This comment reads the same to me replacing “BATNA” with “alternative”.
I think a better way to phrase your critique would be: "acronyms harm the flow of your text - they're best used sparingly"
Friendly tends to be called ‘charity’
BATNA (and I am every familiar with the term, as I’ve had to do a significant amount of negotiation) is the ‘plan B’ if there is no acceptable ‘good’ agreement.
If someone has no acceptable BATNA, their negotiation is essentially ‘please don’t beat me up too bad’, not ‘let’s see if we can agree on something that works for both of us’. No BATNA means you aren’t effectively negotiating, just begging to not be abused too badly.
Sometimes an employer doesn’t have a BATNA option, but that is rare. Usually it’s the employee which doesn’t have a plan B.
A BATNA when doing negotiations over salary, for instance, might be taking another offer with an otherwise less desirable company. Or continuing a job search for more time. Or becoming a sugar baby for an older woman somewhere, etc. or filing for bankruptcy.
Knowing what your own (and what the other sides) plan B is, is important to actually have a successful negotiation, because when your offer starts to look less desirable than their plan B, it isn’t going to go well.
In seemingly all situations, a decision maker is considering their most preferred alternatives rather than their least preferred alternatives.
I read the Wikipedia page, but I’m still unclear what information I gain from BATNA over just “best alternative” or “second best option/choice”.
Recruiter: The offer is $100k.
Me: I want 120k and WFH.
Recruiter: I checked with the manager. The best we can do is either 120k but you show up every day or 90k remote.
Me: I'm already paid 110k and work remote. Sorry.
Recruiter: Oh, alright. We can't afford that. We'll continue our search with other candidates. Thanks for your time.
Both "options" presented by the recruiter are "alternatives" and they're both "negotiated agreements" (i.e. a meeting in the middle).
BATNA is short for what you get when negotiations fail and you walk away with no deal. (In this case, staying at the 110k remote job is one party's, the other party's is to keep interviewing more candidates.)
I had once had this aversion to neologisms for the sake of them too. Then I took some math classes and understood that saying "ring" is better than saying "commutative group with multiplication satisfying the following axioms...". Ultimately, it's helpful to invoke words that a group of people commonly understands, even if it seems to the uninitiated that it's saying nothing of importance.
The word "BATNA" is used a lot in discussions on negotiations. These books are full of tips on thinking about/finding out your counterpart's BATNA, coming to the negotiation table with a strong BATNA, conveying your BATNA to the other person, etc. In this context, the word/acronym conveys a very specific meaning that unspecialized English words like "option" and "alternative" don't capture.
'Alternative' or 'option', leave the question 'to what?'.
I declined this job offer because I had BATNA.
I declined this job offer because I had a better option.
I negotiated more PTO because I had a BATNA.
I negotiated more PTO because I had a better alternative.
I think you're being a pendent.
Oh god help me....
(But a little disappointed my trap wasn't successful ..)
That's what 99.9% of all negotiation advice I ever saw boils down to. Basically beat the game before it beats you.
Really cute... until you remember most people don't live to "play the negotiation game". They want a stable paycheck and to raise their family.
But who's asking, right.
Just trying to be helpful :)