negotiation Canvas

1. Introduction of framework for negotiation

preparation & how to use it.
2. Elements of negotiation canvas i.e. relationship,
alternatives, legitimacy, options, interest among
others.
[Link] between position & interest
SEVEN ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS
December 2008 – Jerome Slavik
Adapted from Getting To Yes – Negotiating Agreements Without Giving In, R. Fisher and W. Ury

1. RELATIONSHIP: AM I PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THE RELATIONSHIP? a) A good negotiating

relationship is needed to address differences and conflicts. b) Separate people issues from
substantive issues. c) Plan and prepare to build and maintain a good working relationship. d) Be
respectful, trustworthy and unconditional constructive.
2. COMMUNICATION: AM I READY TO LISTEN AND TALK EFFECTIVELY? CREATING A LEARNING
CONVERSATION
a) Core Skills – Basic Communication Skills in Negotiation
i. Active listening – To do active listening, we must overcome some of our tendencies and habits that
interfere with good listening.
ii. Acknowledging what has been said and felt – Have you effectively demonstrated to the other
negotiators that you have heard and UNDERSTOOD what they have said? Use paraphrasing and
summarizing.
iii. Listen to understand, speak to be understood – Have you thought about ways to communicate with
the other party by using words (and at the right time) in a way that they will understand?
iv. Speak about yourself, not them – Have you let them know what are the crucial issues for you and your
community and how you feel about the problem at hand? Use “I” statements.
v. Speak for a purpose – Have you thought through the timing and impact of what you wish to say? Be
clear and concise.
SEVEN ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS

b) Core Skills – Communications to Gather Knowledge and Learn About Their Interests
i. Clarifying and Probing Skills
• Have you thought about basic questions for clarification (including empathetic questions) you might
ask to draw out the interests from the other negotiators? E.g. can you explain…?
• Could you use consequential questions to draw out the other side? E.g. what would you need to…?
ii. Integrative Framing Skills
• Paraphrasing – Have you given feedback in your own words or what you understand the key concerns
and interests on the other side to be?
• Summarizing – Can you accurately draw together the main points of the discussion up to that point in
time?
3. INTERESTS: WHAT DO PEOPLE REALLY WANT?
a) Collectively identify and articulate the interests, concerns, and needs of all relevant parties (mine,
yours, theirs). Remember: most parties do not know all their interests or necessarily agree on their
interests.
b) Identify and prioritize community interests together. Get on the same page.
c) Probe for your and their unarticulated or underlying interests.
d) Share and clarify the respective interests of the parties. Move beyond speculation about to
acknowledgement of their interests.
e) Identify and share common interests as a basis to develop options.
f) Interests from the agenda.
4. OPTIONS: WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE AGREEMENTS OR BITS OF AN AGREEMENT?
a) Design options, not positions.
b) b) Create options to meet interests of both parties.
c) c) Remember when designing options they also must transparently meet their interests. Find ways
to maximize joint gains for both.
5. ALTERNATIVES: WHAT WILL I DO IF WE DO NOT AGREE?
a) Do we need to negotiate or can we satisfactorily meet our interests in other ways?
b) Identify and articulate our best/doable alternatives to a negotiated agreement.
c) Fully understand the implication, consequences, risks and costs of your and their BATNA.
d) Select and improve our BATNA
e) Identify the best and worst alternatives open to the other side.
f) How can we make their BATNA worse for them? (i.e. keep them at the table)

6. LEGITIMACY: WHAT CRITERIA WILL I USE TO PERSUADE EACH OF US THAT WE ARE NOT BEING RIPPED
OFF?
a) Fairness is a governing consideration.
b) Use external criteria and objective standards as a basis to legitimize your preferred options and as a
shield against unreasonable proposals from the other side
c) Use demonstrable “fairness” of the process and outcome to persuade them of the merits of a
proposal.
d) Offer their negotiator an attractive way to explain his decision to his principals (see number 8).
7. COMMITMENT: WHAT COMMITMENTS SHOULD I SEEK OR MAKE?
a) Get commitments at the end not the beginning.
b) Identify all of the implementation issues to be included in the agreement. No post argument
surprises?
c) Plan the timeframe and steps to implement the agreement.

8. CONCLUSION: WHAT IS A GOOD OUTCOME?

a) Meets interests.
b) Demonstrably fair.
c) Better than BATNA.
d) Doable.
Roger Fisher founded the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School. The
PON stated that every negotiation has seven key elements which are distinguishable
but interconnected. Their presence means you can better understand the dynamics
and flow of a negotiation. We provide a breakdown of each element so as to help you
formulate a game plan for your next negotiation.

How Will You Approach the Negotiation?

How you approach the negotiation will determine how each element applies. For
example, do you plan to ‘win’ the negotiation or do you want the best outcome for all
parties?
The first approach is called distributive or zero-sum negotiation, where one side ‘wins’
and the other ‘loses’. Parties put their personal positions and differences before their
counter-party. For example, negotiating with a car sales associate.
The second approach is called integrative or interest-based negotiation. This style
focuses on win-win situations for both parties. Unlike distributive bargaining, the
driving question is, ‘how can we create the most value together?’. Parties use this
approach when the issues at hand are complex, negotiations are ongoing or are
looking to maintain their relationship. For example, when your boss agreed that you
could take time in lieu in exchange for completing a project outside work hours, you
participated in an interest-based negotiation.
1. Interests
Each negotiation approach shares similar components. The first is interests. Critically,
interests differ to positions – a position is what a party wants whereas an interest
is why. For example, let’s revisit our earlier example where you completed a project
outside work hours so you could take time in lieu. Your position is straightforward –
take time in lieu. But your interest might be for a number of reasons. Maybe you wish
to take leave to go on a holiday you booked earlier in the year. Understanding a
party’s interests are key to integrative negotiation. When fixated on positions, it’s easy
for parties to attack and defend positions. Asking ‘why’ opens up a collaborative
environment and increases the chance of a mutually beneficial outcome. Interests can
also play a role in distributive negotiations. They enable you to generate arguments or
counter offers depending on the other party’s response. Understanding the other
party’s interests can then be a powerful negotiation tool.
2. Alternatives
Interests allow you to measure your alternatives to the agreement and paint a picture
of your best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) and worst alternative to a
negotiated agreement (WATNA). Ideally, you should not negotiate for anything south
of your BATNA. This isn’t always possible and understanding your alternatives – as
well as the other party’s – will be determinative in a successful negotiation.
3. Relationships
In a negotiation, relationships can help determine the following:
•how fixed your stance on certain positions
•how aggressive you can be on certain issues, and
•what negotiation approach you can take.
Before engaging in a negotiation, you should always ask:
•How important is the relationship with the other party to me?
•Will I ever see the other party again?
•Is my reputation important?
You may choose to negotiate harder if you don’t care what the other party thinks. Further, even if you
don’t interact with this party again, you may consider your reputation if they are part of a particular
industry or market in which you work or operate.
4. Options
Options are the different combination of outcomes possible. They differ from alternatives, which
explore what happens if you cannot reach an agreement. For example, when you were negotiating to
buy your first car, an alternative might be to buy from another dealer or buy a second-hand car online.
An option might be that you pay a little extra for aluminum tyres and roadside warranty.
When you have reached this element of a negotiation, it means you are progressing towards reaching
outcome. However, be mindful that discussing options is intended as a brainstorming exercise. It’s not
signal for taking offers or making concessions. The idea is that you create options first, and evaluate
them second.
Discussing options can empower both parties as they have a say in resolving the issues. So take care to
avoid expressing judgment or drawing conclusions
.
5. Legitimacy
How do you substantiate the fairness of your offer? How do prove that your counter-
party’s offer is unfair? You need some objective standard of fairness for the claims
made and not just something that you have discussed at the negotiating table.
For example, if the car dealer offered to let you finance the vehicle, how do you know
the interest they are charging is reasonable? A legitimate offer would be comparable
to a market rate. Legitimacy not only solidifies your offers, but it can weaken the other
party.
6. Communication
Communication is an obvious element that is part of all negotiations. It goes beyond
voicing your position and your offer. It also involves listening, the tone of your voice
and even body gestures and movements.
Some easy communication tips to remember are:
•Ask open-ended questions to gather as much information
•Listen actively (this means putting your phone away from sight), and
•Be relaxed – stiff body postures can send the wrong message to the other party.
Remember, you want to know more than just what the other party is offering or their
positions. An effective negotiator will be able to communicate and speak about
interests.
7. Commitment
The final element of negotiations is ensuring that there is a commitment by both parties.
Commitment is two-pronged. Firstly, you want to ensure that the outcome that you have agreed to
is realistic. Secondly, both parties must be able to uphold their end of the bargain. Where these
outcomes are non-existent, it is likely that the parties will have to negotiate their deals again.
To ensure that there is the requisite commitment, some key questions to consider at the beginning
of the negotiation might be:
What kind of commitment can I expect at any future negotiations?
What is the other party’s level of authority?
How authorised is the other party?
For example, if the car dealer was only an associate and had to get the paperwork signed off by the
principal salesman, then it is likely that they cannot fulfil all their promises. Asking these questions
before you negotiate can save you the time and hassle of having to renegotiate with the person
with actual authority and commitment responsibilities.

Key Takeaways
Negotiations can be difficult when you don’t know what you should be considering. Harvard’s PON
outlines seven elements that exist in all negotiations. Harvard has not designed these elements to
act like a checklist, where meeting each requirement will mean a successful negotiation. Rather,
what they represent are components to a negotiation. It helps you to understand how negotiations
work. Like many things in life, preparation will still be the deciding factor between getting what you
want and falling short of your goals.
Positions Interests

What they say they want Why they want it

Positions are surface statements of where a person or Interests are a party’s underlying reasons, values or
organization stands, and rarely provide insight into motivations. Interests explain why someone takes a certain
underlying motivations, values or incentives. position.
Collaborative Practice and Mediation are interest based processes. Interest based
negotiation is a problem solving approach to conflict that focuses on needs,
desires, concerns and fears rather than positions.

A position is what we want (or think we want). An interest is the why beneath the
position. For example, a position might be ‘I want a tuna sandwich.’ The why
beneath that is that ‘I am hungry and want a healthy food choice.’

Positional bargaining or negotiating tends to lead to win-lose or zero-sum outcomes,

where one person wins and gets what they want and the other person loses and doesn’t get
what they want. Positional bargaining can also lead to compromises where one person gets
half of what he wants and the other person gets half of what she wants.

Interest based negotiating often leads to win-win outcomes where each person gets their
needs and desires met or their concerns and fears addressed. For example, if one person
wants the window open and the other person doesn’t, a positional negotiation might lead to
the window being open or closed or perhaps open halfway. An interest based negotiation
might go as follows:
Why do you want the window open? Because it is stuffy in here and I want some fresh air.
Why do you want the window closed? Because I am fighting a cold and don’t want the draft.
A win-win solution might be to open a window in an adjacent room to allow some fresh air
without creating a draft.
Another example is if two people both want an orange. A positional negotiation might
lead to one getting the orange and the other not getting it or it might lead to the
orange being cut in half. An interest based negotiation might look as follows:
Why do you want the orange? I am hungry and thirsty and the orange will satisfy both.
Why do you want the orange? I am baking muffins and I need the orange rind.
A win-win solution would be that one person gets the orange rind and the other person gets
to eat the orange.

If we don’t spend the timing asking for the ‘why’s’ beneath the positions, we miss
opportunities to create win-win outcomes.
A family law based example is:
Wife: “I want to keep the house.”
Why?
Wife: “Because it is near to the kids’ school.”
So it is important to you that the children are able to continue to go to the same
school?
Wife: “Yes.”
So the interest is that the children go to the same school and one possible solution
or outcome is that she keeps the house. There are other possible options that would
allow the children to go to the school and depending on some of the husband’s
interests, these options would also be explored in a collaborative negotiation or
mediation.
THANK
YOU