You will be able to keep a negotiation focused on terms and fair standards while protecting the relationship.
Farah, the tenant facing the S$300 increase from lesson 1.1, has rehearsed what she wants to say to her landlord. Somewhere in the rehearsal it turned into a speech about how unfair he is, how she has always paid on time and how other landlords would never do this. Every word may be true. Said out loud, it will make him defend himself, and a landlord defending himself is not thinking about her lease.
This lesson is about keeping two things apart: the person you're negotiating with, and the terms you're negotiating about.
Getting to Yes treats every negotiation as having two problems at once. One is the substance: the rent, the salary, the deadline, the price. The other is the relationship: how the two of you feel about each other, whether you trust each other, and whether you'll want to deal with each other again.
The trouble starts when the two get tangled. If Farah makes a concession on rent to keep things friendly, she's paying for the relationship with substance. If she attacks the landlord's character to win on rent, she's spending the relationship to buy substance. Fisher and Ury's advice is to deal with each one on its own terms. Be firm on the substance and careful with the person.
In Singapore this matters more than it might elsewhere. You'll probably renew with the same landlord, deal with the same supplier next quarter, and sit in the same office as the manager who just turned down your raise. Most of your negotiations are with people you'll see again.
The practical habit is to make the terms the subject of every sentence.
"You're being unreasonable" is about the landlord. "S$300 is more than I expected, and I'd like to understand how you arrived at it" is about the number. "You always wait until the last minute" is about a supplier's character. "The last two deliveries arrived a day late, and I need a way to make sure that doesn't happen at launch" is about a problem you can both work on.
One way to test a sentence before you say it: could the other person agree with it without admitting they're a bad person? If the answer is no, rewrite it. People can concede on terms without much trouble. Conceding that they're unfair, greedy or disorganised is much harder, so they won't, and the conversation stalls.
If you've done the Communicate at work course, this is the same idea as lesson 5.3, Disagree without making it personal, applied to a negotiation. You can disagree completely with a number and still treat the person who proposed it with respect.
Negotiations involve money, security and pride, so emotions come with them. Pretending they aren't there doesn't make them go away. It usually makes them come out sideways, as sarcasm or a sudden hard line.
It helps to name what you see, calmly. "I can tell this renewal has been stressful for you too." "It sounds like the late payments last year really annoyed you." Saying it out loud tells the other person you've noticed, and that often lowers the temperature more than any argument would.
When the other side has an outburst, don't answer it with one of your own. Let them finish. Don't interrupt to correct the facts in the middle of it. Then respond to the substance in a level voice, or suggest a short break. An outburst that meets calm usually burns out. One that meets another outburst becomes the main event.
Your own feelings need the same care. If you notice you're getting angry, that's a good moment to slow down, ask a question or say you'd like to think about it overnight. Very few good agreements are made by someone who is upset.
The last habit is the one that does most for the substance. When each side argues from its own preference, the only way to agree is for someone to give in. When both sides look at an outside standard, agreeing stops being a defeat for anyone.
Fisher and Ury call these objective criteria: measures that sit outside the negotiation and that both sides can accept as fair. Typical ones include:
Market data, such as current asking rents for similar units in the same estate on property portals Published rates, such as a professional body's fee guide or a supplier's public price list Past practice, such as what you paid last year or what the company did for a colleague in the same role Expert opinion, such as a valuation, an inspection report or a quote from an independent contractor
Farah can now say: "Let's look at what similar three-room flats in this block are listed for right now, and go from there." If the listings support the landlord's S$300, she's learned something important before arguing. If they don't, the gap between his number and the market is now a fact on the table, rather than her opinion against his.
Criteria work both ways, so be ready to accept a standard even when it favours the other side. That fairness is what makes the standard persuasive when it favours you. Pick criteria that are hard to dispute, note where each came from, and be ready to show them.
For your own negotiation, think about which outside standards the other side would find hard to wave away. The activity below asks you to name three of them, so you have something firmer than your own opinion to point to when the numbers come up.
List three objective standards, such as published market rates or past agreements, that you could use in your upcoming negotiation.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).