How to assess your options

(And, why appeasement doesn't work, I'm talking to you, Columbia University)

In my negotiation class, I teach the following steps:

1. State the problem and your big-picture goals, and learn theirs.

2. Ask questions to learn about their wants and needs, and communicate your own.

3. Explore possible options together.

4. Select an option.

5. Assess the option.

6. Document the agreement.

“Select an option” comes near the middle of the negotiation, not at the end. Agreeing and then walking away immediately is likely to lead to a bad outcome.

Why? Because you shouldn’t make a final decision until you have thought it through completely.

That’s the “assess” step: How will this work? What exactly are the steps we will take? Are we reasonably sure those steps will happen? What if they don’t? What could go wrong and is there anything we can do to prevent or mitigate it?

In this step, you’re looking into the future. We’ve made this agreement. Then what?

The assessment step is when you figure out whether your proposed solution is likely to work. Often, one person will identify an obstacle they hadn’t thought of before – for instance, they need approval from their CEO, or spouse, or someone else who’s not in the room, before they can come to a final agreement.

Or person #1 will say, “What if you don’t do what you promised, what recourse do I have?” and person #2 will say, “Don’t worry, just trust me,” and person #1 will then have reason to pause and reassess.

Now let’s look at Columbia University as a case study.

The government says, “We will take away your funding if you resist our efforts to arrest and deport your students.”

Columbia makes the calculation that removal of funding is worse than students being arrested and deported. This is Step 4, Select an Option. The option they select is appeasement — giving in to the demands of a powerful opponent.

Did anyone do Step 5?

Because playing this out into the future, you would have to note the following:

1. The government has not definitively agreed that this will be its final demand. (And even if it did agree, it has a track record of disregarding similar agreements.)

2. If the government escalates its demands, Columbia has no recourse.

Appeasement is a terrible strategy with a negotiating partner who retains all the power. You have set a precedent that you are willing to cave – and you’re still around, which means they can extract more from you. Which is exactly what is happening now.

When is it okay to give in to demands? When you’re confident that the bargain you are making is consistent with your goals and values, is feasible and sustainable, and won’t land you back in the same situation in the future.

In contrast with the very serious example above, here’s a low-stakes example I encountered recently at work. My coworker and I had opposing ideas about how to do a shared task. I tried to explain my reasoning and suggest compromises, but finally I gave in and agreed to do it their way.

Here was my assessment:

1. My primary concern is that the task gets done, not how to do it.

2. Their approach will get the task done in a reasonably acceptable way, though not the way I’d prefer.

3. I’m not setting a precedent for the future. If this happens again, I will still have standing to say no or argue, and am comfortable doing that.

My coworker was happy because they “won.” I was reasonably happy because I didn’t have to continue arguing about something I was not hugely invested in, and the task would still get done.

Giving in can sometimes work as a strategy. Just not when it compromises your values or goals, or other people’s safety.