Getting to Yes

Chapter 1: The Problem

When negotiating a contract never bargain over the position.  When we do this it becomes personal and we are trying to prove a point.  As an alternative you could use positional bargaining as a technique.  The two types of positional bargaining is hard or soft which addresses the substance or deals with the substance. 

Chapter 2: Separate the people from the problem

When you separate the person you are dealing with them as a human being.  While dealing with the human being put yourself in their shoes and see their viewpoint.  Now you are able to look at the problem objective and come up with other solutions. 

Chapter 3: Focus on interests, not positions

Our interest are needs, desires, concerns, and fears.  Interests motivates people; they are silent movers behind the positions.  Your position is something you decided upon.  Your interests are what caused you to decide. 

Chapter 4: Invent Options for Mutual Gain

There are four major obstacles that inhibit the inventing of an abundance of options in negotiations: premature judgment, searching for the single answer, the assumption of a fixed pie, and thinking that solving their problem is their problem.  To invent creative options we need to separate the inventing options from the act of judging them, to broaden the options on the table rather than look for a single answer, to search for mutual gains, and to invent ways of making decisions easy. 

Chapter 5: Insist on using objective criteria

Negotiators usually resolve issues by stating what they will or will not accept.  Try to reach a decision based on principle not pressure.  Then try to be fair, efficiently, and insist on using an objective criteria.  When using an objective criteria each standard becomes a lever you can use to persuade your opponent.

All of these negotiating techniques can be used with parents, teachers, students, and staff.  My favorite is focusing on the interest not the problem.  Today in staff development I read about a teacher in New York who wanted to make a change because one out of every ten students attended college.  He started focusing on the interest not the problem.  On the first day of school he shared an acceptance letter from a college with his 5th grade students.  Soon his students became interested in college so he allowed them write to the admission office at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.  The admission office responded to each student and informed them of what would be required of them to attend a great university.  The students were motivated to learn.  The teacher sponsored a "Parent Learning Activity" monthly which included teaching the parents what he would teach the students for the upcoming month.  The parents begin to see the important of an education and they pushed their children to learn.  Each year his class has the highest Math and Reading scores in the 5th grade class.  This teacher focused on the interest not the problem.