The reading report of Getting to yes

国贸071 刘钰 0701030122

The fields of negotiation and mediation, one small book has had a tremendous impact. Published in 1981, Roger Fisher and William Ury' s book, Getting to Yes, introduced the concept of \"principled\" or \"interest-based\" bargaining . It is one of the most well-known works in negotiation literature and is a landmark book. Some of the book's strengths are its discussions on separating the people from the problem and focusing on interests, rather than positions. This book introduced the term BATNA, your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement, the standard against which Fisher and Ury claim any proposed agreement should be measured. It make sense, because using your BATNA as a standard, you can protect yourself or your clients from accepting terms that are too unfavorable and from rejecting terms it would be in your interest to accept. Principled negotiation, as espoused by Fisher and Ury, is an approach to bargaining that expands \"the pie\" rather than just dividing it as with distributive bargaining. Principled negotiation is the win-win approach that is also referred to as integrative bargaining. In contrast, distributive bargaining generally assumes a zero-sum position where plus one for me equals minus one for you. Both approaches, distributive and integrative have a place on the bargaining table. It is not uncommon for a party to take an integrative approach at the outset of a negotiation and switch to distributive bargaining sometime during the process. This is usually when the interests are being explored early on, and then actual negotiations regarding money become the focus at the end. When dollars are being discussed, distributive bargaining is most common. Sometimes a party will take the distributive approach when the negotiations commence and then become more integrative when a deal or settlement is not reached with the competitive method.

To the beginning ,we should recall the summary of the book which is the classical direction for people in negotiation—‘’ Getting to yes ‘’：’’Getting to yes ‘’ is mainly to clarify the relevant issues in the negotiation and involving to psychology of negotiants. Theme of the article falls into three plates: the problem; the method; yes, but….The main content in the first part is the position ,aiming at talking about their behalf is what they should discuss in the negotiation. But in the reality , people always focus on bargain over positions. As a result, arguing over positions produces unwise agreements , inefficient and endangers an ongoing relationship .If a few parties in the negotiation ,the positional bargaining will be easier. At the same time ,always being nice in the negotiation just want to avoid too many expenditure in the positional bargaining that is very unreasonable , you will bankrupt result from this action .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 .But 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 your response to sustained ,hard positional bargaining is soft positional bargaining , you will probably lose your shirt .

Besides ,if you do not like the choice between hard soft positional bargaining ,you can change the game ,what is the another choice that is principled negotiation or negotiation on the merits can be four basic points which is people ,interests ,options ,criteria 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 .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 .In the part of method talk about this three parts delicately .The first is that separate the people from the problem .Negotiators are people first .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 .Beyond that ,a negotiator also has an interest in his relationship with the other side .Positional bargaining puts relationship and substance in conflict .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 separately on its own legitimate merits .Base the relationship on accurate prepared to treat each separately on its own legitimate merits .Base the relationship on accurate prepared to treat each separately 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 ,appropriate emotions ,and a forward-looking ,purposive outlook .Deal with people problems directly ;don’t try to solve them with substantive concessions .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 Understanding the other sides 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 . 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. 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. But understanding their point of view is not the same as agreeing 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. 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 and allow the other side to let off steam. Without communication there is no negotiation. Negotiation is a process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching a joint decision. Then Listen actively and acknowledge what is being said. The need for listening is obvious, yet it is difficult to listen well, especially under the stress of an ongoing negotiation. Listening enables you to understand their perceptions, feel their emotions, and hear what they are trying to say. Active listening improves not only what you hear, but also what they say. Standard techniques of good listening are to pay close attention to what is said, to ask the other party to spell out carefully and clearly exactly what they mean, and to request that ideas be repeated if there is any ambiguity or uncertainty. Make it your task while listening not to phrase a response, but to understand them as they see themselves. Take in their perceptions, their needs, and their constraints. As you repeat what you understood them to have said, phrase it positively from their point of view, making the strength of their case clear. And speak to be understood., speak about yourself, not about them, speak for a purpose .The method of solving the problem is coordinating the interests of two parties and not the position. In coordinating, paying the attention to find the interests of both common, the more common the easier to solve .And preparing many plans is important in negotiation. But there are four obstacles prevent it creating alternative choices scheme：premature judgment, searching for the single answer, the assumption of a fixed pie, thinking that \"solving their problem is their problem\". To invent creative options, then, you will need (1) to separate the act of inventing options from the act of judging them; (2) to broaden the options on the table rather than look for a single answer; (3) to search for mutual gains; and (4) to invent ways of making their decisions easy. Then Insist on Using Objective CRITERIA, however well you understand the interests of the other side, however ingeniously you invent ways of reconciling interests, however highly you value an ongoing relationship, you will almost always face the harsh reality of interests that conflict. No talk of \"win-win\" strategies can conceal that fact. At first objective criteria should apply when determining interests ,and deciding on the basis of will is costly. Trying to reconcile differences on the basis of will has serious costs. No negotiation is likely to be efficient or amicable if you pit your will against theirs, and either you have to back down or they do. And whether you are choosing a place to eat, organizing a business, or negotiating custody of a child, you are unlikely to reach a wise agreement as judged by any objective standard if you take no such

standard into account. If trying to settle differences of interest on the basis of will has such high costs, the solution is to negotiate on some basis independent of the will of either side !a that is, on the basis of objective criteria. At the last ,you should protecting yourself . Having a bottom line makes it easier to resist pressure and temptations of the moment .Except the bottom line ,you should also know your BATNA. Your BATNA not only is a better measure but also has the advantage of being flexible enough to permit the exploration of imaginative solutions. Instead of ruling out any solution which does not meet your bottom line, you can compare a proposal with your BATNA to see whether it better satisfies your interests .In the case of

noncooperation, you can put the use negotiation jujitsu , instead of pushing back, sidestep their attack and deflect it against the problem. As in the Oriental martial arts of judo and jujitsu, avoid pitting your strength against theirs directly; instead, use your skill to step aside and turn their strength to your ends. Rather than resisting their force, channel it into exploring interests, inventing options for mutual gain, and searching for independent standards.

After I read this book which make me have more profound views on negotiating skills and mentality of negotiations .I recall the things what happened in the past ,we can know that people always forget what they want at first in the following fierce discuss ,but always focus on their position and stick to this ,as if they will be win when they get the victory on the position .On the contrary ,in this way ,the two parties in negotiating whoever can not get the real profit at the last what maybe is the win-win situation .We should put the interests into the first priority ,and according to their interest to seek common ground to achieve optimum results .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 ,but the relationship is really a important thing in the business or in usual life .I realize that just take hard or soft alone in negotiating is not a good method to solve the problem .In the compare ,principled negotiation or negotiation on the merits which is a method of negotiation explicitly designed to produce wise outcomes efficiently and amicably is the better method can be use in the reality ,and we can negotiate in the object circumvent ,because if we hold a negotiation with subject mind ,the result should not a good ending .We are creatures of strong emotions who often have radically different perceptions and have difficulty communicating 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 . In the negotiations we should on the basis of objective realities to know the fact that both sides of the different ,and pay attention to think on the other sides to comprehend other’s opinions .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 then .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 .Negotiating hard for your interests does not mean being closed to the other side’s point of view .Quite the contrary .You can hardly expect the other side to listen to your interests and discuss the options you suggest if you don’t take their interests into account and show yourself to be open to their suggestions .Successful negotiation requires being both firm and open .

The classic example many mediation and negotiation trainers use to illustrate the differences between distributive and integrative bargaining comes from Getting to Yes and involves two sisters quarreling over a single orange. Each sister's position is she needs 100% of the orange. Using a distributive approach, for one sister to gain some of the orange, the other must lose. The mediator or negotiator using a distributive approach may come up with a solution as mom did when she entered the kitchen and found the two sisters arguing over who should have the orange. Wanting to be fair to both of her daughters, mom the mediator proposed this solution. One daughter would cut the orange in half and the other daughter would choose which half she would receive. Over all, this seems like a fair and reasonable solution, and in fact, this is

how many disputes are resolved and how many negotiations play out. Each sister gets 50% of what they wanted. The result achieves fairness and arguably a win-win solution. But can we do better? Using Fisher and Ury's principled approach, the focus is shifted to the sisters' interests rather than their positions. This time, rather than just proposing a solution, mom the mediator seeks to understand and find out why each sister wants the orange. Mom discovers that one sister does not really even like oranges, but she wants to bake a Christmas cake which calls for the peels of one orange. The other girl wants to eat the fruit and plans to toss the peels into the garbage. Learning the interests of each person, rather than just knowing their positions, allows for creative and often much more satisfying results. By giving the peel to the first girl, and the fruit to her sister, each girl receives 100% of what she wanted for a truly win-win solution. f only all problems were that easy to solve! If they were, many of us would be out of jobs. Real problems are often much more complex, and very rarely can you get 100% for each party, but many times you can do better than 50/50. It takes some effort learning interest based principles and incorporating them into negotiations and a willingness to look beyond the distributive solutions and expand \"the pie\" based on parties' interests rather than positions, but the solutions and results obtained are well worth the time and effort.

The book has been criticized as neglecting a significant part of the negotiation process (distributive bargaining) and oversimplifying many of the troublesome problems inherent in the art and practice of negotiation. Nonetheless, it contains useful techniques and valid criticism regarding negotiation and should be read by every practicing person, especially those involved with mediation. It is especially useful for those who tend to only negotiate with a distributional or distributive approach. I encourage everyone to read this small negotiating gem and incorporate the problem solving techniques in their negotiations and explore mutual profitable resolutions in their mediations. All in all , in the negotiations should pay attention to combine

the interests of both parties ,and on the basis of common interest to have a rational discussion .DO your best to know what you are doing all the time ,at the time ,you should separate the feelings and interests .Try to achieve the common interests .