Mistake #2—A negotiation is not like being read your Miranda warning. While you have the right to remain silent, don’t. Along with asking questions, you should answer questions. This isn’t just as a matter of reciprocity. If the other side doesn’t know what you truly want, they can’t give it to you.
The pie is the additional value created through an agreement to work together. The notion of “dividing the pie” is commonplace in negotiations. But most people split the wrong pie; they focus on the total amount, not the gain created by an agreement. As a result, they argue over the wrong numbers and issues, and take positions they perceive as reasonable but are, in fact, self-interested.
We turned a negotiation into a data exercise. And then we found ways to make the pie bigger.
Neither party can come up with creative solutions without a deep understanding of the other side’s interests.
People dislike negotiation, and with good reason. They go up against jerks who make low-ball offers, ultimatums, and try to take advantage of them. Some people feel they have to act like a jerk in response. Others are too nice and give away the store. There’s a better way, an approach that brings principles and logic into the negotiation.
I want to change how people negotiate. If parties can agree upfront to split the pie, they can focus their attention on working together to make a bigger pie. This allows parties to put their natural curiosity and empathy to work expanding the pie. They don’t have to watch their back and worry about being taken advantage of as they’ve already solved the contentious part—they’ve agreed to split the gains they create together.
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
The most successful negotiators understand the other side's concerns and worries as much as their own.
As important as behavior is, most problems at home, at work, and in the world are not failures of strategy but failures of way of being. As we've discussed, when our hearts are at war, we can't see situations clearly, we can't consider others' positions seriously enough to solve difficult problems, and we end up provoking hurtful behavior in others.