Getting to Yes with Yourself by William Ury

Getting to Yes Assignment Summary Report

“Getting To Yes With Yourself” is a lecture provided by William Ury, when he presented to Google employees his premise that the skill of negation (or getting to yes) is getting what you want from others.  For this assignment, I was challenged to “identify parts of the presentation I will find most difficult to implement and incorporate in my work, personal life or family around negotiation, managing conflict, and “getting to yes!”  I was also encouraged to leverage the concepts from Harvey Coleman’s book, “Empowering Yourself” as an additional lens.

The overall aim of the presentation is for the audience to hone their negotiation skills to get what you truly want from others (getting to yes).  William started the presentation by explaining that we are now in a new era of the Knowledge / Information revolution which has directly influenced the way we make decisions.  In the previous model, people on top gave the orders and people on the bottom simply followed the orders.  In today’s model, William explains that the framework has flattened, and with it the negation engagement has also changed.  I find that while the new model does remove more traditional outside barriers that impede the ability to negotiate with others, it does not handle the issue of getting out of our own way to realize our goals.  This is the overarching challenge that I may find the most difficult to incorporate into my relationships holistically.

Mr. Ury called out the existence of three tables during negotiations; the actual negotiations between the two primary parties, and the tables of the respective stakeholder groups they each represent.  One item I will find difficult to implement will be getting out of my own way to get white I really want during negotiations (especially when dealing with someone I perceive to be intentionally toxic to negotiations).  This is especially true during the heat of battle, where my focus may shift from the primary relationship to defending myself against the secondary relationship. This is where the tactic of “going to the balcony” would be most useful, and where I would need to develop my skills to train myself to do so in these types of scenarios.  During his presentation, Harvey Coleman called out the importance of being aware of how the non-verbal cues you project may impede your ability to relate to people you are seeking to assimilate with.  During a potentially heated exchange, this tactic may prove challenging for me to implement as well.