You will be able to state your BATNA for any negotiation and list ways to strengthen it.
Wei Ling is 29 and works in marketing at a logistics firm in Paya Lebar. After three rounds of interviews, a consumer tech company in one-north has told her an offer is coming this week. She wants the job, and she's already dreading one part of the call: if she asks for more and they say no, what then?
That question, what then, is the subject of this lesson. Before you can judge any offer, you need a clear answer to what you'll do if this negotiation fails. Most people never write that answer down, and it quietly decides how hard they push.
In Getting to Yes, Fisher and Ury gave this answer a name: your BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It's what you will actually do if you and the other side don't reach a deal.
Wei Ling lists her alternatives on the MRT home. There's her current job, which she could simply keep. There's the job search, which she could carry on. And there's a promotion her manager half-promised last year, which she could chase. Today, staying put beats the other two, so that is her BATNA.
Every negotiation has one, even when it doesn't feel that way. If the landlord won't agree acceptable terms, your BATNA might be renting a smaller flat two MRT stops away. If a client won't pay your rate, it might be spending that week on another client's project. If a car dealer won't move, it might be buying the same model from a different dealer, or keeping your current car another year.
The test of a BATNA is whether you could act on it tomorrow. "I'll probably find something better" is a hope. "I'll stay in my current role at my current pay and keep applying" is a plan. "A recruiter said she might have something" is a hope. "I have a second interview on Thursday" is a step towards a plan, though it isn't an alternative until there's an offer.
People overrate their BATNA when they're angry and underrate it when they're anxious. Wei Ling, nervous about losing the offer, might forget that her current job is perfectly decent: she likes her team, the pay is fair and she isn't in a hurry. That makes her BATNA stronger than it feels. A friend who's furious with their boss might think any offer beats staying, and accept something worse than they'd accept on a calmer day.
So be honest in both directions. Write your BATNA as a sentence a level-headed friend would agree with.
Your BATNA is the reason you can say no. Someone who would be fine without the deal can hear a low offer, smile and ask for more, because a refusal costs them little. Someone with nothing to fall back on hears every pause from the other side as a threat.
This is where most negotiating power comes from. It isn't charm or a forceful manner. It's how good your position is if there's no deal, compared with theirs. The hiring manager also has a BATNA: the next candidate on the list, or leaving the role empty for longer. The landlord has one: re-letting the flat, which may mean an empty month and an agent's fee. Lesson 2.3 looks at estimating theirs.
Notice what this means for Wei Ling. She doesn't need to be a tough negotiator to ask for a better package. She needs to know, and believe, that staying where she is would be fine. That belief changes her tone more than any script.
Because your BATNA is so important, the best time to work on it is before the negotiation starts. Once you're in the room, it's usually too late to change.
How you strengthen it depends on the deal. Job seekers can talk to other employers, take recruiter calls seriously, or find out what a promotion at their current company would involve. A tenant can view two or three flats so the cost of moving becomes a real figure. Anyone buying from a contractor or supplier can get a second or third quote, and anyone making a big purchase can price the same item at another shop.
Each step either improves your alternative or tells you it's weaker than you thought. Both are useful. A weaker BATNA than you hoped means you should be more careful about walking away, and perhaps more creative about options from lesson 1.4, Map the interests in a real negotiation.
Wei Ling decides to reply to a recruiter who contacted her last month, and to ask her manager informally about the promotion timeline. She isn't committing to anything by doing either, and by the time the offer arrives she may have a much better answer to what then.
Now apply this to your own negotiation. The activity asks you to write your BATNA in a single sentence, and then pick two things you could realistically do in the next seven days to make it stronger.
Write your BATNA for your upcoming negotiation in one sentence, then list two things you could do this week to improve it.
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