Quotes from Roger Fisher

What does it take for you and others to relax? It may be talking over a drink, or meeting at a vacation lodge in some picturesque spot, or dressing less formally during the meeting and calling one another by your first names.

Durante más de doce años, Bruce Patton ha colaborado con nosotros en redactar y explicar todas las ideas de este libro. El año pasado se hizo cargo de la difícil tarea de volcar nuestro pensamiento conjunto en un texto con el que estuviéramos todos de acuerdo. Es un placer darle la bienvenida a Bruce, editor de la primera y coautor de esta segunda edición.

Understanding should be promoted in young children before it is too late.

For more on the core concerns and how to manage them in negotiation, see Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro, Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate (Penguin, 2006).

At the very least, if you and the other side cannot reach first-order agreement, you can usually reach second-order agreement—that is, agree on where you disagree, so that you both know the issues in dispute, which are not always obvious.

To get what we want, we are compelled to negotiate.

Negotiation, Information Technology, and the Problem of the Faceless Other," in Leigh L. Thompson, editor, Negotiation Theory and Research (Psychology Press, 2006).

systematic tools for getting results, whether in business or international diplomacy, summed up in Beyond Machiavelli and Getting It DONE;

Negotiations are not likely to make much progress as long as one side believes that the fulfillment of their basic human needs is being threatened by the other.

Agreement is often based on disagreement. It is as absurd to think, for example, that you should always begin by reaching agreement on the facts as it is for a buyer of stock to try to convince the seller that the stock is likely to go up. If they did agree that the stock would go up, the seller would probably not sell. What makes a deal likely is that the buyer believes the price will go up and the seller believes it will go down.

Be hard on the problem, soft on the people.

Chess looks like a zero-sum game; if one loses, the other wins—until a dog trots by and knocks over the table, spills the beer, and leaves you both worse off than before.

If dovetailing had to be summed up in one sentence, it would be: Look for items that are of low cost to you and high benefit to them, and vice versa. Differences in interests, priorities, beliefs, forecasts, and attitudes toward risk all make dovetailing possible. A negotiator's motto could be "Vive la différence!

Having a good BATNA can help you negotiate on the merits. You can convert such resources as you have into effective negotiating power by developing and improving your BATNA. Apply knowledge, time, money, people, connections, and wits into devising the best solution for you independent of the other side's assent. The more easily and happily you can walk away from a negotiation, the greater your capacity to affect its outcome.

It is easy to forget sometimes that a negotiation is not a debate. Nor is it a trial.

Never yield to pressure, only to principle.

The participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other. Hence the first proposition: Separate the people from the problem.

Sidestep their attack and deflect it against the problem.

Recast an attack on you as an attack on the problem.

When anger and misperception are high, some thoughts are best left unsaid.

People obtain psychological release through the simple process of recounting their grievances to an attentive audience.

The more you clarify your position and defend it against attack, the more committed you become to it. The

After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future world depends.

what is the best advice one could give a husband and wife getting divorced who want to know how to reach a fair and mutually satisfactory agreement without ending up in a bitter fight?