; and Dick McAdoo and his associates at Houghton Mifflin, who made the production of this book both possible and pleasurable.
Finally, we want to thank Bruce Patton, our friend and colleague, editor and mediator. No one has contributed more to this book. From the very beginning he helped brainstorm and organize the syllogism of the book. He has reorganized almost every chapter and edited every word. If books were movies, this would be known as a Patton Production.
Roger Fisher
William Ury
Preface to
the Second Edition
In the last ten years negotiation as a field for academic and professional concern has grown dramatically. New theoretical works have been published, case studies have been produced, and empirical research undertaken. Ten years ago almost no professional school offered courses on negotiation; now they are all but universal. Universities are beginning to appoint faculty who specialize in negotiation. Consulting firms now do the same in the corporate world.
Against this changing intellectual landscape, the ideas in Getting to Yes have stood up well. They have gained considerable attention and acceptance from a broad audience, and are frequently cited as starting points for other work. Happily, they remain persuasive to the authors as well. Most questions and comments have focused on places where the book has proven ambiguous, or where readers have wanted more specific advice. We have tried to address the most important of these topics in this revision.
Rather than tampering with the text (and asking readers who know it to search for changes), we have chosen to add new material in a separate section at the end of this second edition. The main text remains in full and unchanged from the original, except for updating the figures in examples to keep pace with inflation and rephrasing in a few places to clarify meaning and eliminate sexist language. We hope that our answers to "Ten Questions People Ask About Getting to YES" prove helpful and meet some of the interests readers have expressed.
We address questions about (1) the meaning and limits of "principled" negotiation (it represents practical, not moral advice); (2) dealing with someone who seems to be irrational or who has a different value system, outlook, or negotiating style; (3) practical questions, such as where to meet, who should make the first offer, and how to move from inventing options to making commitments; and (4) the role of power in negotiation.
More extensive treatment of some topics will have to await other books. Readers interested in more detail about handling "people issues" in negotiation in ways that tend to establish an effective working relationship might enjoy Getting Together: Building Relationships as We Negotiate by Roger Fisher and Scott Brown, also available from Business Books. If dealing with difficult people and situations is more your concern, look for Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People by William Ury, published by Business Books. No doubt other books will follow. There is certainly much more to say about power, multilateral negotiations, cross-cultural transactions, personal styles, and many other topics.
Once again we thank Marty Linsky, this time for taking a careful eye and a sharp pencil to our new material. Our special thanks to Doug Stone for his discerning critique, editing, and occasional rewriting of successive drafts of that material. He has an uncanny knack for catching us in an unclear thought or paragraph.
For more than a dozen years, Bruce Patton has worked with us in formulating and explaining all of the ideas in this book. This past year he has pulled the laboring oar in
converting our joint thinking into an agreed text. It is a pleasure to welcome Bruce, editor of the first edition, as a full co-author of this revised edition.
Roger Fisher
William Ury
Introduction
Like it or not, you are a negotiator. Negotiation is a fact of life. You discuss a raise with your boss. You try to agree with a stranger on a price for his house. Two lawyers try to settle a lawsuit arising from a car accident. A group of oil companies plan a joint venture exploring for offshore oil. A city official meets with union leaders to avert a transit strike. The United States Secretary of State sits down with his Soviet counterpart to seek an agreement limiting nuclear arms. All these are negotiations.
Everyone negotiates something every day. Like Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain, who was delighted to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life, people negotiate even when they don't think of themselves as doing so. A person negotiates with his spouse about where to go for dinner and with his child about when the lights go out. Negotiation is a basic means of getting what you want from others. It is back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement when you and the other side have some interests that are shared and others that are opposed.
More and more occasions require negotiation; conflict is a growth industry. Everyone wants to participate in decisions that affect them; fewer and fewer people will accept decisions dictated by someone else. People differ, and they use negotiation to handle their differences. Whether in business, government, or the family, people reach most decisions through negotiation. Even when they go to court, they almost always negotiate a settlement before trial.
Although negotiation takes place every day, it is not easy to do well. Standard strategies for negotiation often leave people dissatisfied, worn out, or alienated — and frequently all three.
People find themselves in a dilemma. They see two ways to negotiate: soft or hard. The soft negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily in order to reach agreement. He wants an amicable resolution; yet he often ends up exploited and feeling bitter. The hard negotiator sees any situation as a contest of wills in which the side that takes the more extreme positions and holds out longer fares better. He wants to win; yet he often ends up producing an equally hard response which exhausts him and his resources and harms his relationship with the other side. Other standard negotiating strategies fall between hard and soft, but each involves an attempted trade-off between getting what you want and getting along with people.
There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft, but rather both hard and soft. The method of principled negotiation developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project is to decide issues on their merits rather than through a haggling process focused on what each side says it will and won't do. It suggests that you look for mutual gains wherever possible, and that where your interests conflict, you should insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side. The method of principled negotiation is hard on the merits, soft on the people. It employs no tricks ' and no posturing. Principled negotiation shows you how to obtain what you are entitled to and still be decent. It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.
This book is about the method of principled negotiation. The first chapter describes problems that arise in using the standard strategies of positional bargaining. The next four chapters lay out the four principles of the method. The last three chapters answer the questions most commonly asked about the method: What if the other side is more powerful? What if they will not play along? And what if they use dirty tricks?
Principled negotiation can be used by United States diplomats in arms control talks with the Soviet Union, by Wall Street lawyers representing Fortune 500 companies in antitrust cases, and by couples in deciding everything from where to go for vacation to how to divide their
property if they get divorced. Anyone can use this method.
Every negotiation is different, but the basic elements do not change. Principled negotiation can be used whether there is one issue or several; two parties or many; whether there is a prescribed ritual, as in collective bargaining, or an impromptu free-for-all, as in talking with hijackers. The method applies whether the other side is more experienced or less, a hard bargainer or a friendly one. Principled negotiation is an all-purpose strategy. Unlike almost all other strategies, if the other side learns this one, it does not become more difficult to use; it becomes easier. If they read this book, all the better.
I
The Problem
1.Don't Bargain Over Positions
Whether a negotiation concerns a contract, a family quarrel, or a peace settlement among nations, people routinely engage in positional bargaining. Each side takes a position, argues for it, and makes concessions to reach a compromise. The classic example of this negotiating minuet is the haggling that takes place between a customer and the proprietor of a secondhand store: CUSTOMER SHOPKEEPER
How much do you want for this brass dish? That is a beautiful antique, isn't it? I guess I could
let it go for $75.
Oh come on, it's dented. I'll give you $15. Really! I might consider a serious offer, but $15
certainly isn't serious.
Well, I could go to $20, but I would never pay anything like $75. Quote me a realistic price. You drive a hard bargain, young lady. $60 cash, right now.
$25.It cost me a great deal more than that. Make
me a serious offer.
$37.50. That's the highest I will go. Have you noticed the engraving on that dish?
Next year pieces like that will be worth twice
what you pay today.
And so it goes, on and on. Perhaps they will reach agreement; perhaps not.
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. (A wise agreement can be defined as one which meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible, resolves conflicting interests fairly, is durable, and takes community interests into account.)
The most common form of negotiation, illustrated by the above example, depends upon successively taking — and then giving up — a sequence of positions.
Taking positions, as the customer and storekeeper do, serves some useful purposes in a negotiation. It tells the other side what you want; it provides an anchor in an uncertain and pressured situation; and it can eventually produce the terms of an acceptable agreement. But those purposes can be served in other ways. And positional bargaining fails to meet the basic criteria of producing a wise agreement, efficiently and amicably.
Arguing over positions produces unwise agreements
When negotiators 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.
The danger that positional bargaining will impede a negotiation was well illustrated by the breakdown of the talks under President Kennedy for a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. A critical question arose: How many on-site inspections per year should the Soviet Union and the United States be permitted to make within the other's territory to investigate suspicious seismic events? The Soviet Union finally agreed to three inspections. The United States insisted on no less than ten. And there the talks broke down — over positions — despite the fact that no one understood whether an "inspection" would involve one person looking around for one day, or a hundred people prying indiscriminately for a month. The parties had made little attempt to design an inspection procedure that would reconcile the United States's interest in verification with the desire of both countries for minimal intrusion.
As more attention is paid to positions, less attention is devoted to meeting the underlying concerns of the parties. Agreement becomes less likely. Any agreement reached may reflect a mechanical splitting of the difference between final positions rather than a solution carefully crafted to meet the legitimate interests of the parties. The result is frequently an agreement less satisfactory to each side than it could have been.
Arguing over positions is inefficient
The standard method of negotiation may produce either agreement, as with the price of a brass dish, or breakdown, as with the number of on-site inspections. In either event, the process takes a lot of time.
Bargaining over positions creates incentives that stall settlement. In positional bargaining you try to improve the chance that any settlement reached is favorable to you by starting with an extreme position, by stubbornly holding to it, by deceiving the other party as to your true views, and by making small concessions only as necessary to keep the negotiation going. The same is true for the other side. Each of those factors tends to interfere with reaching a settlement promptly. The more extreme the opening positions and the smaller the concessions, the more time and effort it will take to discover whether or not agreement is possible.
The standard minuet also requires a large number of individual decisions as each negotiator decides what to offer, what to reject, and how much of a concession to make. Decision-making is difficult and time-consuming at best. Where each decision not only involves yielding to the other side but will likely produce pressure to yield further, a negotiator has little incentive to move quickly. Dragging one's feet, threatening to walk out, stonewalling, and other such tactics become commonplace. They all increase the time and costs of reaching agreement as well as the risk that no agreement will be reached at all.
Arguing over positions endangers an ongoing relationship
Positional bargaining becomes a contest of will. Each negotiator asserts what he will and won't do. The task of jointly devising an acceptable solution tends to become a battle. Each side tries through sheer will power to force the other to change its position. "I'm not going to give in. If you want to go to the movies with me, it's The Maltese Falcon or nothing." Anger and resentment often result as one side sees itself bending to the rigid will of the other while its own legitimate concerns go unaddressed. Positional bargaining thus strains and sometimes shatters the relationship between the parties. Commercial enterprises that have been doing business together for years may part company. Neighbors may stop speaking to each other. Bitter feelings generated by one such encounter may last a lifetime.
When there are many parties, positional bargaining is even worse
Although it is convenient to discuss negotiation in terms of two persons, you and "the other
side," in fact, almost every negotiation involves more than two persons. Several different parties may sit at the table, or each side may have constituents, higher-ups, boards of directors, or committees with whom they must deal. The more people involved in a negotiation, the more serious the drawbacks to positional bargaining.
If some 150 countries are negotiating, as in various United Nations conferences, positional bargaining is next to impossible. It may take all to say yes, but only one to say no. Reciprocal concessions are difficult: to whom do you make a concession? Yet even thousands of bilateral deals would still fall short of a multilateral agreement. In such situations, positional bargaining leads to the formation of coalitions among parties whose shared interests are often more symbolic than substantive. At the United Nations, such coalitions produce negotiations between "the" North and "the" South, or between "the" East and "the" West. Because there are many members in a group, it becomes more difficult to develop a common position. What is worse, once they have painfully developed and agreed upon a position, it becomes much harder to change it. Altering a position proves equally difficult when additional participants are higher authorities who, while absent from the table, must nevertheless give their approval.
Being nice is no answer
Many people recognize the high costs of hard positional bargaining, particularly on the parties and their relationship. They hope to avoid them by following a more gentle style of negotiation. Instead of seeing the other side as adversaries, they prefer to see them as friends. Rather than emphasizing a goal of victory, they emphasize the necessity of reaching agreement. In a soft negotiating game the standard moves are to make offers and concessions, to trust the other side, to be friendly, and to yield as necessary to avoid confrontation.
The following table illustrates two styles of positional bargaining, soft and hard. Most people see their choice of negotiating strategies as between these two styles. Looking at the table as presenting a choice, should you be a soft or a hard positional bargainer? Or should you perhaps follow a strategy somewhere in between?
The soft negotiating game emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining a relationship. Within families and among friends much negotiation takes place in this way. The process tends to be efficient, at least to the extent of producing results quickly. As each party competes with the other in being more generous and more forthcoming, an agreement becomes highly likely. But it may not be a wise one. The results may not be as tragic as in the O. Henry story about an impoverished couple in which the loving wife sells her hair in order to buy a handsome chain for her husband's watch, and the unknowing husband sells his watch in order to buy beautiful combs for his wife's hair. However, any negotiation primarily concerned with the relationship runs the risk of producing a sloppy agreement.
PROBLEM
Positional Bargaining: Which Game Should You Play?
SOFT
Participants are friends.
The goal is agreement.
Make concessions to cultivate the relationship.
Be soft on the people and the problem. Trust others.
Change your position easily.
Make threats. HARD
Participants are adversaries.
The goal is victory.
Demand concessions as a condition of the relationship.
Be hard on the problem and the people. Distrust others.
Dig in to your position.
Make offers.
Disclose your bottom line.
Accept one-sided losses to reach agreement.
Search for the single answer: the one they will accept.
Insist on agreement.
Try to avoid a contest of will.
Yield to pressure Mislead as to your bottom line. Demand one-sided gains as the price of agreement.
Search for the single answer: the one you will accept.
Insist on your position.
Try to win a contest of will.
Apply pressure
More seriously, 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. If the hard bargainer insists on concessions and makes threats while the soft bargainer yields in order to avoid confrontation and insists on agreement, the negotiating game is biased in favor of the hard player. The process will produce an agreement, although it may not be a wise one. It will certainly be more favorable to the hard positional bargainer than to the soft one. If your response to sustained, hard positional bargaining is soft positional bargaining, you will probably lose your shirt.
There is an alternative
If you do not like the choice between hard and soft positional bargaining, you can change the game.
The game of negotiation takes place at two levels. At one level, negotiation addresses the substance; at another, it focuses— usually implicitly — on the procedure for dealing with the substance. The first negotiation may concern your salary, the terms of a lease, or a price to be paid. The second negotiation concerns how you will negotiate the substantive question: by soft positional bargaining, by hard positional bargaining, or by some other method. This second negotiation is a game about a game — a "meta-game." Each move you make within a negotiation is not only a move that deals with rent, salary, or other substantive questions; it also helps structure the rules of the game you are playing. Your move may serve to keep the negotiations within an ongoing mode, or it may constitute a game-changing move.
This second negotiation by and large escapes notice because it seems to occur without conscious decision. Only when dealing with someone from another country, particularly someone with a markedly different cultural background, are you likely to see the necessity of establishing some accepted process for the substantive negotiations. But whether consciously or not, you are negotiating procedural rules with every move you make, even if those moves appear exclusively concerned with substance.
The answer to the question of whether to use soft positional bargaining or hard is "neither." Change the game. At the Harvard Negotiation Project we have been developing an alternative to positional bargaining: a method of negotiation explicitly designed to produce wise outcomes efficiently and amicably. This method, called principled negotiation or negotiation on the merits, can be boiled down to four basic points,
These four points define a straightforward method of negotiation that can be used under almost any circumstance. Each point deals with a basic element of negotiation, and suggests what you should do about it.
People: Separate the people from the problem.
Interests: Focus on interests, not positions.
Options: Generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do.
Criteria: Insist that the result be based on some objective standard.
The first point responds to the fact that human beings are not computers. We are creatures of strong emotions who often have radically different perceptions and have difficulty com-municating clearly. Emotions typically become entangled with the objective merits of the problem. Taking positions just makes this worse because people's egos become identified with their positions. Hence, before working on the substantive problem, the "people problem" should be disentangled from it and dealt with separately. Figuratively if not literally, the participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other. Hence the first proposition: Separate the people from the problem.
The second point is designed to overcome the drawback of focusing on people's stated positions when the object of a negotiation is to satisfy their underlying interests. A negotiating position often obscures what you really want. Compromising between positions is not likely to produce an agreement which will effectively take care of the human needs that led people to adopt those positions. The second basic element of the method is: Focus on interests, not positions.
The third point responds to the difficulty of designing optimal solutions while under pressure. Trying to decide in the presence of an adversary narrows your vision. Having a lot at stake inhibits creativity. So does searching for the one right solution. You can offset these constraints by setting aside a designated time within which to think up a wide range of possible solutions that advance shared interests and creatively reconcile differing interests. Hence the third basic point: Before trying to reach agreement, invent options for mutual gain.
Where interests are directly opposed, a negotiator may be able to obtain a favorable result simply by being stubborn. That method tends to reward intransigence and produce arbitrary results. However, you can counter such a negotiator by insisting that his single say-so is not enough and that the agreement must reflect some fair standard independent of the naked will of either side. This does not mean insisting that the terms be based on the standard you select, but only that some fair standard such as market value, expert opinion, custom, or law determine the outcome. By discussing such criteria rather than what the parties are willing or unwilling to do, neither party need give in to the other; both can defer to a fair solution. Hence the fourth basic point: Insist on using objective criteria.
The method of principled negotiation is contrasted with hard and soft positional bargaining in the table below, which shows the four basic points of the method in boldface type.
The four propositions of principled negotiation are relevant from the time you begin to think about negotiating until the time either an agreement is reached or you decide to break off the effort. That period can be divided into three stages: analysis, planning, and discussion.
During the analysis stage you are simply trying to diagnose the situation — to gather information, organize it, and think about it. You will want to consider the people problems of partisan perceptions, hostile emotions, and unclear communication, as well as to identify your interests and those of
PROBLEM
Positional Bargaining: Which Game Should You Play? SOLUTION
Change the Game — Negotiate on the Merits
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 relationship. Demand concessions as a
condition of the relationship.
Separate the people from the
problem.
Be soft on the people and the problem. Be hard on the problem and
the people.
Be soft on the people, hard on 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 agreement. Demand one-sided gains as
the price of agreement.
Invent options for mutual gain.
Search for the single answer: the one they will accept. Search for the single answer:
the one you will accept.
Develop multiple options to 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.
the other side. You will want to note options already on the table and identify any criteria already suggested as a basis for agreement.
During the planning stage you deal with the same four elements a second time, both generating ideas and deciding what to do. How do you propose to handle the people problems? Of your interests, which are most important? And what are some realistic objectives? You will want to generate additional options and additional criteria for deciding among them.
Again during the discussion stage, when the parties communicate back and forth, looking toward agreement, the same four elements are the best subjects to discuss. Differences in perception, feelings of frustration and anger, and difficulties in communication can be acknowledged and addressed. Each side should come to understand the interests of the other. Both can then jointly generate options that are mutually advantageous and seek agreement on objective standards for resolving opposed interests.
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. And separating the people from the problem allows you to deal directly and empathetically with the other negotiator as a human being, thus making possible an amicable agreement.
Each of the next four chapters expands on one of these four basic points. If at any point you become skeptical, you may want to skip ahead briefly and browse in the final three chapters, which respond to questions commonly raised about the method.
II
The Method
2. Separate the PEOPLE from the Problem
3. Focus on INTERESTS, Not Positions
4. Invent OPTIONS for Mutual Gain
5. Insist on Using Objective CRITERIA
2. Separate the PEOPLE from the Problem
Everyone knows how hard it is to deal with a problem without people misunderstanding each other, getting angry or upset, and taking things personally.
A union leader says to his men, "All right, who called the walkout?"
Jones steps forward. "I did. It was that bum foreman Campbell again. That was the fifth time in two weeks he sent me out of our group as a replacement. He's got it in for me, and I'm tired of it. Why should I get all the dirty work?"
Later the union leader confronts Campbell. "Why do you keep picking on Jones? He says you've put him on replacement detail five times in two weeks. What's going on?"
Campbell replies, "I pick Jones because he's the best. I know I can trust him to keep things from fouling up in a group without its point man. I send him on replacement only when it's a key man missing, otherwise I send Smith or someone else. It's just that with the flu going around there've been a lot of point men out. I never knew Jones objected. I thought he liked the responsibility."
In another real-life situation, an insurance company lawyer says to the state insurance commissioner:
"I appreciate your time, Commissioner Thompson. What I'd like to talk to you about is some of the problems we've been having with the presumption clause of the strict-liability regulations. Basically, we think the way the clause was written causes it to have an unfair impact on those insurers whose existing policies contain rate adjustment limitations, and we would like to consider ways it might be revised ——"
The Commissioner, interrupting:
"Mr. Monteiro, your company had ample opportunity to voice any objection it had during the hearings my department held on those regulations before they were issued. I ran those hearings, Mr. Monteiro. I listened to every word of testimony, and I wrote the final version of the strict-liability provisions personally. Are you saying I made a mistake?"
"No, but——"
"Are you saying I'm unfair?"
"Certainly not, sir, but I think this provision has had consequences none of us foresaw, and ——"
"Listen, Monteiro, I promised the public when I campaigned for this position that I would put an end to killer hair dryers and $10,000 bombs disguised as cars. And these regulations have done that.
"Your company made a $50 million profit on its strict-liability policies last year. What kind of fool do you think you can play me for, coming in here talking about 'unfair' regulations and 'unforeseen consequences'? I don't want to hear another word of that. Good day, Mr. Monteiro."
Now what? Does the insurance company lawyer press the Commissioner on this point, making him angry and probably not getting anywhere? His company does a lot of business in this state. A good relationship with the Commissioner is important. Should he let the matter rest,
then, even though he is convinced that this regulation really is unfair, that its long-term effects are likely to be against the public interest, and that not even the experts foresaw this problem at the time of the original hearings?
What is going on in these cases?
Negotiators are people first
A basic fact about negotiation, easy to forget in corporate and international transactions, is that you are dealing not with abstract representatives of the "other side," but with human beings. They have emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds and viewpoints; and they are unpredictable. So are you.
This human aspect of negotiation can be either helpful or disastrous. The process of working out an agreement may produce a psychological commitment to a mutually satisfactory outcome. A working relationship where trust, understanding, respect, and friendship are built up over time can make each new negotiation smoother and more efficient. And people's desire to feel good about themselves, and their concern for what others will think of them, can often make them more sensitive to another negotiator's interests.
On the other hand, people get angry, depressed, fearful, hostile, frustrated, and offended. They have egos that are easily threatened. They see the world from their own personal vantage point, and they frequently confuse their perceptions with reality. Routinely, they fail to interpret what you say in the way you intend and do not mean what you understand them to say. Misunderstanding can reinforce prejudice and lead to reactions that produce counterreactions in a vicious circle; rational exploration of possible solutions becomes impossible and a negotiation fails. The purpose of the game becomes scoring points, confirming negative impressions, and apportioning blame at the expense of the substantive interests of both parties.
Failing to deal with others sensitively as human beings prone to human reactions can be disastrous for a negotiation. 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?"
Every negotiator has two kinds of interests: in the substance and in the relationship
Every negotiator wants to reach an agreement that satisfies his substantive interests. That is why one negotiates. Beyond that, a negotiator also has an interest in his relationship with the other side. An antiques dealer wants both to make a profit on the sale and to turn the customer into a regular one. At a minimum, a negotiator wants to maintain a working relationship good enough to produce an acceptable agreement if one is possible given each side's interests. Usually, more is at stake. Most negotiations take place in the context of an ongoing relationship where it is important to carry on each negotiation in a way that will help rather than hinder future relations and future negotiations. In fact, with many long-term clients, business partners, family members, fellow professionals, government officials, or foreign nations, the ongoing relationship is far more important than the outcome of any particular negotiation.
The relationship tends to become entangled with the problem. A major consequence of the "people problem" in negotiation is that the parties' relationship tends to become entangled with their discussions of substance. On both the giving and receiving end, we are likely to treat people and problem as one. Within the family, a statement such as "The kitchen is a mess" or "Our bank account is low" may be intended simply to identify a problem, but it is likely to be heard as a personal attack. Anger over a situation may lead you to express anger toward some human being associated with it in your mind. Egos tend to become involved in substantive posi-tions.
Another reason that substantive issues become entangled with psychological ones is that people draw from comments on substance unfounded inferences which they then treat as facts about that person's intentions and attitudes toward them.
Unless we are careful, this process is almost automatic; we are seldom aware that other explanations may be equally valid. Thus in the union example, Jones figured that Campbell, the foreman, had it in for him, while Campbell thought he was complimenting Jones and doing him a favor by giving him responsible assignments.
Positional bargaining puts relationship and substance in conflict. Framing a negotiation as a contest of will over positions aggravates the entangling process. I see your position as a statement of how you would like the negotiation to end; from my point of view it demonstrates how little you care about our relationship. If I take a firm position that you consider unreasonable, you assume that I also think of it as an extreme position; it is easy to conclude that I do not value our relationship — or you — very highly.
Positional bargaining deals with a negotiator's interests both in substance and in a good relationship by trading one off against the other. If what counts in the long run for your company is its relationship with the insurance commissioner, then you will probably let this matter drop. Or, if you care more about a favorable solution than being respected or liked by the other side, you can try to trade relationship for substance. "If you won't go along with me on this point, then so much for you. This will be the last time we meet." Yet giving in on a substantive point may buy no friendship; it may do nothing more than convince the other side that you can be taken for a ride.
Separate the relationship from the substance; deal directly with the people problem
Dealing with a substantive problem and maintaining a good working relationship need not be conflicting goals if the parties are committed and psychologically prepared to treat each sep-arately on its own legitimate merits. Base the relationship on accurate perceptions, clear communication, appropriate emotions, and a forward-looking, purposive outlook. Deal with people problems directly; don't try to solve them with substantive concessions.
To deal with psychological problems, use psychological techniques. Where perceptions are inaccurate, you can look for ways to educate. If emotions run high, you can find ways for each person involved to let off steam. Where misunderstanding exists, you can work to improve communication.
To find your way through the jungle of people problems, it is useful to think in terms of three basic categories: perception, emotion, and communication. The various people problems all fall into one of these three baskets.
In negotiating it is easy to forget that you must deal not only with their people problems, but also with your own. Your anger and frustration may obstruct an agreement beneficial to you. Your perceptions are likely to be one-sided, and you may not be listening or communicating adequately. The techniques which follow apply equally well to your people problems as to those of the other side.
Perception
Understanding the other side's thinking is not simply a useful activity that will help you solve your problem. 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. When two people quarrel, they usually quarrel over an object — both may claim a watch — or over an event — each may contend that the other was at fault in causing an automobile accident. The same goes for nations. Morocco and Algeria quarrel over a section of the Western Sahara; India and Pakistan quarrel over each other's development of nuclear bombs. In such circumstances people tend to assume that what they need to know more about is the object or the event. They study the watch or they measure the skid marks at the scene of the accident. They study the Western Sahara or the detailed history of nuclear weapons development in India and Pakistan.
Ultimately, however, conflict lies not in objective reality, but in people's heads. Truth is simply one more argument — perhaps a good one, perhaps not — for dealing with the dif-
ference. The difference itself exists because it exists in their thinking. Fears, even if ill-founded, are real fears and need to be dealt with. Hopes, even if unrealistic, may cause a war. Facts, even if established, may do nothing to solve the problem. Both parties may agree that one lost the watch and the other found it, but still disagree over who should get it. It may finally be established that the auto accident was caused by the blowout of a tire which had been driven 31,402 miles, but the parties may dispute who should pay for the damage. The detailed history and geography of the Western Sahara, no matter how carefully studied and documented, is not the stuff with which one puts to rest that kind of territorial dispute. No study of who developed what nuclear devices when will put to rest the conflict between India and Pakistan.
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.
Put yourself in their shoes. How you see the world depends on where you sit. People tend to see what they want to see. Out of a mass of detailed information, they tend to pick out and focus on those facts that confirm their prior perceptions and to disregard or misinterpret those that call their perceptions into question. Each side in a negotiation may see only the merits of its case, and only the faults of the other side's.
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. It is not enough to know that they see things differently. If you want to influence them, you also need to understand empathetically the power of their point of view and to feel the emotional force with which they believe in it. It is not enough to study them like beetles under a microscope; you need to know what it feels like to be a beetle. To accomplish this task you should be prepared to withhold judgment for a while as you "try on" their views. They may well believe that their views are "right" as strongly as you believe yours are. You may see on the table a glass half full of cool water. Your spouse may see a dirty, half-empty glass about to cause a ring on the mahogany finish.
Consider the contrasting perceptions of a tenant and a landlady negotiating the renewal of a lease:
TENANTS PERCEPTIONS
The rent is already too high.
With other costs going up, I can't afford to pay more for housing.
The apartment needs painting.
I know people who pay less for a comparable apartment.
Young people like me can't afford to pay high rents.
The rent ought to be low because the neighborhood is rundown.
I am a desirable tenant with no dogs or cats.
I always pay the rent whenever she asks for it.
She is cold and distant; she never asks me how things are. LANDLADY'S PERCEPTIONS
The rent has not been increased for a long time.
With other costs going up, I need more rental income.
He has given that apartment heavy wear and tear.
I know people who pay more for a comparable apartment.
Young people like him tend to make noise and to be hard on an apartment.
We landlords should raise rents in order to improve the quality of the neighborhood. His hi-fi drives me crazy.
He never pays the rent until I ask for it.
I am a considerate person who never intrudes on a tenant's privacy.
Understanding their point of view is not the same as agree ing with it. It is true that a better understanding of their thinking may lead you to revise your own views about the merits of a situation. But that is not a cost of understanding their point of view, it is a benefit. It allows you to reduce the area of conflict, and it also helps you advance your newly enlightened self-interest.
Don't deduce their intentions from your fears. People tend to assume that whatever they fear, the other side intends to do. Consider this story from the New York Times: "They met in a bar, where he offered her a ride home. He took her down unfamiliar streets. He said it was a shortcut. He got her home so fast she caught the 10 o'clock news." Why is the ending so surprising? We made an assumption based on our fears.
It is all too easy to fall into the habit of putting the worst interpretation on what the other side says or does. A suspicious interpretation often follows naturally from one's existing perceptions. Moreover, it seems the "safe" thing to do, and it shows spectators how bad the other side really is. But the cost of interpreting whatever they say or do in its most dismal light is that fresh ideas in the direction of agreement are spurned, and subtle changes of position are ignored or rejected.
Don't blame them for your problem. It is tempting to hold the other side responsible for your problem. "Your company is totally unreliable. Every time you service our rotary generator here at the factory, you do a lousy job and it breaks down again." Blaming is an easy mode to fall into, particularly when you feel that the other side is indeed responsible.
But even if blaming is justified, it is usually counterproductive. Under attack, the other side will become defensive and will resist what you have to say. They will cease to listen, or they will strike back with an attack of their own. Assessing blame firmly entangles the people with the problem.
When you talk about the problem, separate the symptoms from the person with whom you are talking. "Our rotary generator that you service has broken down again. That is three times in the last month. The first time it was out of order for an entire week. This factory needs a functioning generator. I want your advice on how we can minimize our risk of generator breakdown. Should we change service companies, sue the manufacturer, or what?"
Discuss each other's perceptions. One way to deal with differing perceptions is to make them explicit and discuss them with the other side. As long as you do this in a frank, honest manner without either side blaming the other for the problem as each sees it, such a discussion may provide the understanding they need to take what you say seriously, and vice versa.
It is common in a negotiation to treat as "unimportant" those concerns of the other side perceived as not standing in the way of an agreement. To the contrary, communicating loudly and convincingly things you are willing to say that they would like to hear can be one of the best investments you as a negotiator can make.
Consider the negotiation over the transfer of technology which arose at the Law of the Sea Conference. From 1974 to 1981 some 150 nations gathered together in New York and Geneva to formulate rules to govern uses of the ocean from fishing rights to mining manganese in the deep seabed. At one point, representatives of the developing countries expressed keen interest in an exchange of technology; their countries wanted to be able to acquire from the highly indus-trialized nations advanced technical knowledge and equipment for deep-seabed mining.
The United States and other developed countries saw no difficulty in satisfying that desire — and therefore saw the issue of technology transfer as unimportant. In one sense it was unimportant to them, but it was a great mistake for them to treat the subject as unimportant. By devoting substantial time to working out the practical arrangements for transferring technology, they might have made their offer far more credible and far more attractive to the developing countries. By dismissing the issue as a matter of lesser importance to be dealt with later, the industrialized states gave up a low-cost opportunity to provide the developing countries with an impressive achievement and a real incentive to reach agreement on other issues.
Look for opportunities to act inconsistently with their perceptions. Perhaps the best way to change their perceptions is to send them a message different from what they expect. The
visit of Egypt's President Sadat to Jerusalem in November 1977 provides an outstanding example of such an action. The Israelis saw Sadat and Egypt as their enemy, the man and country that launched a surprise attack on them four years before. To alter that perception, to help persuade the Israelis that he too desired peace, Sadat flew to the capital of his enemies, a disputed capital which not even the United States, Israel's best friend, had recognized. Instead of acting as an enemy, Sadat acted as a partner. Without this dramatic move, it is hard to imagine the signing of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
Give them a stake in the outcome by making sure they participate in the process. If they are not involved in the process, they are hardly likely to approve the product. It is that sim-ple. If you go to the state insurance commissioner prepared for battle after a long investigation, it is not surprising that he is going to feel threatened and resist your conclusions. If you fail to ask an employee whether he wants an assignment with responsibility, don't be surprised to find out that he re sents it. If you want the other side to accept a disagreeable conclusion, it is crucial that you involve them in the process of reaching that conclusion.
This is precisely what people tend not to do. When you have a difficult issue to handle, your instinct is to leave the hard part until last. "Let's be sure we have the whole thing worked out before we approach the Commissioner." The Commissioner, however, is much more likely to agree to a revision of the regulations if he feels that he has had a part in drafting it. This way the revision becomes just one more small step in the long drafting process that produced his original regulation rather than someone's attempt to butcher his completed product.
In South Africa, white moderates were trying at one point to abolish the discriminatory pass laws. How? By meeting in an all-white parliamentary committee to discuss proposals. Yet, however meritorious those proposals might prove, they would be insufficient, not necessarily because of their substance, but because they would be the product of a process in which no blacks were included. The blacks would hear, "We superior whites are going to figure out how to solve your problems." It would be the "white man's burden" all over again, which was the problem to start with.
Even if the terms of an agreement seem favorable, the other side may reject them simply out of a suspicion born of their exclusion from the drafting process. Agreement becomes much easier if both parties feel ownership of the ideas. The whole process of negotiation becomes stronger as each side puts their imprimatur bit by bit on a developing solution. Each criticism of the terms and consequent change, each concession, is a personal mark that the negotiator leaves on a proposal. A proposal evolves that bears enough of the suggestions of both sides for each to feel it is theirs.
To involve the other side, get them involved early. Ask their advice. Giving credit generously for ideas wherever possible will give them a personal stake in defending those ideas to others. It may be hard to resist the temptation to take credit for yourself, but forbearance pays off handsomely. Apart from the substantive merits, the feeling of participation in the process is perhaps the single most important factor in determining whether a negotiator accepts a proposal. In a sense, the process is the product.
Face-saving: Make your proposals consistent with their values. In the English language, "face-saving" carries a derogatory flavor. People say, "We are doing that just to let them save face," implying that a little pretense has been created to allow someone to go along without feeling badly. The tone implies ridicule.
This is a grave misunderstanding of the role and importance of face-saving. Face-saving reflects a person's need to reconcile the stand he takes in a negotiation or an agreement with his principles and with his past words and deeds.
The judicial process concerns itself with the same subject. When a judge writes an opinion on a court ruling, he is saving face, not only for himself and for the judicial system, but for the parties. Instead of just telling one party, "You win," and telling the other, "You lose," he explains how his decision is consistent with principle, law, and precedent. He wants to appear not as arbitrary, but as behaving in a proper fashion. A negotiator is no different.
Often in a negotiation people will continue to hold out not because the proposal on the table is inherently unacceptable, but simply because they want to avoid the feeling or the appearance of backing down to the other side. If the substance can be phrased or conceptualized differently so that it seems a fair outcome, they will then accept it. Terms negotiated between a major city and its Hispanic community on municipal jobs were unacceptable to the mayor — until the agreement was withdrawn and (he mayor was allowed to announce the same terms as his own decision, carrying out a campaign promise.
Face-saving involves reconciling an agreement with principle and with the self-image of the negotiators. Its importance should not be underestimated.
Emotion
In a negotiation, particularly in a bitter dispute, feelings may be more important than talk. The parties may be more ready for battle than for cooperatively working out a solution to a common problem. People often come to a negotiation realizing that the stakes are high and feeling threatened. Emotions on one side will generate emotions on the other. Fear may breed anger, and anger, fear. Emotions may quickly bring a negotiation to an impasse or an end.
First recognize and understand emotions, theirs and yours. Look at yourself during the negotiation. Are you feeling nervous? Is your stomach upset? Are you angry at the other side? Listen to them and get a sense of what their emotions are. You may find it useful to write down what you feel — perhaps fearful, worried, angry — and then how you might like to feel — confident, relaxed. Do the same for them.
In dealing with negotiators who represent their organizations, it is easy to treat them as mere mouthpieces without emotions. It is important to remember that they too, like you, have personal feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams. Their careers may be at stake. There may be issues on which they are particularly sensitive and others on which they are particularly proud. Nor are the problems of emotion limited to the negotiators. Constituents have emotions too. A constituent may have an even more simplistic and adversarial view of the situation.
Ask yourself what is producing the emotions. Why are you angry? Why are they angry? Are they responding to past grievances and looking for revenge? Are emotions spilling over from one issue to another? Are personal problems at home interfering with business? In the Middle East negotiation, Israelis and Palestinians alike feel a threat to their existence as peoples and have developed powerful emotions that now permeate even the most concrete practical issue, like distribution of water in the West Bank, so that it becomes almost impossible to discuss and resolve. Because in the larger picture both peoples feel that their own survival is at stake, they see every other issue in terms of survival.
Make emotions explicit and acknowledge them as legitimate. Talk with the people on the other side about their emotions. Talk about your own. It does not hurt to say, "You know, the people on our side feel we have been mistreated and are very upset. We're afraid an agreement will not be kept even if one is reached. Rational or not, that is our concern. Personally, I think we may be wrong in fearing this, but that's a feeling others have. Do the people on your side feel the same way?" Making your feelings or theirs an explicit focus of discussion will not only underscore the seriousness of the problem, it will also make the negotiations less reactive and more "pro-active." Freed from the burden of unexpressed emotions, people will become more likely to work on the problem.
Allow the other side to let off steam. Often, one effective way to deal with people's anger, frustration, and other negative emotions is to help them release those feelings. People obtain psychological release through the simple process of recounting their grievances. If you come home wanting to tell your husband about everything that went wrong at the office, you will become even more frustrated if he says, "Don't bother telling me; I'm sure you had a hard day. Let's skip it." The same is true for negotiators. Letting off steam may make it easier to talk rationally later. Moreover, if a negotiator makes an angry speech and thereby shows his constituency that he is not being "soft," they may give him a freer hand in the negotiation. He
can then rely on a reputation for toughness to protect him from criticism later if he eventually enters into an agreement.
Hence, instead of interrupting polemical speeches or walking out on the other party, you may decide to control yourself, sit there, and allow them to pour out their grievances at you. When constituents are listening, such occasions may release their frustration as well as the negotiator's. Perhaps the best strategy to adopt while the other side lets off steam is to listen quietly without responding to their attacks, and occasionally to ask the speaker to continue until he has spoken his last word. In this way, you offer little support to the inflammatory substance, give the speaker every encouragement to speak himself out, and leave little or no residue to fester.
Don't react to emotional outbursts. Releasing emotions can prove risky if it leads to an emotional reaction. If not controlled, it can result in a violent quarrel. One unusual and effective technique to contain the impact of emotions was used in the 1950s by the Human Relations Committee, a labor-management group set up in the steel industry to handle emerging conflicts before they became serious problems. The members of the committee adopted the rule that only one person could get angry at a time. This made it legitimate for others not to respond stormily to an angry outburst. It also made letting off emotional steam easier by making an outburst itself more legitimate: "That's OK. It's his turn." The rule has the further advantage of helping people control their emotions. Breaking the rule implies that you have lost self-control, so you lose some face.
Use symbolic gestures. Any lover knows that to end a quarrel the simple gesture of bringing a red rose goes a long way. Acts that would produce a constructive emotional impact on one side often involve little or no cost to the other. A note of sympathy, a statement of regret, a visit to a cemetery, delivering a small present for a grandchild, shaking hands or embracing, eating together — all may be priceless opportunities to improve a hostile emotional situation at small cost. On many occasions an apology can defuse emotions effectively, even when you do not acknowledge personal responsibility for the action or admit an intention to harm. An apology may be one of the least costly and most rewarding investments you can make.
Communication
Without communication there is no negotiation. Negotiation is a process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching a joint decision. Communication is never an easy thing, even between people who have an enormous background of shared values and experience. Couples who have lived with each other for thirty years still have misunderstandings every day. It is not surprising, then, to find poor communication between people who do not know each other well and who may feel hostile and suspicious of one another. Whatever you say, you should expect that the other side will almost always hear something different.
There are three big problems in communication. First, negotiators may not be talking to each other, or at least not in such a way as to be understood. Frequently each side has given up on the other and is no longer attempting any serious communication with it. Instead they talk merely to impress third parties or their own constituency. Rather than trying to dance with their negotiating partner toward a mutually agreeable outcome, they try to trip him up. Rather than trying to talk their partner into a more constructive step, they try to talk the spectators into taking sides. Effective communication between the parties is all but impossible if each plays to the gallery.
Even if you are talking directly and clearly to them, they may not be hearing you. This constitutes the second problem in communication. Note how often people don't seem to pay enough attention to what you say. Probably equally often, you would be unable to repeat what they had said. In a negotiation, you may be so busy thinking about what you are going to say next, how you are going to respond to that last point or how you are going to frame your next argument, that you forget to listen to what the other side is saying now. Or you may be listening more attentively to your constituency than to the other side. Your constituents, after all, are the