Four principles of principle negotiation

Pharmacist's ability to tell stories and bargain.

The origin of this storytelling can be traced back to ten years ago. A teacher named Jack Marr taught a course called Negotiation Skills, using the best-selling book Getting To YES of the negotiation project team of Harvard University.

This time, I came across the book Negotiation Power, which was translated into Chinese by CITIC Publishing House six years ago. Let's talk about this book that has been read many times and share it with everyone. Thanks to three authors Roger Fisher, William Yuri, Bruce Barton and the translator.

Negotiations are everywhere. The scene used in this book can be a serious business negotiation, or a life conversation with different views to reach an agreement.

Usually, the style of negotiators is either moderate or tough. Due to the different needs, the two sides are often angry at each other for a long time and do not give in to each other. Even if an agreement is reached, it is often not a win-win situation, but a compromise between the two sides. More commonly, it broke up in discord, and the two sides died of old age.

The author of this book believes that in order to achieve the ideal result, we can use a kind of "principled negotiation" that combines rigidity with softness to deal with it.

This ideal state includes three aspects: effective, that is, greatly saving both sides' time; Friendly, that is, the two sides maintain good relations; And wise, that is, not to harm the interests of one or both parties.

Since the benefits of negotiation are so obvious in principle, how can they be realized?

The three authors introduced the four basic principles to everyone, and expounded how to negotiate the principles from four aspects: people, interests, choices and standards.

SPFP: separating people from things

The negotiators of the two sides are first and foremost people, and people always have secular desires. When they sit at the negotiating table, they will inevitably consider practical interests and interpersonal interests. Therefore, in order to achieve an ideal negotiation result, we must first separate people from things.

Go out to see the sky, go in to see the face. Deal with things, deal with feelings first. This book suggests that it is best to solve interpersonal relationships from these three basic aspects: cognitive perception, emotion and communication.

Everyone's past experience is different, and they look at the problem from different angles, which leads to different cognition of the same fact. As both sides of the negotiation, they need to empathize, empathize and discuss their own views on the issue, so as to have a deeper understanding of their own cognition. There is a passage here that is difficult to understand, but it has often appeared in my mind in recent years. Everyone knows:

Don't use your own worries to speculate on each other's intentions.

Emotional is a very normal phenomenon, especially in negotiation. When people experience a certain stimulus, adrenaline surges, and at this time, the whole body is telling itself that emotions need to erupt. Therefore, both sides are allowed to express their emotions, but they don't have to answer blows with blows and respond to the escalation.

Both sides of communication need to pay attention to the balance between expression and listening. Most poor communication results may be due to the following reasons:

First, the two sides are unwilling to communicate directly and it is difficult to talk with the channel.

The second is that most people know how to express and don't know how to listen.

The third is misunderstanding.

Know yourself, and you will always know yourself. Listen carefully, ten eyes and one ear are king. Words have substance and clear goals.

FINP: Focus on benefits rather than positions.

A position is the field you stand in, which is usually fixed and limited. When negotiating, we usually set a bottom line for ourselves, or emphasize our role or identity. These are locations.

Interest is the root behind the position, and interest is the key to the problem.

Negotiators with opposing positions usually have conflicts of interest and of course have the same interests. Therefore, in the negotiations in principle, we hope that everyone can seek solutions that are in line with the interests of both sides through their own positions.

Where to seek benefits? The simple answer is to ask questions. Asking questions is a very powerful skill, which can help both sides find the deep-seated reasons that have not been excavated. My personal favorite question is:

"Why?"

"Why not? Why not?"

"What else?"

The needs of the people are the most fundamental interests. Abraham maslow's hierarchy of needs theory gives us a way of thinking. Does the other party's interest belong to survival, belonging, identity or self-realization?

Reading this chapter this time, I have another layer of thinking.

The usual position of concern is to look back at the road from beginning to end, which is easy to form a fixed thinking. The reason why I set this bottom line now is because of a past experience.

Paying attention to interests means looking forward and starting from the end. With a growing mind, look forward to what goals may be achieved in the future. Confucius once said, "Don't say what you have done, don't remonstrate what you have done, let bygones be bygones", which is worthy of our deep thought.

IOMG: create choices and achieve a win-win situation

Why is it easy for people to stick to their own views and not pursue another choice in negotiations?

Roger, William and Bruce think that there are four obstacles that limit people's imagination:

1. Immature judgment.

According to Daniel Kahneman's systematic thinking theory, people can easily draw conclusions. Once the other party puts forward any scheme different from their own cognition, the first reaction is to object. This is the fallacy of thinking.

The solution is to separate the process of scheme invention from the decision-making process. Brainstorm as much as possible without judgment, so that everyone can focus on possible solutions, even if they are imaginative. Finally, we will sort it out in a unified way and find new options that can meet the interests of both parties.

2. Seek a single answer.

Linear thinking often thinks that there is only one way to solve problems. And this "unique solution" usually determines the position. We can use some tools to break the inertia thinking and look for objective laws behind special phenomena. Speaking of which, I thought of Poor Charlie and Principles in the thick bookcase. It's time to put them on the waiting list as soon as possible.

3. Think the pie is fixed.

Most people think that negotiation is a zero-sum game. Either you win or I lose, or I win and you lose. This is the idea of making cakes. The previous brainstorming can tap the common interests behind both sides, because not all important interests are the focus of competition between the two sides. How to find a solution that will cost you the least and benefit the other party the most, so that both parties can eventually make the cake much bigger.

Imagine that everyone is cleaning the snow in front of the door.

In principle, negotiators will not only look at their own gains and losses, but also comprehensively consider the interests of both sides. Convenient for others, convenient for yourself. As vito corleone said, "I will give him a reason he can't refuse." (of course, it is not the kind that is based on threats. )

IUOC: Insist on using objective standards

The above-mentioned factors about people, interests and choices are all aimed at seeking win-win solutions and reaching friendly consultations. It is undeniable that we always have to face the cruel reality of the conflict of interests between the two sides.

At this time, in principle, objective criteria can provide some help for negotiators to solve the conflict of interests between the two sides. Three basic points are given in the book, and this article will not expand them one by one:

So far, our focus has been on how to negotiate in realization principle. The ideal is full and the reality is cruel. Our opposite party may not want to negotiate with us in principle. The last part of this book gives you more perspectives through three "hypothetical" situations and ten questions in the appendix.

These three situations are:

Here I focus on the concept of the best alternative BATNA.

Making BATNA is a compulsory course.

The first thing to think about BATNA is, if you can't reach an agreement, do you have any other alternatives? Secondly, among many alternatives, find one or several that are most promising to become a reality and make an action plan, instead of just staying in the imagination. Finally, find out the best from these alternatives.

When negotiating, you will compare the possible agreement with the best alternative you have prepared, so as to rationally accept or reject the possible agreement.

In short, the more ideal BATNA is, the stronger your negotiating power will be. Even if you meet the strongest negotiator, you can get away with it.

The three authors sum up at the conclusion and learn from practice. The theory of principle negotiation doesn't sound complicated, but it takes a long time to master. From the perspective of principle negotiation theory, in many negotiation scenarios, we can be both wise and brave, and achieve the most sensible win-win result with rationality and efficiency.

The structure of principle negotiation is very clear, which is especially suitable for training courses. When I was engaged in sales management, I did similar training for the team internally, and later this became the first course of my consulting career. Special thanks to DCCC students who participated in this class that year. Are you all right now?

The most important idea of this theory is the separation of people and things. Later, in many courses related to communication, views similar to principle negotiation were expressed. I remember that in Difficult Dialogue, dialogue is also divided into three levels: fact, emotion and identity, which is similar to the theory in this book.

I have to say that the principle negotiation proposed by the negotiation project of Harvard University has a deep academic atmosphere. Many questions point to whether the principle negotiation in real life is too idealistic.

However, as an independent thinking individual, the important task of our study is not to prove or falsify a theory. The most important thing is to learn the most suitable nutrition from it, rather than looking for it yourself and applying what you have learned. This is the correct way for us to learn.

Finally, negotiation skills, like all skills, are both science and art. By mastering its logic through science and its essence through art, you can become a successful principle negotiator.