Your First 60 Days as a Leader

Chapter 2. Stepping Forward to Lead with a Negotiator’s Mindset

When many people think of negotiation, they imagine an adversarial contest where there is a winner and a loser. It’s positional combat. One “right” and one “wrong.” Black and white, with no grey. It’s transactional. Some people relish the fight, while others find it terrifying. You will inevitably engage in that kind of give-and-take.

However, there is another approach that’s frequently more useful when leading. It’s known as interest-based negotiation, and it imagines a win-win outcome. There is no “loser” because each party advocates for their interests, not a specific position. There can be overlapping interests, a common ground on which agreement can be forged. Interests don’t necessarily cancel each other out. They may not be in opposition. They are simply different.

With interest-based negotiation, you don’t have to “beat” the other person to come to an agreement. Can you imagine why you’d want to vanquish your boss or the people who work with you? No. You want and need to move forward together.

Interest-based negotiation was popularized by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their seminal book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. It synthesized their work at the Harvard Negotiation Project, and it is considered one of the major breakthroughs in the field.

My colleagues and I at Harvard have been teaching interest-based negotiation to graduate students and executives for decades. I’ve seen ...