Imagine that you’re climbing the ladder to get up to a trapeze swing or a tightrope at a circus. You’re getting higher and higher; the ladder suddenly seems impossibly flimsy, and you start to feel dizzy. You’re a long way up. Even though you know you probably shouldn’t, you can’t help but look down.
Do you think, in that moment, that you would notice if the safety net was missing?
And if it wasn’t there, would you still go out on that tightrope?
Working Without a Net
If you answered “no” – and I’m betting most of us would – then think for a moment about how you prepare for your negotiations. Do you ever go to the table without a safety net?
We’re supposed to know a few things before we enter a negotiation. Smart planning for negotiations involves figuring out what we’d love to have, what we are actually most likely to get, and where our bottom line is. We project some contingencies for different scenarios, plan some potential concessions, figure out what we’re going to ask for.
Something we may neglect to plan out, though, is what happens if we actually hit that bottom line. What if we end up having to walk away from the table? What if the other party does? If the negotiation falls through for some reason, do we have any idea what we’ll do instead? These are very important questions and can have a surprising effect on our negotiation strategy and our sense of power at the table.
The BATNA: Your Safety Net
In addition to our other negotiation parameters – bottom line, aspiration level, etc – we should also have a few alternatives planned out in case we don’t actually end up with an agreement. Without any alternatives, our bottom line becomes very difficult to stick to. After all, how can we walk away from the table if we have no other recourse?
The leverage that we need in the negotiation comes from the knowledge that we have another option for action that we can take without any help or even agreement from the other party.
The BATNA is our Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. It represents our fallback position – our ability to meet our most vital interests in the event that the negotiation does not work out, and we leave the table without a contract.
Having a BATNA gives us valuable leverage in the negotiation. It acts as a primary safety net, and is also the standard against which we can measure any proposed agreement. Determining our BATNA will give us both the information we need to set our Bottom Line and the confidence to enforce it.
So What’s a WATNA?
The WATNA, or Worst Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement, is not always well understood. Depending on the circumstances, we may be looking at a risky situation if we don’t manage to reach an agreement. Is it likely that we’ll actually lose something by walking away from the table? If so, is it worse than accepting a less-than-optimal deal?
We don’t always like to think about what could go wrong. However, if we are in a situation where the alternatives are coming away with nothing or coming away with even less than we had to start with, we should be prepared to make some difficult choices. Carefully assessing our Worst Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement can reveal exactly what our risks are, and prepare us to make better decisions about the options we select.
Working With a Net
When determining a BATNA and WATNA, brainstorm some possible courses of action should the negotiation fail. Some questions we might consider could include:
Would it be possible to approach another negotiating partner about a similar deal?
Can we appeal to a higher authority?
How long can our organization wait before a deal is struck?
Is there another way we can get our key interests met without an agreement?
What are the risks if nothing changes?
If we don’t reach an agreement, what’s the worst that could happen as a result?
Once we have a list of actions we might be able to take if no agreement is reached, we can select a few of the more promising ideas and refine them. The idea is to make them into solid and tangible alternatives that offer us not only a fallback position, but a point of leverage that can support our negotiation efforts. Finally, determine which of these alternatives is the best option: this will be our BATNA.
We should also assess the situation and determine whether we would be worse off with no deal than we would be accepting a bottom-line offer. We might find that we need to adjust where our bottom line is, depending on the circumstances. What’s the worst alternative? What do we stand to lose if no agreement is reached? This will give us our WATNA.
With a BATNA and WATNA in place, we can enter a negotiation with greater confidence and approach the table with a greater sense of power. We know what we will do if the deal falls through, which makes us less likely to dip below our bottom line, make desperate or unwise concessions, or fail to ask the other side for what we really want. This leverage at the negotiating table is very beneficial, and crucial for achieving a true win-win outcome. We are unlikely to walk away happy with any deal if we feel that it was our only choice.
Baker Communications offers leading edge Negotiations Training solutions that will help you address the goals and achieve the solutions addressed in this article. For more information about how your organization can achieve immediate and lasting behavior change that leads to bigger wins during negotiations in any setting, click here.
