In their best-selling book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton introduced the concept of having a BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), or “the standard against which any proposed agreement should be measured.” When you know what you’ll do if you don’t reach a deal in a given negotiation, you can compare that possibility to the offers you exchange.
Generally speaking, the better your BATNA strategy, the greater your bargaining power. Suppose you have received an appealing job offer from another company. When negotiating with your boss for a promotion, you can ask assertively for what you would like without worrying about what will happen if your boss can’t meet your needs. Awareness of your BATNA will keep you from accepting a worse outcome than you could get elsewhere—and from rejecting an agreement that’s better than your BATNA.
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Discover how to unleash your power at the bargaining table in this free special report, BATNA Basics: Boost Your Power at the Bargaining Table, from Harvard Law School.
Negotiators often wonder whether they should reveal their BATNA to their counterpart and, if they do, at what point in the negotiation process should they do so. The following six do’s and don’ts will help you manage your BATNA strategy with confidence.
Six BATNA Strategy Guidelines
- Don’t reveal a weak BATNA.
It’s Negotiation 101: Never share your BATNA with the other party if it is hopelessly weak. A bad BATNA is also known as a WATNA, or worst alternative to a negotiated agreement. Telling a supplier, for example, that you lost your last partner and are desperate to do a new deal is a surefire way to ensure the supplier will highball you on price. Avoid appearing to be in a hurry, seeming stressed, or revealing that you have a wide-open schedule—all potential “tells” that you are eager to close a deal.
- Don’t bluff about your BATNA.
What if the other side asks you about your BATNA directly? Explain (truthfully) that you are working on various possibilities but want to concentrate on the deal on the table for the time being. Resist the urge to embellish or fabricate a BATNA to try to boost your bargaining power. You’ll compromise your ethics and reputation if you’re caught in an exaggeration or a misrepresentation of facts, or if you lie.
- Don’t reveal your BATNA too early.
Even if you’re certain your BATNA strategy is rock solid, hold off on revealing it. That’s because the information could come across as a threat: “If you can’t give me an even better deal than the one I just outlined, I’m out of here.” Threats in negotiation foster a competitive atmosphere and hinder your ability to explore value-creating trade-offs.
Moreover, if the other party doesn’t think your BATNA is as strong as you do, they might drive a harder bargain than they would if they didn’t know about your best alternative. The other party might even try to worsen your BATNA. For example, if you tell a potential employer about a great offer you have that’s due to expire in 24 hours, they might try to drag out talks to allow the deadline to pass.
Finally, keep in mind that a strong BATNA could be a useful bargaining chip near the end of a negotiation after you’ve exhausted other strategies.
- Do work to actively improve your BATNA.
It’s not enough to simply talk about your BATNA. Rather, you need to do everything you can to try to improve it. For a job seeker, that might mean continuing to seek leads in your network or thinking about other paths, such as going back to school.
- Don’t let them talk you out of your BATNA.
Suppose you’re thrilled with your BATNA strategy and are eager to play it up: “I’ve got a great deal waiting for me at the Subaru dealership down the street, but I wanted to see what Honda had to offer first.” Don’t be surprised if your counterpart starts telling you about the unreliable Subaru they had 10 years ago and how they’d never buy one again. Of course, it’s smart to investigate any potentially legitimate claims the person makes about your BATNA, but recognize that they have very real incentives to try to convince you that your outside options are not as good as you’d like to believe.
- Do encourage them to share their BATNA.
Negotiators are sometimes reluctant to ask counterparts about their BATNA for fear of discovering that it’s impossible to compete with. In fact, this would be knowledge to seek out rather than to shy away from. If there’s no way you can give them what they can get from someone else, revealing this fact and ending the negotiation would save everyone time. On the flip side, your queries about your counterpart’s BATNA could reveal that they have a terrible one—valuable information that will put you in a stronger bargaining position.
What other elements of BATNA strategy have you found to be useful?
Claim your FREE copy: BATNA Basics
Discover how to unleash your power at the bargaining table in this free special report, BATNA Basics: Boost Your Power at the Bargaining Table, from Harvard Law School.
