Getting to Yes (part 3 of 4)

Sat, May 7, 2011

I hope I will never be in the same situation as this week scenario; and I wish the other team read the book (GTY). Our team were leaders of A-Far, a very poor region suffering from a lack of infrastructure and limited health and educational services. We had a meeting with a team of Footsteps employees on starting up and operating a school in the community of northeastern A-Far.

A few terms needed to be settled. We made a mistake on how to prioritize our interests. We should have started with the money; because monetary term, to A-Far, was much more important than the 5 conditions regarding the operation of the school. Furthermore, we should have listed out all of conditions upfront, and then went through them 1-by-1 from the least to the most difficult.

During the meeting, we struggled a bit at the 5 conditions, but still resolved them. I knew that some of our conditions sounded ridiculous, but we insisted, because A-Far people must follow strictly the rules of Muslim religion and the country’s culture. In negotiation, if we understand more about the other side’s background, culture, religion, and belief - which can never be separated from the people - the requirements/conditions will make sense. It is called putting ourselves in the shoes of the negotiators. Lacking those skills, the other team thought our requirements were so strict that although the negotiation should be conducted in English, they kept yelling in our mother tongue, Vietnamese, that we were too arrogant and too poor to ask for that much. It was extremely unprofessional and insulting. Christians, who the other team was to be in this scenario, would unlikely say such things.

However, even when they did, we would know how to response. Although we were very tempted to fight back, we actually allowed them to let off steam, avoided reacting to their emotional outbursts (GTY), and managed to switch back to our discussion based on objective criteria. Without waiting to be asked, we conveyed our interests lying behind our proposals and also inquired about their interests, so that we could work out the solutions.

Finally, both teams agreed on the 5 conditions, but here came the money issue. The other team used what Fisher and Ury (GTY) called “Dirty Tricks”. They threw personal attacks on us. Sometimes they even reopened the issues that had been closed earlier. According to GTY, if the other side didn’t change their position – neither increases their offer nor decreases their demand – then we shouldn’t change our position either. Otherwise, we were just arguing with/negotiating against ourselves.

In the end, we worked out another solution, and they accepted; yet they were not completely happy about it. They just accepted it because we ran out of time. This negotiation worsens our relationship indeed, both inside and outside the classroom. Later I told them our team didn’t mean to make them feel comfortable, the exercise was too hard and we barely have room to move, hence the inefficient negotiation.

The exercise was difficult indeed, but we learnt so much. On the bright side, if we can handle difficult cases/hard bargainers, we would not be afraid of any other situations.