Chapter 1
LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION
Leaders need to consider strategy in communication just as they do in other areas of their business. As traditionally defined in business, strategy consists of two pieces: (1) determining your goals and (2) developing a plan to achieve them. The same definition applies to communication strategy.
ESTABLISHING A CLEAR PURPOSE
Leaders recognize that communication has consequences; you need to be sure the results you produce are those you intend. To achieve your intended results, you first need to establish a clear purpose. The three general purposes:
- To inform—transferring facts, data, or information to someone.
- To persuade—convincing someone to do something.
- To instruct—instructing someone in process
Clarifying Your Purpose
Just as leaders need to determine a strategic vision or a clearly stated direction for their companies, you need to establish a clear purpose or direction for your communication.
Generating Ideas
Once you determine your specific purpose, and sometimes while you are determining it, you can begin to come up with the supporting words and ideas and explore your thoughts about the subject.
There are four ways useful in helping you to push your thinking:
1) Brainstorming
2) Idea Mapping
3) The Journalist’s Questions: Who? What? Why? When? Where? How?
4) The Decision Tree
DETERMINING YOUR COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
Once you have clarified your purpose, you are ready to engage in the tactical side of communication strategy. Effective communication—whether a simple e-mail or memo, a complex report, a meeting, or a presentation—requires going beyond clarity of purpose to the plan for accomplishing your purpose, the second essential step in any good strategy.
ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCES
Analyzing an audience is fundamental to any communication strategy since the characteristics of audiences will determine your approach and shape your targeted messages.
Leaders need to communicate to audiences with a range of expertise from the layperson or non-expert to the technical or highly specialized individual/
In addition, when you seek a decision from your audience, you might want to consider their decision-making style to ensure that you use a communication approach that will be persuasive with them.
In ay situation, internal or external to your organization, knowing how your audiences make decisions will help you target your message.
ORGANIZING WRITTEN AND ORAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVELY
Once you have clarified your purpose, conducted your audience analysis, and created a strategy, you are ready to select the best structure for organizing your communication in your early thinking about how best to present your ideas to your audience.
You can pose the following questions to determine the best approach to organizing your communication:
- What is the most effective way to begin the document or presentation with this audience?
- How should I organize the content to ensure that the audience can follow the argument easily and understand the main ideas?
- What is the most effective way to conclude?
Selecting Organizational Devices
The following methods to organize individual sections and even the entire document or presentation:
1. Deduction
2. Induction
3. Chronological
4. Cause/Effect
5. Comparison/contrast
6. Problem/solution
7. Spatial
Using the Pyramid Principle
Using the Pyramid principle helps you structure a complete and logical argument. As you create the pyramid, you can easily see gaps in your evidence, establish the balance of your argument, and determine if each level logically supported the next.
Creating a Storyboard
Another technique for working out the structure of your communication is a storyboard. A storyboard is particularly useful if you are working in a team ti prepare a presentation. It allows everyone to see the logical flow and encourages you to think the individual slides you need to support each section.
Chapter 2
CREATING LEADERSHIP DOCUMENTS
SELECTING THE MOST EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION MEDIUM
As with any effective leadership communication, you need to clarify your purpose, analyze your audience, and develop a communication strategy before you put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard to create a document.
If you have a complete freedom to select the medium and are not limited by the chain of communication or the practices in the organization, you should select the medium best suited for the context and your message.
CREATING INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM DOCUMENTS
Once you have developed your strategy and selected the most appropriate medium, you can then create and perfect your written communication.
Creating Individual Documents
Approaches to creating documents differ from person to person. Some people work best from an outline, while others feel more comfortable using the idea mapping or brainstorming techniques.
You should find the approach that work the best or you, but realize that you will be more productive if you follow some sort of step-by-step plan.
Creating Team Documents
Teams use one of two ways to divide the tasks: (1) one person on the team does all of the writing with the others providing the content to the scribe, (2) the team divides the writing among the team members according to the sections for which they have provided most of the moment.
The Single-Scribe Approach—ensures consistency in style and format.
The Multiple-Writer Approach—divides the writing among team members.
Controlling Versions
Version control is essential when creating the versions of your documents.
ORGANIZING THE CONTENT COHERENTLY
The initial stages of creating a document may be rather messy, particularly the idea generation stage. When you are generating ideas, you are engaged analytically, which means you are breaking things apart and probably even free-associating as one idea leads to another. Once you move into the stage of organizing them to present them to others. A business audience expects order and logic in a document; they expect it to make sense to them, to be coherent.
Organizing and Content
How organization depends on purpose, audience, and strategy, and explained some of the options for organizing your communication. You need to anticipate your audience’s response and stay focused on your purpose. You will want to select the organizing device that best matches your purpose and content, such as deductive, inductive, or chronological.
Opening with Power
In your opening, most of the time you should begin strongly by quickly stating your main message, but let your analysis of your audience guides you. You may want to begin indirectly for the following reasons:
- To establish the context for the communication if it is part of a chain communication.
- To include a more gentle opening with some appropriate pleasantries if your audience’s culture would expect it.
- To explain the reasoning or logic if you have complicated information to deliver.
Developing with Reason
You should aim for the same directness and brevity in the discussion or development section of your documents as you do in your introduction. Once you know you have the right topics and can develop each topic adequately, you should feel comfortable that your discussion section will appear reasonable to your audience.
Closing with Grace
Once you have taken your audience through your discussion, you should end as quickly and directly as you began. You should, however, provide a sense of polite, unrushed closure. Traditional academic writing requires closings that restate or summarize what has already been said. A letter, a memo, or e-mail is too short to require such repetition of ideas. A conclusion in a letter, memo, or e-mail should call for action, mention contact information or follow-up arrangements.
In a longer document, you may want to summarize your main points very briefly, and depending on the type of report, you may end with your conclusions or recommendations. However, it is usually more effective to have stated your conclusions or recommendations up front and end with next steps or implementation plans.
CONFORMING TO CONTENT AND FORMATTING EXPECTATIONS IN CORRESPONDENCE
You will determine the actual content of your letters, memos, and emails based on your purpose, strategy, and audience, but these types of business communications do carry with them some expectations of what you should include. In addition, you want to use a format that follows standard business writing conventions, which are designed to make your documents accessible as well as attractive.
INCLUDING EXPECTED CONTENT IN REPORTS
Business audiences also have expectations for longer documents and reports. The type of report, the company style, as well as the industry standards will often dictate content and organization. As a leader of organization, you may write reports that inform, instruct, or persuade. Often, you may team up with or supervise others in writing these reports. They may be long or short, informal or formal.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
ESSENTIALS OF NEGOTATION CHAPTERS 3 & 4 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 3 Strategy and Tactics of Distributive Bargaining
Distributive bargaining begins with setting your own opening, target, and resistance points. You soon learn the other party's starting points and find out his or her target points and find out his or her target points directly or through inference. Usually you won't know the resistance points, the points beyond which a party will not go, until late in negotiation because the other party often carefully concelas them. All points are important, but the resistance points are the most critical. The spread between them the parties' resistance points defines the bargaining range. If positive, it defines the area of negotiation within which a settlement is likely to occur, with each other party working to obtain as much of the bargaining range as possible.
It is rare that a negotiation includes only one item; more typically, there is a set of items, referred to as a bargaining mix. Each item in a bargaining mix can have opening, target, and resistance points. The bargaining mix may provide opportunities for handling inssues together, trading off across issues, or displaying mutually concessionary behavior.
Examining the structure of distributive bargaining reveals many options for a negotiator to achieve a successful resolution, most of which fall within two broad efforts: to influence the other party's belief about what is possible and to learn as much as possible about the other party's position, particularly about the resistance points. The negotiator's basic goal is to reach a final settlement as close to the other party's resistance point as possible. To achieve this goal, negotiators work to gather information about the opposition and its positions; to convince members of the other party to change their minds about their ability to achieve their own goals; and to promote their own objectives as desirable, necessary, or even inevitable.
Distributive bargaining is basically a conflict situation, wherein parties seek their own advantage--in part through concealing information, attempting to mislead, or using manipulative actions. All those tactics can easily escalate interaction from calm discussion to bitter hostility. Yet negotiation is the attempt to resolve a conflict without force, without fighting. Further, to be successful, both parties to the negotiation must feel at the end that the outcome was the best that they could achieve and that it is worth accepting and supporting. Hence, effective distributive bargaining is a process that requires careful planning, strong execution, and constant monitoring of the other party's reactions.
CHAPTER 4 Strategy and Tactics of Integrative Negotiation
The fundamental structure of integrative negotiation is one within which the parties are able to define goals and engaging in a set of procedures that permit both sides to maximize their objectives.
A high level of concern for both sides achieving their ow objectives propels a collaborative, problem-solving approach. Negotiators frequently fail at integrative negotiation because they fail to perceive the integrative potential of the negotiating problem. However, breakdowns also occur due the distributive assumptions about the negotiating problem, the mixed-motive nature of the issues, or the negotiator's previous relationship with each other. Succesful integrative negotiation requires several processes. First, the parties must understand each other's true needs and objectives. Second, they must create a free flow of information and an open exchange of ideas. Third, they must focus on their similarities, emphasizing their commonalities rather than their differences. Finally, they must engage in a search for solutions that meet the goals for both sides.
The four steps in the integrative negotiations are indentifying and definining the problem, indentifying interests and needs, generating alternative solutions, and evaluating and selecting alternatives. For each of these steps, we proposed techniques and tactics to make the process successful.
We then discussed various factors that facilitate successful integrative negotiation. First, the process will be greatly facilitated by some form of common goal or objective. This goal may be one that the parties both want to achieve, one they want to share, or one they could not possibly attain unless they worked together. Second, they must a motivation and commitment to work together, to make their relationship a productive one. Third, the parties must be willing to believe that the other's needs are valid. Fourth, they must be able to trust each other and to work hard to establish and maintain that trust. Finally, there must be clear and accurate communication about each one wants and an effort to understand the other's needs.
Distributive bargaining begins with setting your own opening, target, and resistance points. You soon learn the other party's starting points and find out his or her target points and find out his or her target points directly or through inference. Usually you won't know the resistance points, the points beyond which a party will not go, until late in negotiation because the other party often carefully concelas them. All points are important, but the resistance points are the most critical. The spread between them the parties' resistance points defines the bargaining range. If positive, it defines the area of negotiation within which a settlement is likely to occur, with each other party working to obtain as much of the bargaining range as possible.
It is rare that a negotiation includes only one item; more typically, there is a set of items, referred to as a bargaining mix. Each item in a bargaining mix can have opening, target, and resistance points. The bargaining mix may provide opportunities for handling inssues together, trading off across issues, or displaying mutually concessionary behavior.
Examining the structure of distributive bargaining reveals many options for a negotiator to achieve a successful resolution, most of which fall within two broad efforts: to influence the other party's belief about what is possible and to learn as much as possible about the other party's position, particularly about the resistance points. The negotiator's basic goal is to reach a final settlement as close to the other party's resistance point as possible. To achieve this goal, negotiators work to gather information about the opposition and its positions; to convince members of the other party to change their minds about their ability to achieve their own goals; and to promote their own objectives as desirable, necessary, or even inevitable.
Distributive bargaining is basically a conflict situation, wherein parties seek their own advantage--in part through concealing information, attempting to mislead, or using manipulative actions. All those tactics can easily escalate interaction from calm discussion to bitter hostility. Yet negotiation is the attempt to resolve a conflict without force, without fighting. Further, to be successful, both parties to the negotiation must feel at the end that the outcome was the best that they could achieve and that it is worth accepting and supporting. Hence, effective distributive bargaining is a process that requires careful planning, strong execution, and constant monitoring of the other party's reactions.
CHAPTER 4 Strategy and Tactics of Integrative Negotiation
The fundamental structure of integrative negotiation is one within which the parties are able to define goals and engaging in a set of procedures that permit both sides to maximize their objectives.
A high level of concern for both sides achieving their ow objectives propels a collaborative, problem-solving approach. Negotiators frequently fail at integrative negotiation because they fail to perceive the integrative potential of the negotiating problem. However, breakdowns also occur due the distributive assumptions about the negotiating problem, the mixed-motive nature of the issues, or the negotiator's previous relationship with each other. Succesful integrative negotiation requires several processes. First, the parties must understand each other's true needs and objectives. Second, they must create a free flow of information and an open exchange of ideas. Third, they must focus on their similarities, emphasizing their commonalities rather than their differences. Finally, they must engage in a search for solutions that meet the goals for both sides.
The four steps in the integrative negotiations are indentifying and definining the problem, indentifying interests and needs, generating alternative solutions, and evaluating and selecting alternatives. For each of these steps, we proposed techniques and tactics to make the process successful.
We then discussed various factors that facilitate successful integrative negotiation. First, the process will be greatly facilitated by some form of common goal or objective. This goal may be one that the parties both want to achieve, one they want to share, or one they could not possibly attain unless they worked together. Second, they must a motivation and commitment to work together, to make their relationship a productive one. Third, the parties must be willing to believe that the other's needs are valid. Fourth, they must be able to trust each other and to work hard to establish and maintain that trust. Finally, there must be clear and accurate communication about each one wants and an effort to understand the other's needs.
Short Summary for Chapter 1 & 2
CHAPTER 1 Essentials of Negotiation
Negotiations occur for one of two reasons: (1) to create something new that neither party could do on his or her own, or (2) to resolve a problem or dispute between the parties.
There are several characteristics common to all negotiation situations:
1. There are two or more parties—that is, two or more individuals, groups, or organizations.
2. There is a conflict of interest between two or more parties—that is, what one wants is not necessarily what the other one wants—and the parties must search for a way to resolve the conflict.
3. The parties negotiate because they think they can use some form of influence to get a better deal that way than by simply taking what the other side will voluntarily give them or let them have.
4. The parties, at least for the moment, prefer to search for agreement rather than to fight openly, have one side capitulate, permanently break off contact, or take their dispute to a higher authority to resolve it.
5. When we negotiate we expect to give and take.
6. Successful negotiation involves the management of intangibles as well as the resolving of tangibles.
In negotiation, both parties need each other. A buyer cannot buy unless someone else sells, and vice versa. This situation of mutual dependency is called interdependence. Interdependent relations are complex and have their own special challenge.
Interdependent relationships are characterized by interlocking goals—the parties need each other in order to accomplish their goals.
Two potential consequences of interdependent relationships are (1) value creations and (2) conflict. Negotiation skills and sub-processes are useful in situations where one wants to create value or needs to manage conflict. There is no simple recipe, however, their guarantees positive outcomes in either situation. Negotiation is a craft that blends art and science, and positive outcomes are a consequence of knowledge, experience, careful planning, and some luck. In the next section we discuss aspects of value creation, and in the following section we examine the extensive literature on conflict management.
The other potential consequence of interdependent relationships is conflict. Conflict can be due to the highly divergent needs of the two parties, a misunderstanding that occurs between two people, or some other, intangible factor. Conflict can occur when the two parties are working toward the same goal and generally want the same outcome, or when both parties want a very different settlement
One of the most popular areas of conflict management research and practice has been to define the different ways that the parties themselves can manage conflict.
There are five major strategies for conflict management have commonly identified:
1. Contending (also called competing or dominating)
2. Yielding (also called accommodating or obliging)
3. Inaction (also called avoiding)
4. Problem solving (also called collaborating or integrating)
5. Compromising
CHAPTER 2 Negotiation: Strategizing, Framing, and Planning
Negotiators differ in the goals they select. Goals can be specific (to achieve a particular outcome), or they can be more general (to pursue a broader set of interests). They can also be tangible, such as a particular rate or price or financial outcome; or they can be tangible, such as winning, beating the other, or defending a principle. Goals can shape the frames we adopt, or frames can change the goals we pursue.
There are several major strategies that can be used in a negotiation. Select the strategy that is most likely to achieve one's objectives, and also take into considerations the long term relationship with the other party. Two of these major strategies--competition and collaboration.
Negotiators differ in how they "frame" the problem, issue, or conflict. Frames may be perspectives on outcomes on the related rewards or penalties that go with those outcomes, or they be ways to define "the problem" in a negotiation. What is important is that how one or both parties frame the problem will lead to select some conflict management strategies and ignore others. Therefore, a negotiator needs to attend to the way he or she is defining the problem and specifically be aware that:
- There may be other ways to define it that may make the problem more or less amenable to negotiation and resolution.
- The other party may not be defining it in the same way, which may be contribute to the case or difficulty with which the parties can communicate about the problem with each other.
Negotiations tend to evolve over time according to certain predictable sequences. These sequences comprise the different stages or phrases of a negotiation. The models indicate that negotiation is not a random process but has some predictable elements to it over time.
Goals, strategies, frames, and predictable stages set the background for an effective planning process. There are a number of different planning templates, which tend to emphasize different elements in slightly different sequences. Neverthless, we have tried to present the most important steps in the planning process. Effectively attending to each of these steps should allow a negotiator to be very well prepared for the challenges that he or she is going to face in playing out strategy and meeting to the other party.
Negotiations occur for one of two reasons: (1) to create something new that neither party could do on his or her own, or (2) to resolve a problem or dispute between the parties.
There are several characteristics common to all negotiation situations:
1. There are two or more parties—that is, two or more individuals, groups, or organizations.
2. There is a conflict of interest between two or more parties—that is, what one wants is not necessarily what the other one wants—and the parties must search for a way to resolve the conflict.
3. The parties negotiate because they think they can use some form of influence to get a better deal that way than by simply taking what the other side will voluntarily give them or let them have.
4. The parties, at least for the moment, prefer to search for agreement rather than to fight openly, have one side capitulate, permanently break off contact, or take their dispute to a higher authority to resolve it.
5. When we negotiate we expect to give and take.
6. Successful negotiation involves the management of intangibles as well as the resolving of tangibles.
In negotiation, both parties need each other. A buyer cannot buy unless someone else sells, and vice versa. This situation of mutual dependency is called interdependence. Interdependent relations are complex and have their own special challenge.
Interdependent relationships are characterized by interlocking goals—the parties need each other in order to accomplish their goals.
Two potential consequences of interdependent relationships are (1) value creations and (2) conflict. Negotiation skills and sub-processes are useful in situations where one wants to create value or needs to manage conflict. There is no simple recipe, however, their guarantees positive outcomes in either situation. Negotiation is a craft that blends art and science, and positive outcomes are a consequence of knowledge, experience, careful planning, and some luck. In the next section we discuss aspects of value creation, and in the following section we examine the extensive literature on conflict management.
The other potential consequence of interdependent relationships is conflict. Conflict can be due to the highly divergent needs of the two parties, a misunderstanding that occurs between two people, or some other, intangible factor. Conflict can occur when the two parties are working toward the same goal and generally want the same outcome, or when both parties want a very different settlement
One of the most popular areas of conflict management research and practice has been to define the different ways that the parties themselves can manage conflict.
There are five major strategies for conflict management have commonly identified:
1. Contending (also called competing or dominating)
2. Yielding (also called accommodating or obliging)
3. Inaction (also called avoiding)
4. Problem solving (also called collaborating or integrating)
5. Compromising
CHAPTER 2 Negotiation: Strategizing, Framing, and Planning
Negotiators differ in the goals they select. Goals can be specific (to achieve a particular outcome), or they can be more general (to pursue a broader set of interests). They can also be tangible, such as a particular rate or price or financial outcome; or they can be tangible, such as winning, beating the other, or defending a principle. Goals can shape the frames we adopt, or frames can change the goals we pursue.
There are several major strategies that can be used in a negotiation. Select the strategy that is most likely to achieve one's objectives, and also take into considerations the long term relationship with the other party. Two of these major strategies--competition and collaboration.
Negotiators differ in how they "frame" the problem, issue, or conflict. Frames may be perspectives on outcomes on the related rewards or penalties that go with those outcomes, or they be ways to define "the problem" in a negotiation. What is important is that how one or both parties frame the problem will lead to select some conflict management strategies and ignore others. Therefore, a negotiator needs to attend to the way he or she is defining the problem and specifically be aware that:
- There may be other ways to define it that may make the problem more or less amenable to negotiation and resolution.
- The other party may not be defining it in the same way, which may be contribute to the case or difficulty with which the parties can communicate about the problem with each other.
Negotiations tend to evolve over time according to certain predictable sequences. These sequences comprise the different stages or phrases of a negotiation. The models indicate that negotiation is not a random process but has some predictable elements to it over time.
Goals, strategies, frames, and predictable stages set the background for an effective planning process. There are a number of different planning templates, which tend to emphasize different elements in slightly different sequences. Neverthless, we have tried to present the most important steps in the planning process. Effectively attending to each of these steps should allow a negotiator to be very well prepared for the challenges that he or she is going to face in playing out strategy and meeting to the other party.
Friday, September 15, 2006
FreeMind Download
I downloaded FreeMind using this link. I'm not really sure if this is the correct way to do it.
Sabrina :s
http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/freemind/FreeMind-Windows-Installer-0_8_0-max.exe
superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net
Sabrina :s
http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/freemind/FreeMind-Windows-Installer-0_8_0-max.exe
superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net
BATNA
Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)
ByBrad Spangler June 2003
What BATNAs Are
"The reason you negotiate is to produce something better than the results you can obtain without negotiating. What are those results? What is that alternative? What is your BATNA -- your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement? That is the standard against which any proposed agreement should be measured." -- Roger Fisher and William Ury
BATNA is a term coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their 1981 bestseller, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Without Giving In.[1] It stands for "best alternative to a negotiated agreement." BATNAs are critical to negotiation because you cannot make a wise decision about whether to accept a negotiated agreement unless you know what your alternatives are. Your BATNA "is the only standard which can protect you both from accepting terms that are too unfavorable and from rejecting terms it would be in your interest to accept."[2] In the simplest terms, if the proposed agreement is better than your BATNA, then you should accept it. If the agreement is not better than your BATNA, then you should reopen negotiations. If you cannot improve the agreement, then you should at least consider withdrawing from the negotiations and pursuing your alternative (though the costs of doing that must be considered as well).
Having a good BATNA increases your negotiating power. Therefore, it is important to improve your BATNA whenever possible. Good negotiators know when their opponent is desperate for an agreement. When that occurs, they will demand much more, knowing their opponent will have to give in. If the opponent apparently has many options outside of negotiation, however, they are likely to get many more concessions, in an effort to keep them at the negotiating table. Thus making your BATNA as strong as possible before negotiating, and then making that BATNA known to your opponent will strengthen your negotiating position.
Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess have adapted the concept of BATNA slightly to emphasize what they call "EATNAs" estimated alternatives to a negotiated agreement" instead of "best alternatives." Even when disputants do not have good options outside of negotiations, they often think they do. (For example, both sides may think that they can prevail in a military struggle, even when one side is clearly weaker, or when the relative strengths are so balanced that the outcome is very uncertain.) Yet, perceptions are all that matter when it comes to deciding whether or not to accept an agreement. If a disputant thinks that he or she has a better option, she will, very often, pursue that option, even if it is not as good as she thinks it is.
BATNA and EATNAs also affect what William Zartman and may others have called "ripeness," the time at which a dispute is ready or "ripe" for settlement.[3] When parties have similar ideas or "congruent images" about what BATNAs exist, then the negotiation is ripe for reaching agreement. Having congruent BATNA images means that both parties have similar views of how a dispute will turn out if they do not agree, but rather pursue their other rights-based or power-based options. In this situation, it is often smarter for them to negotiate an agreement without continuing the disputing process, thus saving the transaction costs. This is what happens when disputing parties who are involved in a lawsuit settle out of court, (which happens in the U.S. about 90 percent of the time). The reason the parties settle is that their lawyers have come to an understanding of the strength of each sides' case and how likely each is to prevail in court. They then can "cut to the chase," and get to the same result much more easily and more quickly through negotiation.
On the other hand, disputants may hold "dissimilar images" about what BATNAs exist, which can lead to a stalemate or even to intractability. For example, both sides may think they can win a dispute if they decide to pursue it in court or through force. If both sides' BATNAs tell them they can pursue the conflict and win, the likely result is a power contest. If one side's BATNA is indeed much better than the other's, the side with the better BATNA is likely to prevail. If the BATNAs are about equal, however, the parties may reach a stalemate. If the conflict is costly enough, eventually the parties may come to realize that their BATNAs were not as good as they thought they were. Then the dispute will again be "ripe" for negotiation.
The allure of the EATNA often leads to last-minute breakdowns in negotiations. Disputants can negotiate for months or even years, finally developing an agreement that they think is acceptable to all. But then at the end, all the parties must take a hard look at the final outcome and decide, "is this better than all of my alternatives?" Only if all the parties say "yes," can the agreement be finalized. If just one party changes his or her mind, the agreement may well break down. Thus, knowing one's own and one's opponent's BATNAs and EATNAs is critical to successful negotiation
Additional insights into BATNA are offered by Beyond Intractability project participants.
Determining Your BATNA
BATNAs are not always readily apparent. Fisher and Ury outline a simple process for determining your BATNA:
develop a list of actions you might conceivably take if no agreement is reached;
improve some of the more promising ideas and convert them into practical options; and
select, tentatively, the one option that seems best.[4]
BATNAs may be determined for any negotiation situation, whether it be a relatively simple task such as finding a job or a complex problem such as a heated environmental conflict or a protracted ethnic conflict.
Fisher and Ury offer a job search as a basic example of how to determine a BATNA. If you do not receive an attractive job offer by the end of the month from Company X, what will you do? Inventing options is the first step to determining your BATNA. Should you take a different job? Look in another city? Go back to school? If the offer you are waiting for is in New York, but you had also considered Denver, then try to turn that other interest into a job offer there, too. With a job offer on the table in Denver, you will be better equipped to assess the New York offer when it is made. Lastly, you must choose your best alternative option in case you do not reach an agreement with the New York company. Which of your realistic options would you really want to pursue if you do not get the job offer in New York?
More complex situations require the consideration of a broader range of factors and possibilities. For example, a community discovers that its water is being polluted by the discharges of a nearby factory. Community leaders first attempt to negotiate a cleanup plan with the company, but the business refuses to voluntarily agree on a plan of action that the community is satisfied with. In such a case, what are the community's options for trying to resolve this situation?
They could possibly sue the business based on stipulations of the Clean Water Act.
They could contact the Environmental Protection Agency and see what sort of authority that agency has over such a situation.
They could lobby the state legislature to develop and implement more stringent regulations on polluting factories.
The community could wage a public education campaign and inform citizens of the problem. Such education could lead voters to support more environmentally minded candidates in the future who would support new laws to correct problems like this one.
In weighing these various alternatives to see which is "best," the community members must consider a variety of factors.
Which is most affordable and feasible?
Which will have the most impact in the shortest amount of time?
If they succeed in closing down the plant, how many people will lose their jobs?
These types of questions must be answered for each alternative before a BATNA can be determined in a complex environmental dispute such as this one.
BATNAs and the Other Side
At the same time you are determining your BATNA, you should also consider the alternatives available to the other side. Sometimes they may be overly optimistic about what their options are. The more you can learn about their options, the better prepared you will be for negotiation. You will be able to develop a more realistic view of what the outcomes may be and what offers are reasonable.
There are also a few things to keep in mind about revealing your BATNA to your adversary. Although Fisher and Ury do not advise secrecy in their discussions of BATNAs, according to McCarthy, "one should not reveal one's BATNA unless it is better than the other side thinks it is."[5] But since you may not know what the other side thinks, you could reveal more than you should. If your BATNA turns out to be worse than the opponent thinks it is, then revealing it will weaken your stance.
BATNAs and the Role of Third Parties
Third parties can help disputants accurately assess their BATNAs through reality testing and costing. In reality testing, the third party helps clarify and ground each disputing party's alternatives to agreement. S/he may do this by asking hard questions about the asserted BATNA: "How could you do that? What would the outcome be? What would the other side do? How do you know?" Or the third party may simply insert new information into the discussion...illustrating that one side's assessment of its BATNA is likely incorrect. Costing is a more general approach to the same process...it is a systematic effort to determine the costs and benefits of all options. In so doing, parties will come to understand all their alternatives. If this is done together and the parties agree on the assessment, this provides a strong basis upon which to come up with a negotiated solution that is better than both sides' alternatives. But if the sides cannot come to such an agreement, then negotiations will break down, and both parties will pursue their BATNA instead of negotiation.
[1] In 1992, Fisher and Ury published a 2nd Edition of Getting to Yes. The updated edition was edited by Bruce Patton and incorporates Fisher and Ury's responses to criticisms of their original 1981 book.
[2] Roger Fisher and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 104.
[3] I William Zartman, Ripe for Resolution, (New York: Oxford, 1985/1989)
[4] Roger Fisher and William Ury. Op.cit, 108.
[5] William McCarthy, "The Role of Power and Principle in Getting to Yes," in Negotiation Theory and Practice, Eds. J. William Breslin and Jeffery Z. Rubin. (Cambridge: The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 1991), 115-122.
Use the following to cite this article:Spangler, Brad. "Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: June 2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/batna/>.
Sources of Additional, In-depth Information on this Topic
Additional Explanations of the Underlying Concepts:
Online (Web) SourcesWhy Is BATNA Important?. The Negotiation Skills Company. Available at: http://www.negotiationskills.com/qaprocess12.html.This page explains what BATNA is and how it is useful in negotiating."Dealing With Impasse." , Available at: http://www.adr.af.mil/compendium/dealing.html.This article discusses two tools mediators can use to get past impasse, reality testing and BATNA.Interest, Value and the Art fo the Best Deal. The Business Times. Available at: http://www.businesstimes.com.mt/251000/focus.html.This article outlines some of the basic steps of a business negotiation, including determining BATNAs and identifying a zone of possible agreement. "Limits to Agreement: Better Alternatives." , Available at: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/batna.htm.In order to know whether or not to accept a proposed settlement obtained through negotiation, you must know whether or not you can get a better outcome in some other way. This site looks at the concepts of "BATNA", which stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, and "EATNA's", estimated alternatives to a negotiated agreement.Reality Testing. Available at: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/realtest.htm.In deciding which conflict management strategy is most promising, parties must make assumptions about their own power, their opponent's power, and the likely outcomes of different options. It is easy to make inaccurate assessments of any of these factors, however. Often an outside party can help review the accuracy of these assumptions and help parties revise them appropriately when they are invalid. This site explains how reality testing helps parties assess their BATNA's (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). It also has links to examples of reality testing and related ADR processes.
Offline (Print) SourcesMcCarthy, William. "Bargaining Power and BATNAs." Negotiation Theory , January 1, 1991. This piece offers a critique of some of Fisher and Ury's main principles as outlined in Getting to Yes. The article mostly supports the ideas put forth in that foundational work, however, McCarthy disagrees with the limited treatment of the role of power in negotiation. He argues that the role of power is not thoroughly examined and that simple notions regarding the power of BATNAs are substituted for true analysis.Watkins, Michael, Susan Rosegrant and Shimon Peres. "BATNAs and ZOPA." In Breakthrough International Negotiation: How Great Negotiators Transformed the World's Toughest Post-Cold War Conflicts. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001. Pages: 26-35. This excerpt discusses the development of alternatives and options for settlement in negotiation. The advice provided here revolves around setting oneself up to reach the best possible outcome of a negotiation, whether it is reaching a mutually acceptable agreement or walking away all together. The authors talk about building up one's own BATNA as well as how to identify a zone of possible agreement. They explain that the nature of the ZOPA is dependent on whether the negotiation is about claiming or creating value. Click here for more info.Burgess, Heidi and Guy M. Burgess. "Definition of BATNA." In Encyclopedia of Conflict Resolution. ABC-Clio, November 1997. Pages: 33-34. This section of the Encyclopedia of Conflict Resolution provides a nice, brief overview of what BATNA means and how it applies to negotiation situations.Fisher, Roger, William L. Ury and Bruce Patton. "Original Explanation of BATNA." In Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 2nd Edition . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., April 1992. Pages: 101-111. Getting to Yes is the work in which the concept of BATNA was first introduced. Chapter Six of this edition focuses entirely on the concept of BATNAs, explaining why negotiating with a bottom line is less effective and beneficial than developing a solid BATNA. The authors explain why a good BATNA gives you power in negotiation, how to develop your BATNA, and to consider the other side's BATNA. Click here for more info.Lax, David and James Sebenius. "Power of Alternatives." In Negotiation Theory and Practice. Edited by Breslin, J. William and Jeffrey Z. Rubin, eds. Cambridge: The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, January 1, 1991. While not using the actual term "BATNA", this chapter does examine how alternatives to potential negotiated agreements shape which outcome parties will settle on. The authors understand negotiation as an interactive process by which two or more parties seek to do better together, than they could do individually. Based on that definition, they argue that the measure of any negotiated agreement is whether it offers a better outcome than the course a party could take on its own. The main idea is that all potential agreements should be evaluated as competitors with other possible agreements that could help a side reach its goals. Susskind, Lawrence and Jeffrey Cruikshank. "Unassisted Negotiation." In Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes. New York: Basic Books, January 1, 1987. Pages: 80-136. Breaking the Impasse offers a guide to consensus building strategies for resolving public disputes. The authors describe possible obstacles to agreement and techniques for getting past those obstacles. The first few pages of the chapter entitled, "Unassisted Negotiation" present a helpful section on BATNAs and why people tend to underestimate others' BATNAs and overestimate their own. Click here for more info.
Return to Top
Examples Illustrating this Topic:
Online (Web) SourcesMussweiler, Thomas, Adam Galinsky and Victoria Husted Medvec. Disconnecting Outcomes and Evaluations: The Role of Negotiator Reference Points. Social Science Research Network. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=304969.Two experiments explored the role of reference points in disconnecting objective and subjective utility in negotiations. Negotiators who focused on their target prices, the ideal outcome they could obtain, achieved objectively superior outcomes compared to negotiators who focused on a minimum goal, their best alternatives to the negotiation (BATNAs).Kray, Laura. Gender Stereotype Activation and Power in Mixed-Gender Negotiations. Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc.. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=305011.We hypothesized that the distribution of resources in a mixed-gender negotiation would depend on the relative power advantage of men versus women, as well as the manner in which gender stereotypes were activated in the minds of negotiators. More specifically, we expected negotiators who had a strong alternative to the current negotiation (BATNA) to reap more resources than negotiators who had a weak alternative. We predicted that the effect of power (possessing a strong BATNA) would be especially important when gender stereotypes were explicitly activated compared to when they were implicitly activated because the explicit activation of gender stereotypes was expected to marshal cognitions that relate to power.
Offline (Print) SourcesUry, William L. Getting Past No: Negotiating With Difficult People. New York: Bantam Books, January 1, 1993. This book provides step by step approaches to defusing confrontation and developing creative solutions toward resolving conflicts through negotiation. In particular, it focuses on developing communication skills that facilitate cooperation. Click here for more info.
ByBrad Spangler June 2003
What BATNAs Are
"The reason you negotiate is to produce something better than the results you can obtain without negotiating. What are those results? What is that alternative? What is your BATNA -- your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement? That is the standard against which any proposed agreement should be measured." -- Roger Fisher and William Ury
BATNA is a term coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their 1981 bestseller, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Without Giving In.[1] It stands for "best alternative to a negotiated agreement." BATNAs are critical to negotiation because you cannot make a wise decision about whether to accept a negotiated agreement unless you know what your alternatives are. Your BATNA "is the only standard which can protect you both from accepting terms that are too unfavorable and from rejecting terms it would be in your interest to accept."[2] In the simplest terms, if the proposed agreement is better than your BATNA, then you should accept it. If the agreement is not better than your BATNA, then you should reopen negotiations. If you cannot improve the agreement, then you should at least consider withdrawing from the negotiations and pursuing your alternative (though the costs of doing that must be considered as well).
Having a good BATNA increases your negotiating power. Therefore, it is important to improve your BATNA whenever possible. Good negotiators know when their opponent is desperate for an agreement. When that occurs, they will demand much more, knowing their opponent will have to give in. If the opponent apparently has many options outside of negotiation, however, they are likely to get many more concessions, in an effort to keep them at the negotiating table. Thus making your BATNA as strong as possible before negotiating, and then making that BATNA known to your opponent will strengthen your negotiating position.
Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess have adapted the concept of BATNA slightly to emphasize what they call "EATNAs" estimated alternatives to a negotiated agreement" instead of "best alternatives." Even when disputants do not have good options outside of negotiations, they often think they do. (For example, both sides may think that they can prevail in a military struggle, even when one side is clearly weaker, or when the relative strengths are so balanced that the outcome is very uncertain.) Yet, perceptions are all that matter when it comes to deciding whether or not to accept an agreement. If a disputant thinks that he or she has a better option, she will, very often, pursue that option, even if it is not as good as she thinks it is.
BATNA and EATNAs also affect what William Zartman and may others have called "ripeness," the time at which a dispute is ready or "ripe" for settlement.[3] When parties have similar ideas or "congruent images" about what BATNAs exist, then the negotiation is ripe for reaching agreement. Having congruent BATNA images means that both parties have similar views of how a dispute will turn out if they do not agree, but rather pursue their other rights-based or power-based options. In this situation, it is often smarter for them to negotiate an agreement without continuing the disputing process, thus saving the transaction costs. This is what happens when disputing parties who are involved in a lawsuit settle out of court, (which happens in the U.S. about 90 percent of the time). The reason the parties settle is that their lawyers have come to an understanding of the strength of each sides' case and how likely each is to prevail in court. They then can "cut to the chase," and get to the same result much more easily and more quickly through negotiation.
On the other hand, disputants may hold "dissimilar images" about what BATNAs exist, which can lead to a stalemate or even to intractability. For example, both sides may think they can win a dispute if they decide to pursue it in court or through force. If both sides' BATNAs tell them they can pursue the conflict and win, the likely result is a power contest. If one side's BATNA is indeed much better than the other's, the side with the better BATNA is likely to prevail. If the BATNAs are about equal, however, the parties may reach a stalemate. If the conflict is costly enough, eventually the parties may come to realize that their BATNAs were not as good as they thought they were. Then the dispute will again be "ripe" for negotiation.
The allure of the EATNA often leads to last-minute breakdowns in negotiations. Disputants can negotiate for months or even years, finally developing an agreement that they think is acceptable to all. But then at the end, all the parties must take a hard look at the final outcome and decide, "is this better than all of my alternatives?" Only if all the parties say "yes," can the agreement be finalized. If just one party changes his or her mind, the agreement may well break down. Thus, knowing one's own and one's opponent's BATNAs and EATNAs is critical to successful negotiation
Additional insights into BATNA are offered by Beyond Intractability project participants.
Determining Your BATNA
BATNAs are not always readily apparent. Fisher and Ury outline a simple process for determining your BATNA:
develop a list of actions you might conceivably take if no agreement is reached;
improve some of the more promising ideas and convert them into practical options; and
select, tentatively, the one option that seems best.[4]
BATNAs may be determined for any negotiation situation, whether it be a relatively simple task such as finding a job or a complex problem such as a heated environmental conflict or a protracted ethnic conflict.
Fisher and Ury offer a job search as a basic example of how to determine a BATNA. If you do not receive an attractive job offer by the end of the month from Company X, what will you do? Inventing options is the first step to determining your BATNA. Should you take a different job? Look in another city? Go back to school? If the offer you are waiting for is in New York, but you had also considered Denver, then try to turn that other interest into a job offer there, too. With a job offer on the table in Denver, you will be better equipped to assess the New York offer when it is made. Lastly, you must choose your best alternative option in case you do not reach an agreement with the New York company. Which of your realistic options would you really want to pursue if you do not get the job offer in New York?
More complex situations require the consideration of a broader range of factors and possibilities. For example, a community discovers that its water is being polluted by the discharges of a nearby factory. Community leaders first attempt to negotiate a cleanup plan with the company, but the business refuses to voluntarily agree on a plan of action that the community is satisfied with. In such a case, what are the community's options for trying to resolve this situation?
They could possibly sue the business based on stipulations of the Clean Water Act.
They could contact the Environmental Protection Agency and see what sort of authority that agency has over such a situation.
They could lobby the state legislature to develop and implement more stringent regulations on polluting factories.
The community could wage a public education campaign and inform citizens of the problem. Such education could lead voters to support more environmentally minded candidates in the future who would support new laws to correct problems like this one.
In weighing these various alternatives to see which is "best," the community members must consider a variety of factors.
Which is most affordable and feasible?
Which will have the most impact in the shortest amount of time?
If they succeed in closing down the plant, how many people will lose their jobs?
These types of questions must be answered for each alternative before a BATNA can be determined in a complex environmental dispute such as this one.
BATNAs and the Other Side
At the same time you are determining your BATNA, you should also consider the alternatives available to the other side. Sometimes they may be overly optimistic about what their options are. The more you can learn about their options, the better prepared you will be for negotiation. You will be able to develop a more realistic view of what the outcomes may be and what offers are reasonable.
There are also a few things to keep in mind about revealing your BATNA to your adversary. Although Fisher and Ury do not advise secrecy in their discussions of BATNAs, according to McCarthy, "one should not reveal one's BATNA unless it is better than the other side thinks it is."[5] But since you may not know what the other side thinks, you could reveal more than you should. If your BATNA turns out to be worse than the opponent thinks it is, then revealing it will weaken your stance.
BATNAs and the Role of Third Parties
Third parties can help disputants accurately assess their BATNAs through reality testing and costing. In reality testing, the third party helps clarify and ground each disputing party's alternatives to agreement. S/he may do this by asking hard questions about the asserted BATNA: "How could you do that? What would the outcome be? What would the other side do? How do you know?" Or the third party may simply insert new information into the discussion...illustrating that one side's assessment of its BATNA is likely incorrect. Costing is a more general approach to the same process...it is a systematic effort to determine the costs and benefits of all options. In so doing, parties will come to understand all their alternatives. If this is done together and the parties agree on the assessment, this provides a strong basis upon which to come up with a negotiated solution that is better than both sides' alternatives. But if the sides cannot come to such an agreement, then negotiations will break down, and both parties will pursue their BATNA instead of negotiation.
[1] In 1992, Fisher and Ury published a 2nd Edition of Getting to Yes. The updated edition was edited by Bruce Patton and incorporates Fisher and Ury's responses to criticisms of their original 1981 book.
[2] Roger Fisher and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 104.
[3] I William Zartman, Ripe for Resolution, (New York: Oxford, 1985/1989)
[4] Roger Fisher and William Ury. Op.cit, 108.
[5] William McCarthy, "The Role of Power and Principle in Getting to Yes," in Negotiation Theory and Practice, Eds. J. William Breslin and Jeffery Z. Rubin. (Cambridge: The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 1991), 115-122.
Use the following to cite this article:Spangler, Brad. "Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: June 2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/batna/>.
Sources of Additional, In-depth Information on this Topic
Additional Explanations of the Underlying Concepts:
Online (Web) SourcesWhy Is BATNA Important?. The Negotiation Skills Company. Available at: http://www.negotiationskills.com/qaprocess12.html.This page explains what BATNA is and how it is useful in negotiating."Dealing With Impasse." , Available at: http://www.adr.af.mil/compendium/dealing.html.This article discusses two tools mediators can use to get past impasse, reality testing and BATNA.Interest, Value and the Art fo the Best Deal. The Business Times. Available at: http://www.businesstimes.com.mt/251000/focus.html.This article outlines some of the basic steps of a business negotiation, including determining BATNAs and identifying a zone of possible agreement. "Limits to Agreement: Better Alternatives." , Available at: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/batna.htm.In order to know whether or not to accept a proposed settlement obtained through negotiation, you must know whether or not you can get a better outcome in some other way. This site looks at the concepts of "BATNA", which stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, and "EATNA's", estimated alternatives to a negotiated agreement.Reality Testing. Available at: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/realtest.htm.In deciding which conflict management strategy is most promising, parties must make assumptions about their own power, their opponent's power, and the likely outcomes of different options. It is easy to make inaccurate assessments of any of these factors, however. Often an outside party can help review the accuracy of these assumptions and help parties revise them appropriately when they are invalid. This site explains how reality testing helps parties assess their BATNA's (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). It also has links to examples of reality testing and related ADR processes.
Offline (Print) SourcesMcCarthy, William. "Bargaining Power and BATNAs." Negotiation Theory , January 1, 1991. This piece offers a critique of some of Fisher and Ury's main principles as outlined in Getting to Yes. The article mostly supports the ideas put forth in that foundational work, however, McCarthy disagrees with the limited treatment of the role of power in negotiation. He argues that the role of power is not thoroughly examined and that simple notions regarding the power of BATNAs are substituted for true analysis.Watkins, Michael, Susan Rosegrant and Shimon Peres. "BATNAs and ZOPA." In Breakthrough International Negotiation: How Great Negotiators Transformed the World's Toughest Post-Cold War Conflicts. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001. Pages: 26-35. This excerpt discusses the development of alternatives and options for settlement in negotiation. The advice provided here revolves around setting oneself up to reach the best possible outcome of a negotiation, whether it is reaching a mutually acceptable agreement or walking away all together. The authors talk about building up one's own BATNA as well as how to identify a zone of possible agreement. They explain that the nature of the ZOPA is dependent on whether the negotiation is about claiming or creating value. Click here for more info.Burgess, Heidi and Guy M. Burgess. "Definition of BATNA." In Encyclopedia of Conflict Resolution. ABC-Clio, November 1997. Pages: 33-34. This section of the Encyclopedia of Conflict Resolution provides a nice, brief overview of what BATNA means and how it applies to negotiation situations.Fisher, Roger, William L. Ury and Bruce Patton. "Original Explanation of BATNA." In Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 2nd Edition . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., April 1992. Pages: 101-111. Getting to Yes is the work in which the concept of BATNA was first introduced. Chapter Six of this edition focuses entirely on the concept of BATNAs, explaining why negotiating with a bottom line is less effective and beneficial than developing a solid BATNA. The authors explain why a good BATNA gives you power in negotiation, how to develop your BATNA, and to consider the other side's BATNA. Click here for more info.Lax, David and James Sebenius. "Power of Alternatives." In Negotiation Theory and Practice. Edited by Breslin, J. William and Jeffrey Z. Rubin, eds. Cambridge: The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, January 1, 1991. While not using the actual term "BATNA", this chapter does examine how alternatives to potential negotiated agreements shape which outcome parties will settle on. The authors understand negotiation as an interactive process by which two or more parties seek to do better together, than they could do individually. Based on that definition, they argue that the measure of any negotiated agreement is whether it offers a better outcome than the course a party could take on its own. The main idea is that all potential agreements should be evaluated as competitors with other possible agreements that could help a side reach its goals. Susskind, Lawrence and Jeffrey Cruikshank. "Unassisted Negotiation." In Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes. New York: Basic Books, January 1, 1987. Pages: 80-136. Breaking the Impasse offers a guide to consensus building strategies for resolving public disputes. The authors describe possible obstacles to agreement and techniques for getting past those obstacles. The first few pages of the chapter entitled, "Unassisted Negotiation" present a helpful section on BATNAs and why people tend to underestimate others' BATNAs and overestimate their own. Click here for more info.
Return to Top
Examples Illustrating this Topic:
Online (Web) SourcesMussweiler, Thomas, Adam Galinsky and Victoria Husted Medvec. Disconnecting Outcomes and Evaluations: The Role of Negotiator Reference Points. Social Science Research Network. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=304969.Two experiments explored the role of reference points in disconnecting objective and subjective utility in negotiations. Negotiators who focused on their target prices, the ideal outcome they could obtain, achieved objectively superior outcomes compared to negotiators who focused on a minimum goal, their best alternatives to the negotiation (BATNAs).Kray, Laura. Gender Stereotype Activation and Power in Mixed-Gender Negotiations. Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc.. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=305011.We hypothesized that the distribution of resources in a mixed-gender negotiation would depend on the relative power advantage of men versus women, as well as the manner in which gender stereotypes were activated in the minds of negotiators. More specifically, we expected negotiators who had a strong alternative to the current negotiation (BATNA) to reap more resources than negotiators who had a weak alternative. We predicted that the effect of power (possessing a strong BATNA) would be especially important when gender stereotypes were explicitly activated compared to when they were implicitly activated because the explicit activation of gender stereotypes was expected to marshal cognitions that relate to power.
Offline (Print) SourcesUry, William L. Getting Past No: Negotiating With Difficult People. New York: Bantam Books, January 1, 1993. This book provides step by step approaches to defusing confrontation and developing creative solutions toward resolving conflicts through negotiation. In particular, it focuses on developing communication skills that facilitate cooperation. Click here for more info.
First Blog Ever!
Hi Everyone!
My name is Sabrina and this is my first blog ever. I'm pretty excited about this. I didn't think it was going to be easy to create a blog but for some reason, I've managed to do it.
I really think that blog is a cool way to interact and correspond with other people. It also a great tool to express yourself for personal or business purposes.
I'm hoping that with this blog, I would learn more about my fellow classmates. And most importantly, I would gain my knowledge and skills in writing and communicating.
Thank you Dr. Schoemaker for this great idea.
Best,
Sabrina
My name is Sabrina and this is my first blog ever. I'm pretty excited about this. I didn't think it was going to be easy to create a blog but for some reason, I've managed to do it.
I really think that blog is a cool way to interact and correspond with other people. It also a great tool to express yourself for personal or business purposes.
I'm hoping that with this blog, I would learn more about my fellow classmates. And most importantly, I would gain my knowledge and skills in writing and communicating.
Thank you Dr. Schoemaker for this great idea.
Best,
Sabrina
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