When faced with negotiations, people will sometimes “see how negotiations go” before figuring out what they will do if an agreement cannot be reached. But doing so will put you at a disadvantage.
Without exploring the alternative ahead of time, it is easy to both overestimate and underestimate the impact of not reaching an agreement, especially in the heat of negotiations. If there are multiple options, you may start to think of them in aggregate—even though you can only choose one option—which will make the alternative seem more appealing than it actually is. On the flip side, the unknown elements may make the alternative seem worse than it actually is, which can lead you to make concessions you will regret later.
Only by having fully developed the alternatives can you make the best decisions in a negotiation.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury is a concise and useful guide to the psychology of negotiation; based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project. The core points of the Principled Negotiation method are explained through a series of familiar examples, from the conflicts between super-powers, to getting your kids to bed without tears.
