Interest-Based Negotiation Quotes

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

The term negotiation implies compromise; painful concessions on the part of both parties.

Negotiation is not a policy. It's a technique. It's something you use when it's to your advantage, and something that you don't use when it's not to your advantage.

The macro of any negotiation is that the only time you can cut a deal is when both sides are hurting. If either side is - is well and feeling happy, you can't get a deal. Then they go for victory. You need - if they're willing to settle for things the other side can live with, it's because they're hurting a little bit.

We're all negotiators.

The most critical thing in a negotiation is to get inside your opponent's head and figure out what he really wants.

You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

You can never in negotiations be totally predictable. The minute you’re predictable, they’re going to figure out how to take advantage.

In any negotiation you have a wish list but then you proceed from where you can be.

Anyone who has ever negotiated an agreement knows that in order to get it, you have to be willing to walk away from the table..

I think each negotiation should be based on what's the best decision - taking everything into account, not taking one thing into account.

Certainly it is much easier to think about negotiating and having deals when there is a singular represented point of view. That pretty much is a given.

Conflict is good in a negotiation process... it's the clash of two ideas, which then, all being well, produces a third idea.

At the end of the day, all the best negotiating techniques can't overcome the most substantive policy differences.

Sometimes you hear that many politicians vote for a bill in various forms before they vote against it, or vice versa. The conflict, negotiation, and eventual compromise involved in this process form the essence of the democratic process.

During a negotiation, it would be wise not to take anything personally. If you leave personalities out of it, you will be able to see opportunities more objectively.

Yes, negotiating is about money and the bottom line, but a lot of times, it's much more emotional and complex than that. Realizing that the economic outcome may not be the other party's top priority gives you more chips to play with and will enable you to achieve better results than you may have anticipated.

Unfortunately, in collective bargaining one party or the other too often tries to gain an advantage - a bargain, like buying something in a store for less than it is worth.

In any negotiation, my goal is to be the most unreasonable person in the room.

I have learned that in all negotiations nothing matters except the will to reach agreement.

As I write in my book, there is a misnomer that destroying another person's position is an effective and practical way to negotiate.

Negotiations over a shrinking pie are especially difficult because they require an allocation of losses. People tend to be much more easygoing when they bargain over an expanding pie.

I think, with a negotiation, you have to go in knowing what you want, knowing what your bottom line is, and knowing what you might accept if you're absolutely pushed.

Great negotiators never lose sight of what they are aiming at, which is not an agreement per se, but a desired outcome....Getting to yes is easy, all you have to do is roll over. It's getting what you want that's hard.

Trust-based mediation assumes accumulated and at times intimate knowledge shared by both the mediator and disputants.