Batna

Negotiation Skills BATNA and EATNA

BATNA stands for Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement

"The reason you negotiate is to produce something better than the results you can obtain without negotiating. What are those results? What is that alternative? What is your BATNA - your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement? That is the standard against which any proposed agreement should be measured." (Roger Fisher and William Ury)

BATNA is a term coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their 1981 book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Without Giving In

.It stands for "best alternative to a negotiated agreement."

BATNAs are critical to negotiation because you cannot make a wise decision about whether to accept a negotiated agreement unless you know what your alternatives are. Your BATNA "is the only standard which can protect you both from accepting terms that are too unfavourable and from rejecting terms it would be in your interest to accept." (ibid).

Essentially:

• If the proposed agreement is better than your BATNA, then you should accept it.

• If the agreement is not better than your BATNA, then you should reopen negotiations.

• If you cannot improve the agreement, then you should at least consider withdrawing from the negotiations and pursuing your alternative (though the costs of doing that must be considered as well).

In order to know whether or not to accept a proposed settlement obtained through negotiation, you must know whether or not you can get a better outcome in some other way. If the negotiated agreement is better than your "best alternative," you should take it. If it is not as good as your BATNA, however, you should either go back to the negotiating table to try again, or leave the table to pursue your other option(s).

Having a good BATNA increases your negotiating power. Therefore, it is important to improve your BATNA whenever possible. Effective negotiators know when their opponent is desperate for an agreement....