The Harvard Principles of Negotiation

Hello and welcome to today's lesson, where we will discuss the Harvard Negotiation Principles. Now, the need to negotiate is everywhere, whether you're hiring a new employee by asking for accommodations or interacting with your partner or friends. Unfortunately, most people must have good

negotiation

skills. I have never learned the art of

negotiation

and therefore am terrible at negotiating. Before we jump in and look at the

principles

, let me quickly give you some background for context. The

principles

emerged through the Harvard Negotiation Project, which was established to improve the theory and practice of negotiation. Then later, the two founders of the project, Roger Fisher and William Urie, wrote the book Getting to Yes, giving us the principles of a negotiation that we're looking at today, so, with that out of the way, let's jump right in and look at the principles, So principle one is to separate the person from the problem Now, if you are like most people who try to imagine a negotiation, you probably imagine two people face to face arguing, each of whom is unwilling to budge.

Not even an centimeter, each party has its position and argues to try to give in as little as possible. Whoever gives up the least will be seen as the winner. This approach to negotiation is called positional negotiation, and the Harvard Negotiation Principles say that positional negotiation is bad because it produces terrible results, is inefficient, and jeopardizes the long term. relationship, let's look at an example to see why imagine there is an orange and each of our negotiations wants it, they argue about who should own it for a while and finally decide to split it in two to have 50 each, but what would happen if one person would you like the orange? because they wanted the peel to make a cake and the other person wanted the orange because he wanted the seeds to be removed to make the orange trees grow well.

In this case, it is easy to see that splitting the orange in two was not an optimal result, so it is in your interest to understand the other party's interests because if you don't, you may not get what you want, that means that the person you are dealing with is not just your enemy but your partner, so separate the person. From the problem you need to recognize the emotions and the ego can prevent you from clearly seeing the other party's position, so here are some actions you can take to separate the person from the problem. First, try to understand the other person's position by imagining yourself in their place. allow the other person to vent when they need to try to recognize the source of any strong emotions use active listening techniques to ensure you understand what is being said remember that a negotiation is not a debating competition, so when you speak your target should be must be understood not to win and build your relationship.

It really helps if you can connect with the other party on a personal level. Now, to separate people from the problem, your mindset should not be about winning but rather understanding the other person's concerns better. Now keep in mind that all of Harvard's trading principles are principles, not rules, which means you are free to adjust them or use them as much or as little as you like. Principle 2 is to focus on interests, not positions. Negotiation is not about positions, it is about resolving the conflict between the interests and concerns of each side. If each side knew what was behind the other's desire for the orange, in the example we just saw they could have reached a result. much more successful, so here are some actions you can take. can take to identify the other party's interests, so when the other party expresses a position, ask them why and explain that you are doing so to understand their interests, their fears, and their desires.

Also ask why not when the other party rejects one of your proposals. a list of interests for both parties categorize them so you understand what is most important to each party finally recognize the other party's interests if you want them to consider your interests seriously then a great place to start is by showing them that you understand their interests principle 3 is generating options for mutual benefit, so the key to finding options for mutual benefit is to understand that shared interests are at the center of the negotiation When exploring options for mutual benefit, there are four types that people usually fall into : First, you judge ideas too quickly so that nothing hinders new generation of ideas faster than someone who immediately shoots them down but you both can't win, so you ultimately ignore the other party's interests.

Remember that to reach an agreement you need to create an option that satisfies the other party's self-interest, so here are some actions you can take to overcome these pitfalls. First, separate yourself. creating ideas from your judgment Focus first on generating many ideas and agree enough to critique any of them during this creation step. Try to broaden your options instead of focusing on a single promising option. Third, try to identify mutual gains and finally look for ways to facilitate the other party's decision. There will be no agreement without finding an option that works for them now interests will not always align well, so the key to moving forward when interests differ is to look for interests that have a high cost for you, but low cost for the other party and vice versa.

Now, once you have found these interests, the party on the low-cost side of the deal should suggest proposals that are attractive to the other party, this process should work in both directions until there are no more. interests to negotiate and the fourth principle is to insist on using objective criteria. Now it is not unusual for two parties to have completely opposite interests. So, to avoid falling into a positional tug-of-war, the final principle is to use objective criteria to resolve your differences. Now objective criteria. They are simply facts that are independent of the people involved in the negotiation but that can affect what should be done in the negotiation.

They try to remove power from the equation. For example, imagine you are negotiating a price with a used car salesman. the highest price and you want the lowest. What objective criteria could you use to avoid positional bargaining? Well, one criterion you could use is the book value of the car and maybe you can both agree that that should be taken into account. What is another criterion? Maybe you could use which one is. common practice and use of car deals, for example, which could include services or other extras in the deal if the price of the book cannot be agreed.

Now it is important to note that the objective criteria are not as complete as you would like in our car example. You can ask the seller to agree that book value is an objective criterion, but you can simply say no and that you want more and you really believe you can get it. Although this objective criterion is still useful for a very simple reason, very often there is a simple reason why the other party will not give you what you want and that is only because you have demanded it of them, so introducing these objective criteria can be a way to divert the conversation from the positional discussion and focus it on some other objective.

So far, you might think this all sounds great, but what if the other party doesn't engage well enough? The Harvard Negotiation Principles provide three common ways this can happen and suggest practical approaches to dealing with each, so first, what if the other party is more powerful, well in this case you should spend time developing to your partner b-a-t-n-a, which means the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, the better your hitter, the more power you will have, so how will you develop now? Well, it's pretty simple. You should come up with a list of alternative options to take if you can't reach an agreement, then work to improve the best of those options, and finally select the one that is best.

Now it is crucial to develop your partner. You really shouldn't enter into a negotiation. If you don't know what you will do if you don't reach an agreement at the end of that negotiation, secondly, what happens if the other party doesn't use principled negotiation? This can happen when the other party is looking for a victory. you lose the result or you are making personal attacks and in this case you can implement three approaches, so firstly, do not get dragged into a confrontation, continue using principled negotiation, secondly, use an approach called Jiu Jitsu negotiation, which is intended to deflect attackers from below rather than absorb it, so what that means is that when the other party attacks you by stating their position, you respond by asking the reasons behind that position.

When the other party attacks your ideas, you ask them to explain in detail what is wrong with your ideas and when they attack. you directly listen to everything they have to say and then reframe the attack as an attack on the problem and the final approach is to involve a third party to merge the underlying interests of both parties and put together a proposal, allow comments and then rewrite the proposal. and continue this process until an agreement is finally reached. This is called single text approach and finally, what if the other party uses dirty tricks? Suppose the other party engages in dirty tricks, such as leaking information to the press using pressure tactics or even deploying a calculated delay in negotiations, in that case you can use a simple three-step approach to handle this, so first Recognize that a dirty tactic has been deployed and choose not to engage in it; second, point out that the dirty trick has been played on the participants. and thirdly, negotiate about the negotiation itself, so try to agree on the rules by which the negotiation will be carried out in the future, so, in short, negotiation exists in all aspects of our lives, But most people are terrible negotiators.

Harvard Negotiation Principles can help you achieve better results. Negotiations in all aspects of your life. The best way to improve your negotiation skills is to practice using these techniques regularly. At first it will be slow progress, but over time the methods will become more and more second nature, so that's it for this lesson. I really hope. You enjoyed it and I hope to talk to you again soon.