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In the negotiation literature,

there's a really important concept that's worth knowing about as you think

about particularly negotiations that might have an edge to them.

And this is a theory that Ury,

Brett and Goldberg have developed and it

involves the concepts of interest rights and power.

And their theory is at the heart of every difference or

dispute are people's interest: what they care about,

why they care about it.

We've been talking about finding interest as we think

about being effective and persuasive at work.

As disputes or differences escalate,

people move from thinking about their interests,

to thinking about their rights.

Rights are independent standards that have

perceived legitimacy and they can be formal or informal.

They can be set by law like a contract or even a law itself or they can be informal.

I have a right to that,

I've been here longer than you.

I have a right to that, this isn't fair.

Seniority, fairness, reciprocity; there are

all kinds of things that we feel are our rights.

And as disputes continue to escalate,

people move to power.

Power is the ability to coerce people to do things they wouldn't do

otherwise: insults, ridicule, threats, violence.

Those are all ways to coerce people to do things.

And here's what's important about this,

understanding of this concept.

Ury, Brett and Goldberg teach that as disputes

escalate from interest through rights to power,

the transaction costs increase,

the satisfaction with the outcome decreases,

the likelihood of recurrence increases

and the relationship between the party is damaged or corrosive.

It decreases. So here's a quick example.

When I was on a school board many years ago,

we had a dispute with the teachers union because

the high school principal had assigned

a teacher to be the advisor to the high school newspaper.

It was a stipend position;

it carried with it money,

as I recall it was $600.

And the problem was that the teacher's union contract

provided that stipend positions would go to teachers in order of seniority.

And the teacher who the principal thought was most

qualified was not the most senior teacher.

The most senior teacher was one

the high school principal thought wasn't particularly qualified.

He was one of the coaches for one of the athletic teams.

So if we resolve this by sitting down and talking with each other,

our transaction costs are modest,

our satisfaction with the outcome in our relationships is likely neutral or improved,

and the likelihood of recurrence is small.

If we take it to arbitration,

which is where our contract disputes go,

we each have to pay money for lawyers and

spend time with them and split the cost of the arbitrator,

maybe travel to a city to meet the arbitrator.

Our costs have gone up in both time and money.

Our relationship is affected because we're

going to spend time in front of the arbitrator saying,

those people did this, those people did that,

you don't care about.

We are going to those people each other all day.

I used to work with arbitrators when I was at the college of law

here and a lot of law professors serve as arbitrators on the side.

And an arbitrator's metric for

a perfect arbitration is where both parties leave equally unhappy.

So we both, our relationship is damaged,

we spent more time and money and then if it goes to

strike now the transaction costs have gone way up.

The relationship is damaged,

the likelihood of recurrence is high because we've

not done anything to resolve the central dispute.

So your goal as a leader when you're trying to influence and persuade is to bear in mind,

that everybody loses as things move through rights and power.

So your skill is to bring things back to the heart of things; to people's interests.

And how do you do that?

You do that through all the professional IQ skills we've been talking about.

You build rapport.

You pay attention to the other party.

You accord them respect by listening to them.

You paraphrase to see if you've understood.

You really seek and explore the other party's interests,

seeking a win-win or

mutually beneficial outcome not one that's in opposition to each other.

Folks generally are surprised to learn that there's not a lot of

secret techniques or tactics that we use to trick other people into our way of thinking.

Really the heart of our course,

and the heart of what we teach is around seeking to find the common ground,

so that you can reach some sort of mutually beneficial outcome.

And honestly, one of the most powerful tools that we

teach to get there is effective questioning.

And the reason that effective questioning is important is because it allows you to make

sure that you and whoever it is that you're trying to persuade

or bring over to your side or negotiate with,

you make sure that you're starting from the same foundation of understanding.

So I'm asking you questions to understand why you

have the opinion that you have or why you're going in the direction that you are going.

And as you're providing me with the feedback on how you got there,

I'm now able to put that filter,

put that lens on that helps to put me in your shoes.

And now we can have a really productive dialog that's based

on facts and that takes us where we want to go.

So how did we resolve our dispute around the high school newspaper?

Well, we sat down with each other and we focused on

our shared interests which is the key to all of this - shared interests.

What did we share interests in?

We all shared interest in a good high school newspaper,

a good educational experience for the students and we all

shared really an interest in respecting the teachers and the teachers' contract.

So will you find building on shared interests

a way through this without having to resort to rights or power?

Well, if we care about that and we both agree we care about a good newspaper,

let's find a way for this teacher who we all think is probably if we're really honest,

the most qualified, and meet the interests of respecting the contract.

So then one of the things we can do is,

we can think well what else can we control that lets this happen?

Well, the high school principal controls the schedule.

So maybe the teacher could be assigned the newspaper as

a class and we could respect contract by giving the coach a different stipend position.

That happened to be the solution we came to.

There are other possibilities if you stay focused

on we want a solution that meets these interests.

And now we need to get creative.

And that's your job if you want to be

influential and effective in communication and as a leader,

is to focus on interests and find ways to satisfy people's interests.

Even when you have a conflict around them,

to work your way through a situation that meets interest and is integrative and

balances and trades off for mutual benefit.

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2.5.3 Interests, Rights, and Power

Leadership and Influence

Conoce a los instructores