Observatory
Options
OPTIONS are, or might be, put “on the table.”
An agreement is better if it is the best of many options, especially if it exploits potential mutual gain in the situation. Options are different from “offers” in the manner that interests are different from “positions” – an offer is an option presented with at least one party’s unilateral commitment implied seeking the other party’s commitment.
Our favorite way of thinking about generating Options is
The Pareto Frontier (see the image to the right).
The full range of possibilities on which the parties might conceivably reach agreement
Working Assumption:
Inventing options for mutual gain can create a better agreement for both parties.
Problem
Both sides leave “money on the table.” Too often people feel like the sisters who quarreled over an orange. After they finally agreed to divide the orange in half, the first sister took her half, ate the fruit, and threw away the peel, while the other threw away the fruit and used the peel from her half in baking a cake. Inefficient outcomes plague negotiations.
Approach
Two key steps.
Invent multiple options for mutual gain.
Operate on the assumption that the pie is not fixed. Both sides would like to split a larger pie. Figuring out how to expand the pie is a shared problem. Prepare for a negotiation by generating as many options as possible and plan to extend your list during the negotiation. Use your understanding of the relevant interests as a guide. Focus your inventing on ways to satisfy these interests, not the positions.
Remember that it is in your interest to help create an option that will meet the other side’s legitimate interests. If their concerns are not addressed by your ideas, then they will have no reason to say “yes.”
Separate the process of inventing from the process of deciding.
Both while preparing and negotiating arrange for inventing sessions where no commitments or criticisms are allowed. Evaluate the ideas these sessions produce only after you call a halt to inventing.
Cause
Inventing options can seem unnecessary…
People are used to accepting the first good answer to come along without probing further for better solutions. You may assume that once you find an option that satisfies your interests and looks reasonable, you can stop looking. Ultimately, this assumption disempowers you. You don’t get things that would cost the other side little or nothing and they don’t get things of little or no cost to you.
…or even dangerous.
Whether inventing with people from your side or their side, your creative juices are often constrained by reasonable fears. With people from your own side, you may fear critics who might judge any new idea harshly and make you appear foolish. With people from the other side, you may fear that by inventing new options you will disclose information that may jeopardize your bargaining position.
Consider the following guidelines
Use symbols to encourage creativity. Consider using a separate meeting or room for these sessions – an “inventing room.”
Seek to develop the widest possible range of ideas. Encourage ideas that might normally be considered a bit crazy since they can stimulate other ideas that might work, but have not yet been thought of.
Enforce the rules. It may help to have a facilitator with the explicit duty of stopping commitment and criticism when and if they occur. Place signs on the walls that read, “No Commitments. No Criticism.”