Good Negotiation Techniques from William Ury

Good Negotiation Techniques from William Ury

Negotiating With Someone Who Says "No" to Your Proposal

William Ury's well-respected book, Getting Past No receives a nice summary and application from Alex Craigie (At Counsel Table) here. 

  When negotiating with difficult people:
1. Put your emotions aside,
2. Listen to your counterpart's position well enough to state it back to your counterpart,
3. Reframe the dispute by recasting what your counterpart says in a form that directs attention back to the problem of satisfying both sides’ interests,
4. Make it easy for your counterpart to say yes if you can persuade your counterpart–overtly or covertly–that your proposal or goal is actually your counterpart's idea,
5. Make it hard for your counterpart to say now by showing your counterpart the alternative is if an agreement is not reached. As Alex Craigie says: "Here are three reality-testing questions Ury likes:

1. “What do you think will happen if we don’t agree?”
2. “What do you think I will do?”
3. “What will you do?”

Ury acknowledges that this won’t always work.  He reminds us of one of the most important concepts from Getting To Yes, formulating your own Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). Before you resort to actually implementing your BATNA, Ury suggests “you should let your opponent know what you intend to do. You want to give him a chance to reconsider his refusal to negotiate.” (Id. at 117.)"