BOOK REVIEW

GETTING TO YES BY ROGER FISHER AND WILLIAM URY

Although it often seems that lawyers spend most of their time in the courtroom (Boston
Legal style), the reality is that most cases settle before going to court. They settle because
lawyers actually spend most of their time negotiating. So negotiating is probably an
important skill for budding lawyers to learn. For anyone just starting out, Getting to Yes by
Roger Fisher and William Ury is the negotiation bible.

The book came out of the Harvard Negotiation Project, which used the psychology of
negotiation to come up with the best way to obtain a win-win result. The authors argue
that the major problem in many negotiations is that people assume positions that are
either hard or soft. Their suggestion in the book is that rather than being either hard on
the people and the problem, or soft on people and problem, negotiators should be soft on
the people and hard on the problem. They call this approach “principled negotiation.”

The majority of the book is spent on 'The Method' – how to actually do “principled
negotiation.” For your reading pleasure, or just in case you have a negotiation
assessment this week, this involves:

 Separating the people from the problem;

 Focusing on interests, not positions;

 Generating options for mutual gain; and

 Using mutually agreed and objective criteria for evaluating possible solutions.

Basically, the most important part of this process is to focus on interests. It is difficult to
come to a mutually beneficial agreement if parties don't look at the interests that underlie
the positions. A simple way of demonstrating this concept is with the classic story of the
orange. There were two chefs who each needed one whole orange for their dish.
However, there was only one orange available. What they agreed upon was to split the
orange in half. One chef went away and used only the juice of his half, while the other
chef used only the rind. Had they focused on the other person’s interest in the orange, a
better, mutually beneficial agreement could have been reached. Genius.

One of the last chapters of the book is called “Yes But...”

WHAT IF THEY ARE MORE POWERFUL?

In these circumstances they recommend that you prepare a BATNA (Best Alternative to
a Negotiated Agreement) i.e. a Red Line which will not be crossed. Be prepared to walk
away.

WHAT IF THEY WON'T PLAY?

You should use principled negotiation to encourage them to do the same. If they continue
to attack using positional bargaining, refuse to retaliate and redirect their attacks on the
problem. They term this Negotiational Jujitsu! If necessary, involve a third party to diffuse
the views of the opposing parties.

WHAT IF THEY USE DIRTY TRICKS?

If the one party uses lies, psychological abuse or pressure tactics, it is common for the
other to respond with either appeasement or reciprocal dirty tricks. The authors instead
recommend a three-pronged approach:

 Recognition of the trick being played (so that you can ignore it)

 Drawing attention to the trick being played

 Negotiation about the negotiation itself, i.e. about the rules within which the negotiation
will be conducted

So there you have it, a summary of the negotiation bible. The book is quite short and can
be read easily. They go into a lot of detail about each step, so you can easily skip a few
pages once you get the gist of what they're saying. It's a hugely beneficial book to have
a look through. Universities seem to be gearing the future generation of lawyers towards
this approach, so go forth, read and practice, practice, practice!