The Deal that No One Tries to Make

When I focus on interests instead of positions, as described in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, I find I'm more likely to TRY to make a deal with the other person.  I'm more likely to engage.  I feel as if I know how to start the conversation and where to take it.

The old saying that, "you miss 100% of the shots you never take" applies to negotiating.  Often, someone will take a position that is going to make my job much harder.  A plant manager may decide to reassign the person who was helping me on my project.  Someone else might decide to cut funding for my project.  I may think they are making the wrong decision, that they are hurting me and hurting themselves.  But, in the past, especially if the other person had a temper or was otherwise difficult to work with, I usually just complained to peers and did nothing to change the situation.

Now I'm much more likely to engage.  I have a strategy I can rely on to approach the other person.  I can ask them about the needs or desires they have that lie behind the position they are taking.  "Why are you pulling your person off the project team?  Are you under some staffing pressures?"  As long as I'm sincerely inquiring into their needs, with no sarcasm or anger, they almost always start talking.  The ice is broken.  Soon I can tell them my needs.  "I really need to have someone from your plant represented on the team."  If I've listened to them, they will usually reciprocate and listen to me describe my interests.  Then we can start to find a solution that meets all our needs.  "Maybe we can cut down the scope of the role so that you can staff it part-time."

It will take a while to make this a habit, but I'm excited about it and can see some results already.  In hindsight, I'm shocked at how often I have failed to address people whose decisions were hurting my projects.  I see a future in which I get a reputation for effectively resolving differences.