This slide deck is based on the concepts in a great book by William Ury called Getting Past No. If these slides pique your interest, I suggest reading the book; it is well worth your time.

1. Getting Past No

2. Getting Past No
• Negotiating in difficult
situations
• Author: William Ury
• Follow up to Getting to Yes:
33 years ago with mentor
Roger Fisher
• Address challenge of
adversarial conflict and
increasing need for
cooperative negotiation
• 10 years after Getting to
yes, Ury wrote Getting Past
No; 23 years ago

3. Author: Dr. William Ury
• Harvard
• PhD Social
anthropology
• Mediator and Advisor
– Nuclear Risk Reduction
– Strikes
– Wars
• TED talk

4. Negotiation Revolution
• A generation ago
decisions were made
hierarchically
• People at the to gave the
orders and the people on
the bottom simply
followed them
• That is changing: family,
work, politics negotiation
is becoming the
preeminent form of
decision making
• Participatory

5. Breakthrough Negotiation
• Getting Past No distills
experiences as negotiator
and mediator in business,
political and interpersonal
situations
• Many useful techniques,
but it is difficult to
remember in the heat of
negotiating
• Therefore, this book
organizes them into an All
Purpose, Five Step
Strategy

6. Getting Past No
• Shows how to navigate
the obstacles that stand
between you and Yes.
• You get to the most
satisfying solutions and
the optimal relationship
when both sides are
doing their best to
engage the very real
problems dividing
them.

7. Why is this Important
• Life skills necessary for
successful negotiations
• Goal: make our lives
happier, more
prosperous and the
world a better place

8. Breaking through Barriers to Cooperation
• We want to get to yes,
but often the answer we
get back is NO.
• Dismissive:
– too expensive
– We tried it before
– Store policy
• Irritable spouse
• Domineering boss
• Rigid sales person
• Impossible teenager

9. Negotiations Shape Our Lives
• Think for a moment about
how you make important
decisions in you life – the
decisions that have the
greatest impact on your
performance at work and
your satisfaction at home
• How many of those
decisions can you make
unilaterally and how
many do you have to
reach with others –
through negotiation?

10. Performance at Work
Satisfaction at Home
• Negotiation is not
limited to the activity of
sitting across a table
discussing a contentious
issue; it is the informal
activity you engage in
whenever you try to get
something you want
from another person.
• Negotiations shape our
lives

11. Joint Problem Solving
• Soft on people, hard on
the problem
• Interests not positions
• Each side’s interests:
– Concerns
– Needs
– Fears
– Desires
• That underlie and
motivate your opposing
positions

12. Generate Options
• Options for meeting those
interests
• Goal is to reach a mutually
satisfactory agreement in an
efficient and amicable
fashion
• Joint problem-solving
generates better results for
both sides
• Cutting out posturing
• Better working relationships
• Better Future outcomes

13. Five Barriers to Cooperation
• Easy to say
• Hard to do
• Hard to apply in the real
world of stresses and
strains, temptations and
tempests
• Ferocious emotional
battles
• Familiar routines and
positions
• Be taken advantage of
• Your Reaction
• Their Emotion
• Their Position
• Their Dissatisfaction
• Their Power

14. Your Reaction
• Human beings are reaction
machines
• Feel you are being attacked,
natural reaction is to strike
back
• Perpetuates action-reaction
cycle
• Or impulsively give in
• You lose and having
demonstrated weakness,
expose yourself to
exploitation going forward

15. Their Emotion
• Other side’s negative
emotions
• Behind attacks may lie
anger and hostility
• Behind rigid positions
may lie fear and distrust
• Convinced they are
right and you are
wrong, they refuse to
listen

16. Their Position
• Other side’s positional
behavior: habit of digging
into a position and trying
to get you to give in
• Tactics they first learned
in the sandbox
• In their eyes, the only
alternative is for them to
give in – and the certainly
don’t want to do that

17. Their Dissatisfaction
• The other side is not
interested in reaching
an outcome because
they do not see how it
will benefit them
• Fear losing face if they
have to back down
• If it is your idea, they
may reject it for that
reason alone

18. Their Power
• If the other side sees the
negotiation as a win-lose
proposition, they will be
determined to beat you
• They may be guided by
the precept: “What’s
mine is mine. What’s
yours is negotiable.”
• If they can get what they
want by power plays, why
should they cooperate
with you?

19. Deal with Attacks and Tricks
• It is easy to believe that
stonewalling,
sandbagging, attacks and
tricks are just part of the
other side’s basic nature,
and that there is little you
can do to change such
difficult behavior.
• But you can affect this
behavior if you can deal
successfully with the
underlying motivations

20. The Goal:
Joint Problem Solving
Barriers to Cooperation Strategy:
Breakthrough Negotiation
People Sitting Side by Side Your Reaction
Their Emotion
Go to the Balcony
Step to Their Side
Facing the Problem Their Position Reframe
Reaching a Mutually
Satisfactory Agreement
Their Dissatisfaction
Their Power
Build a Golden Bridge
Use Power to Educate

21. Breakthrough Negotiation
• Five step strategy for
breaking through each
of the five barriers
• To get to where you
want to go you need to
tack – zigzag your way
toward your destination
• Indirect Action
• Change the game

22. Tacking

23. Indirect Action
• Rather than pounding in a
new idea from the
outside, you encourage
them to reach for it from
within
• Rather than telling them
what to do, you let them
figure it out
• Rather than pressuring
them to change their
mind, you create an
environment in which
they can learn

24. Indirect Action
• Rather than pounding in a
new idea from the
outside, you encourage
them to reach for it from
within
• Rather than telling them
what to do, you let them
figure it out
• Rather than pressuring
them to change their
mind, you create an
environment in which
they can learn

25. Step 1: Go to the Balcony
• First barrier is you natural
reaction
– Striking Back
– Giving In
– Breaking off
• Suspending that reaction
• Regain your mental
balance
• Stay focused
• Pause and breath
• Don’t get mad, don’t get
even, Get What You Want

26. Don’t React: Go to the Balcony

27. Step 2: Step to Their Side
• Overcome the other
side’s negative emotions
– Defensiveness
– Fear
– Suspicion
– Hostility
• Resist being drawn in
• Help them regain their
mental balance
– Listening
– Respect
– Acknowledging
– Agreeing

28. Don’t Argue: Step to Their Side
Rarely is it advisable to
meet prejudices and
passions head on.
Instead, it is best to
appear to conform to
them in order to gain
time to combat them.
One must know how to
sail with a contrary wind
and to tack until one
meets a wind in the right
direction
– Fortune de Felice, 1778

29. Step 3: Reframe
• Tackle the problem
together
• Hard to do if they dig into
their position and try to
get you to give in
• Natural to want to reject
their position, but do the
opposite:
• Accept what they say and
reframe it as an attempt
to deal with the problem

30. Don’t Reject: Reframe
• Take their position and
probe behind it: “tell
me more. Help me
understand why you
want that.”
• Ask problem solving
questions
• Act as if they are your
partners genuinely
interested in solving the
problem.

31. Craft Against Vice I Will Apply
William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure

32. Step 4: Build Them a Golden Bridge
• The other side may be
dissatisfied, unconvinced of
the benefits of agreement
• You may feel like pushing
them, but this will only make
them more resistant
• Do the opposite
• Bridge the gap between their
interests and yours
• Involve them in the process
• Incorporate their ideas
• Help them save face and make
the outcome look like a victory
for them

33. Don’t Push: Build Them a Golden
Bridge

34. Step 5: Use Power to Educate
• Despite your best efforts, the
other side may still refuse to
cooperate, believing they can
beat you at the power game.
• Threats and coercion often
backfire and lead to costly and
futile battles
• Use power not to escalate but
to educate about the costs of
not agreeing
• Demonstrate your BATNA
• Make sure they know the
golden bridge is always
available

35. Don’t Escalate; Educate

36. • The best general is the
one who never fights
– Sun Tzu

38. Preparation Worksheet
Interests
Mine Theirs
Options
1
2
3
4
5
6
Standards
1
2
3
4
BATNA
Mine Theirs
Proposals
•Aspire to
•Content with
•Live with