You don’t have what you want.
You don’t have the job you want, you don’t have the sex life you want — how are you going to get what you want?
How To Get What You Want
The main reason you don’t have what you want is because you don’t know how to negotiate effectively.
If you want to learn to negotiate effectively for what you want, you might want to check out the book Getting To Yes by Fisher and Ury.
Getting to Yes outlines a process of effective negotiation that will help you get what you want in virtually any aspect of your life.
Here is an example from the book:
“Consider Mary Parker Follett’s story of two men quarreling in a library.
One wants the window open and the other wants it closed.
They bicker back and forth about how much to leave it open: a crack, halfway, three-quarters of the way.
No solution satisfies them both.
Enter the librarian.
She asks one why he wants the window open: “To get some fresh air.”
She asks the other why he wants it closed: “To avoid the draft.”
After thinking a minute, she opens wide a window in the next room, bringing in fresh air without a draft.
For a wise solution reconcile interests, not positions.
This story is typical of many negotiations.
Since the parties’ problem appears to be a conflict of positions, and since their goal is to agree on a position, they naturally tend to think and talk about positions— and in the process often reach an impasse.
The librarian could not have invented the solution she did if she had focused only on the two men’s stated positions of wanting the window open or closed.
Instead she looked to their underlying interests of fresh air and no draft.
This difference between positions and interests is crucial.
Interests define the problem.
The basic problem in a negotiation lies not in conflicting positions, but in the conflict between each side’s needs, desires, concerns, and fears.
Such desires and concerns are interests.
Interests motivate people; they are the silent movers behind the hubbub of positions.
Your position is something you have decided upon.
Your interests are what caused you to so decide.
The most powerful interests are basic human needs.
In searching for the basic interests behind a declared position, look particularly for those bedrock concerns that motivate all people.
If you can take care of such basic needs, you increase the chance both of reaching agreement and, if an agreement is reached, of the other side’s keeping to it.
Basic human needs include:
Security
Economic well-being m
A sense of belonging
Recognition
Control over one’s life”
Check out the book.
It’s an excellent resource for any man’s library.
Now go get what you want!
— Mark