Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In

Negotiation is a crucial life skill. For some, it’s inherent to being a part of society, especially with expensive purchases or haggling in open markets. For others (like lawyers), it composes a part of their professional skillset. Either way, most people can stand to benefit from learning more about the art of negotiation. Many negotiation guides seek to maximize gains by taking strong positions. However, as these authors point out, this strategy can hurt long-term relationships by hurting the well-being of one party. Instead, they suggest building negotiation around a mutual appreciation of fairness. This leaves relationships and reputations in tact while getting a satisfying result.

The authors make a couple of assumptions. First, show more most people are most afraid of being “taken” in a negotiation. They do not necessarily want to maximize their result, but rather, they mostly do not want to lose the negotiation. Second, fair standards can anchor a negotiation by framing it objectively in a proper ballpark. Instead of taking positions, parties are encouraged to do research to look for a fair result. While this decreases the likelihood of “winning big,” it increases the likelihood of a mutually satisfying agreement. (Thus, it decreases the likelihood of a “bad” agreement.)

With these goals in mind, the authors reframe the language around negotiation to help readers achieve these results. Ample examples from a variety of settings exist within this work. They coach how to deal with trying situations, like power differentials, difficult people, and adversarial tactics. They focus on long-term benefits from reputation and win-win relationships instead of just winning one contest.

Those who value the social fabric will appreciate this book’s approach. It’s goal is to get to “yes” – that is, to get to an agreement instead of dramatically maximizing the windfall. Obviously, not everyone will agree with this style of negotiation, but it has many benefits. Most of all, it encourages fairness and politeness without turning it into passivity. It’s good training (and therapy) to think through dealing with difficult negotiation tactics ahead of time. This sets the stage for real-life encounters. After reading this book, I look back on several big, past negotiations that I could have handled better. At least I’ll be more prepared for the next one. show less

This is a surprisingly easy book to read but chalk full of information and examples. The contents are carefully structured and each chapter builds on the previous. It does not oversimplify issues, on the contrary, it recognizes the complexity of some negotiation situations but constantly refers to the same principles to show how they can be applied consistently. Finally, I appreciated the variety of the examples drawn both from common occurrences and exceptionally delicate situations, giving a wide range of possibilities to consider. Very dense but extremely useful, this book gives the secrets to a powerful yet human way to find solutions to tough conflicts.

Unfortunately, the world is full of people who still think that negotiation is a strong-man game. The one who made the least concessions wins.

This is the most fundamental, basic book to break through that view. At this point, the information in here is old-hat if you're dealing with someone who's a professional negotiator (sales, arbitration, etc) but if you hate negotiating because you just see it as an arm-wrestling competition, this is a great book to get started changing that view.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the theory behind effective negotiation, offering plenty of relevant examples and standing as a gold standard in the field. However, it would benefit from more practical guidance on applying the concepts. Despite this, it remains valuable, and I noticed some of the theories reflected in the movie Juror 8 I recently watched.

For instance, on the concept of Separating people from the problem
During the trial, the forensic scientist confidently testified that the victim’s death was caused by a blow from a hammer. However, Juror #6, despite knowing the jury was not allowed to speak, boldly interjected, asserting that the wound on the victim’s head was not from a hammer. With 30 show more years of experience as an embalmer, Juror #6 was certain the wound had a different cause, pointing to the evidence of blood patches rather than the gushing blood one would expect from a hammer strike. Despite his extensive experience in handling corpses, no one chose to believe him, and he was eventually removed from the court for causing a disturbance. Perhaps, if Juror #6 had presented his opinion with more restraint, avoiding the aggressive tone and volume, the judges might have responded differently. His emotional outburst, unfortunately, overshadowed the validity of his argument, leading to his dismissal.

This book is no doubt a very good book for beginners :) show less

While it does leave to feeling like Jack Donaghy after a six hour Six Sigma marathon, there's plenty of advice.

The whole book can be boiled down to an expression of Wheeton's Law: "Don't be a dick."

This one was pretty technical. The authors really break down the thought process of having a principled negotiation instead of trying to negotiate either "soft" or "hard." They provide a variety of examples/case studies that emphasize the point. Not going to lie, this was a bit dry, but very good book if you want to read more about different leadership styles.

"Getting to Yes" breaks down key concepts from the authors such as "Don't Bargain Over Positions," "Separate the People from the Problem" and "Focus on Interests, Not Positions." Through each breakdown they go through and provide an example to emphasis their point. I thought this book at times was dry, but I like the constant reinforcement that they are trying to get to in which show more that every negotiation that you have with either a boss, a direct report, or peer, you can work to make sure that you are principled in your negotiations and don't need to start from a soft or hard position. I have a boss right now that all he does is try to argue his point with our whole team and never listens to a thing we say. That leads to resentment among the rest of us and also anger. It's frustrating to know that you are being ignored since the boss wants to do things his or her own way without taking into consideration other people. It didn't help in our case that he was totally wrong in his approach and we (the team) are paying for it now.

One of my favorite chapters though was "What if They Are More Powerful?" or Develop your BATNA-Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. And believe me I paid attention to this just because a deputy I work for likes to win. You can see him just thinking about his retort when other people are speaking. Drives me up the wall. This chapter though takes you through steps such as protecting yourself, the costs of knowing your bottom line, and knowing your BATNA.

Definitely recommend for a leadership course. And will say once again this is pretty dry. show less

What a great book. In just 6 hours, Fisher and Ury introduced multiple unique concepts that really changed the way I see negotiations -- the ones that stuck out were BATNA, interests over positions, and focusing on objective truths/criteria. The authors also provide realistic examples of how using their advice might unlock better results. In these examples, following the Getting to Yes approach resulted in far more potential solutions being explored, often times by integrating options that didn't initially seem like they could be part of the negotiation.

As the authors note, people negotiate on a daily basis: situations that need more than one person to accomplish a goal usually require some kind of negotiation. I highly recommend show more reading this book to improve the results of those negotiations. show less