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underlying interests in a negotiation will often reveal more interests that
the parties share than ones in which they are opposed.

Your position in a negotiation is tied in with your attitude toward or

opinion on the subject being negotiated. When you state your position, it
tells the other side what you are seeking or what you view as being
important to resolve. Clarifying positions can certainly lead to better
understanding of one another.

A competitive situation often occurs, however, when negotiators bargain
over positions, especially when they tend to lock themselves into those
positions. The more you clarify your position and defend it against attack,
the more committed you become to it. The more you try to convince the
other side of the unlikeliness of changing your opening position, the more

difficult it becomes to do so. Your ego becomes identified with your
position. You now have a new interest in "saving face", which means
reconciling future action with past positions. This situation makes it less
and less likely that any agreement will wisely reconcile the parties' original
interests.
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For example, the president of the local chamber of commerce states that it
is his "position" that business retention should be done by the chamber.
The executive director of the economic development agency states just as
adamantly that business retention belongs with his organization. Neither
relents. Both become angry and dig in.

Clearly, as more attention is paid to positions, less attention is devoted to
meeting the underlying concerns of the parties. When the focus is on fixed
positions, it becomes more likely that the negotiating parties will start to
argue back and forth making demands, counter-demands, and ultimatums.
This precludes the likelihood of a creative and mutually satisfying

outcome. Each negotiator asserts what he will and won't do. Each side
tries through sheer willpower to force the other to change its position.
Anger and resentment often result as one side sees itself being pressured to
give in to the other side while its own legitimate concerns are ignored. It is

192 Roger Fisher and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1981, p. 5.

David Kolzow 177