getting to yes

What is Getting to Yes?

Getting to Yes is a universal method for negotiating personal and professional disputes.

Getting to Yes provides a concise strategy for arriving at mutually acceptable agreements in every kind of conflict — whether it involves parents and children, neighbors, bosses and employees, customers or corporations, tenants or diplomats. Written by Program on Negotiation co-founders Roger Fisher, Bruce Patton, and William Ury, Getting to Yes shares strategies for separating the people from the problem.

However, our biggest obstacle in any given negotiation usually isn’t a difficult partner, bad timing, or a lack of power. Rather, it is ourselves. “We sabotage ourselves by reacting in ways that do not serve our true interests,” Ury writes. Virtually all of us have destructive patterns that we fall back on in negotiation, such as losing our temper, withdrawing instead of communicating, or saying yes when we need to set limits.

Once we understand this and address our blind spots, we gain better mental clarity. It’s imperative to take time to evaluate our own truths, clear our heads of distractions and gain mental clarity. By taking time to focus on our feelings and motivations prior to entering a negotiation, we can better understand what drives us during interpersonal negotiations. This, in turn, can lead to healthier relationships, in and out of the office.

Getting to Yes highlights a method of getting to yes with yourself through six essential steps:

1. Put Yourself in Your Shoes
2. Develop Your Inner BATNA
3. Reframe Your Picture
4. Stay in the Zone
5. Respect Them Even If
6. Give and Receive

These steps are not just for addressing major conflict, but are also useful in everyday interactions with our spouses, children, work colleagues and others. When used together as an integrated method, they can drive dramatic change and tremendous satisfaction in our lives.

In short, Getting to Yes offers a new way to approach each day with introspection, generosity and a great sense of self-confidence.

Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report,Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

The following items are tagged getting to yes: