How to negotiate (the principled way)

A **position** is what someone says they want; an **interest** is why they want it. Fisher & Ury (1981) in *Getting to Yes* illustrated this with two people arguing over an orange — one needed the juice, one the peel. Splitting the orange 50/50 (the positional compromise) gave each half of what they needed; exploring interests gave each everything. In everyday terms: when your partner insists on a specific holiday destination, ask what they're really hoping to feel on that trip. That question usually reveals options nobody announced.

**BATNA** stands for Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement — the outcome you fall back on if talks fail. **William Ury (2024)** in *Possible* argues that knowing your BATNA is the single biggest source of calm in any negotiation: you're not desperate, because you know what happens if this deal doesn't close. Without a BATNA, you tend to accept terms that don't actually serve you, purely to avoid the discomfort of walking away. Before any significant conversation, write down your alternative. It changes the room.

**Michael Wheeler (2013)** in *The Art of Negotiation* recommends preparing a **stretch goal** (the ambitious outcome you'll aim for) and a **fallback** (the minimum you'll accept), but holding both loosely. Over-scripted negotiators struggle when the conversation goes somewhere unexpected — and it always does. The preparation is to know your interests and your BATNA clearly, not to rehearse lines. Think of it as setting the destination, not the route. Then stay genuinely curious about what the other person says when you get there.

The opposite. **Barry Nalebuff (2023)** in *Split the Pie* and **Herb Cohen (2003)** in *You Can Negotiate Anything* both argue that **openness builds trust faster than secrecy** — and trust is what moves negotiations. When you share your real constraints (timeline, budget ceiling, what matters most to you), you give the other person material to create a solution you hadn't thought of. Tactical silence about everything tends to produce impasse, not advantage. The information to protect is your BATNA; most else can be offered.

Fisher & Ury's (1981) core instruction is to **separate the people from the problem**: be hard on the issue, genuinely soft on the person. This means naming your interest without attacking theirs, resisting the urge to score rhetorical points, and treating their stated position as data rather than a threat. In personal relationships especially, the negotiation is almost never purely transactional — the person across from you will remember how the conversation felt long after they've forgotten the specific terms. Read our guide on [how to have a difficult conversation](/en/blog/how-to-have-a-difficult-conversation) before going in if the stakes are high.

**Roger Dawson (2011)** in *Secrets of Power Negotiating* recommends **setting sticking points aside** and building agreement on everything else first. Once both parties have said yes to fifteen things, the psychological cost of walking away from a sixteenth rises sharply. A long list of 'agreed' also reveals which contested issue matters most to each side — sometimes a sticking point dissolves when you can see that the other party needs it for a specific reason you hadn't known. Momentum is real in negotiations; build it where you can.

**Nalebuff's (2023)** central argument in *Split the Pie* is that negotiations should focus on the **value created together**, not on starting positions. The 'pie' is the total gain from reaching a deal versus both parties walking away. Because the pie only exists if you both agree, it should be split based on equal bargaining power — not on who anchored first or who negotiated harder. In practical terms: instead of arguing about price, ask 'what would make this deal create more value for both of us?' That question alone usually unlocks options that price-haggling never touches.

Anchoring first works when you have **good information** about the real range of outcomes and you want to shape the conversation's reference point. It works poorly when you're uninformed — a bad anchor can signal desperation or ignorance. In personal and relationship negotiations, anchoring is often counterproductive anyway: opening with an extreme demand signals that you're thinking in positions, not interests. A better opening is a question: 'What matters most to you here?' You'll learn more from their answer than from any anchor you could have named. See our piece on [negotiation tactics](/en/blog/negotiation-tactics) for when hard anchoring is genuinely useful.

Yes — and it works better than matching aggression. When someone is positional or aggressive, **Ury's (2024)** advice is to 'go to the balcony': mentally step back, resist the reactive move, and ask what they actually need. Difficult behaviour in negotiations almost always signals an unmet interest or a fear of losing face. Naming that directly — 'it sounds like [X] matters a lot to you' — tends to de-escalate faster than counter-pressure. Being persuasive in tough moments is a separate skill; [how to be more persuasive](/en/blog/how-to-be-more-persuasive) covers the evidence-based side of that.

More directly than most people expect. Every conversation where two people want different things is a negotiation — holiday plans, whose career takes priority this year, how to split household labour. The mistake is importing the positional habits of transactional dealmaking into relationships that depend on goodwill. **Fisher & Ury's (1981)** framework was designed for high-stakes diplomacy, but its core insight — that durable agreements emerge from shared interests, not bested opponents — applies at every scale. For the relationship-specific version of these skills, see our guide on [negotiating in relationships](/en/blog/negotiating-in-relationships).