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Comment by xibalba | Hacker News Reader

Beautiful. I remember hearing it said that if you're not willing to walk away completely from a negotiation, you have zero actual leverage. Bravo!

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Negotiating courses often refer to this as the BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). Considering what that scenario is and having it as your bottom line is the best piece of advice they impart.

Having a BATNA that you're perfectly fine doing takes a huge amount of pressure off in a negotiation.

Even just knowing the concept gets you halfway there, assuming you have any other options at all. It's a term everybody should know. BATNA BATNA BATNA!

I feel like I can always replace “BATNA” with “alternative” or “option” and the statement conveys the same information.

People like secret words that show they're in a certain group. It's called PLSWTSTIACG.

It came out of research at Harvard (by the authors of Getting to Yes) and is related to game theory. So it's academic (and therefore jargony) but is probably also intended to be more precise than alternatives or options.

That said, for day to day use, understand your alternatives if the parties can't come to an agreement works perfectly well.

Yeah, makes sense. It's possible no-one felt it was okay to say, "do we just mean 'fallback' or 'plan B'?"

Oooh what's that? Tell me

Only ddg for PLSWTSTIACG is this post

People like secret words that show they're in a certain group.

IMHO there's a difference - alternatives and options are the things that you consider and discuss might offer to the other party within a negotiation, they are a part of it.

BATNA, on the other hand, is outside of that negotiation, it is the thing that you'll actually do if the negotiation fails. This will not always will match your statements during the negotiation about what your options are, it's something purely in your mind to compare with the actual alternatives being negotiated and something which, unlike these alternatives, does not require a negotiated consent of the other party.

Haven't looked at it in years but I remember Getting to Yes as being a great little book on negotiation. Maybe there are better books out there but I found it a good place to start.

There are a number of other things in there too. For example, you may not have the same priorities as the person you're negotiating with.

I'd recommend _Never Split The Difference_, by former Chief FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss. Very fun read and widely applicable.

Spoiler: His advice is not to strong-arm, but to build trust with your counterpart.

Hostage negotiation is a game played once between parties. Most of daily life situations are repeated games, in which dynamics are different. I found that the author was biased by their experience in one-off games and their suggestions wouldn’t generalize well into repeated games. Unfortunately, there is no acknowledgement of this until the very end of the book. Still a good read though.

Not sure I understand the distinction you're making, isn't interviewing with one particular company a one-off game as well?

> Not sure I understand the distinction you're making, isn't interviewing with one particular company a one-off game as well?

No. In a situation where you're thinking of leaving, you are negotiating with your manager. That's a relationship that will continue if you stay.

Ah, you mean that one, not potential prospects.

Yep I agree on one hand but on the other, getting to that point is being 95% out the door anyway. Even if you stay, many managers and businessmen have very persistent bad memory and will remember you as the guy who twisted their hands or whatever. I've experienced this a long time ago; some of these people are very resentful and vengeful.

Often times staying at a place where you have thrown the "I'll leave for a better offer if you don't budge" card on the table successfully... is not worth it.

my wife and i actually read that as part learning to deal with my mentally unstable ex-wife. i thought it was good for repeated performances as well.

Also, I saw a lot of parallels with Playing to Win by David Sirlin [0], about competitive gaming.

One of Sirlin's points is that the most common reason casual players lose is because they restrict themselves to a subset of legal moves. I.e. they play the game they think exists, or they think is "fair", rather than the rules as written.

Transposed into negotiation, Voss feels very similar to me. Whereas most people get distracted with the minutiae, or their feelings about the negotiation, or 1,000 other non-rule parts... he treats negotiation as game.

Not in the sense of "fun" or "lighthearted" (he worked for the FBI!), but in the sense of understanding all the actual rules, and using those rules to win.

[0] https://www.sirlin.net/ptw

I hadn't thought of the connection yet, but now that you mention it there are indeed a lot of parallels. Thank you for pointing this out! :)

Terrible book that has some gems.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21769264

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059590

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25309966

Edit: Yes dang, I did copy/paste a prior comment of mine, but it seemed silly to post a link to a comment that itself is just links!

It's an OK book. I really liked "Bargaining for Advantage".

Always be ready to leave the table first.

It doesn’t mean that you will; it doesn’t mean that you should. It means you are prepared. And this can be a huge advantage.

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