PRAISE FOR
Getting to
YES
Getting to YES has an unrivaled place in the literature of dispute resolution. No other book in the field comes close to its impact on the way practitioners, teachers, researchers, and the public approach negotiation.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR DISPUTE RESOLUTION FORUM
Getting to YES is a highly readable and practical primer on the fundamentals of negotiation. All of us, as negotiators dealing with personal, community, and business problems, need to improve our skills in conflict resolution and agreement making. This concise volume is the best place to begin.
JOHN T. DUNLOP
This splendid book will help turn adversarial battling into hardheaded problem solving.
AVERELL HARRIMAN
Getting to YES is a highly readable, uncomplicated guide to resolving conflicts of every imaginable dimension. It teaches you how to win without compromising friendships. I wish I had written it!
ANN LANDERS
Getting to YES is powerful, incisive, persuasive. Not a bag of tricks but an overall approach. Perhaps the most useful book you will ever read!
ELLIOT RICHARDSON
Simple but powerful ideas that have already made a contribution at the international level are here made available to all. Excellent advice on how to approach a negotiating problem.
CYRUS VANCE
PENGUIN BOOKS
Getting to
YES
The authors of this book have been working together since 1977.
R OGER F ISHER is Williston Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, Founder and Director Emeritus of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and the Founding Chair of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Raised in Illinois, he served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Force, in Paris with the Marshall Plan, and in Washington, D.C., with the Department of Justice. He has also practiced law in Washington and served as a consultant to the Department of Defense. He was the originator and executive editor of the award-winning television series The Advocates . He has consulted widely with governments, corporations, and individuals. He is the author or coauthor of numerous prize-winning scholarly and popular books, including his most recent: Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate .
W ILLIAM U RY is cofounder of Harvards Program on Negotiation and Distinguished Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Raised in California and Switzerland, he is a graduate of Yale and Harvard, with a doctorate in social anthropology. Ury has served as a mediator and advisor in negotiations ranging from wildcat strikes to ethnic wars around the world. He was a consultant to the White House on establishing nuclear risk reduction centers in Washington and Moscow. His most recent project is Abrahams Path, a route of cross-cultural travel in the Middle East that retraces the footsteps of Abraham, the progenitor of many cultures and faiths. Urys most recent book is The Power of a Positive No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship, and Still Say No .
B RUCE P ATTON is Cofounder and Distinguished Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project, cofounder of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and a founder and partner of Vantage Partners, LLC, a consulting firm that helps Global 2000 companies negotiate and manage their most critical relationships. As a mediator, he helped structure the settlement of the U.S.Iranian hostage conflict, worked with Nobel Peace Prize winner scar Arias to ensure the success of the Arias Peace Plan for Central America, and worked with all parties in South Africa helping to create the constitutional process that ended apartheid. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he is also coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most .
BOOKS BY ROGER FISHER
Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate
(with Dan Shapiro, 2005)
Lateral Leadership: Getting Things Done When Youre NOT the Boss
(with Alan Sharp, 1998)
Coping with International Conflict: A Systematic Approach to Influence in International Negotiation (with Andrea Kupfer Schneider,
Elizabeth Borgwardt, and Brian Ganson, 1996)
Beyond Machiavelli
(with Elizabeth Kopelman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider, 1994)
Getting Together: Building Relationships As We Negotiate
(with Scott Brown, 1988)
Improving Compliance with International Law (1981)
International Mediation: A Working Guide; Ideas for the Practitioner
(with William Ury, 1978)
International Crises and the Role of Law: Points of Choice (1978)
Dear Israelis, Dear Arabs: A Working Approach to Peace (1972)
International Conflict for Beginners (1969)
International Conflict and Behavioral Science: The Craigville Papers
(editor and coauthor, 1964)
BOOKS BY WILLIAM URY
The Power of a Positive No:
Save the Deal, Save the Relationship, and Still Say No (2007)
Must We Fight? (editor and coauthor, 2001)
The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop (2000)
Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations (1991, revised edition 1993)
Windows of Opportunity: From Cold War to Peaceful Competition in U.S.Soviet Relations
(edited with Graham T. Allison and Bruce J. Allyn, 1989)
Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict
(with Jeanne M. Brett and Stephen B. Goldberg, 1988)
Beyond the Hotline: How Crisis Control Can Prevent Nuclear War (1985)
BOOKS BY BRUCE PATTON
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
(with Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, 1999, 2nd Edition 2010)
Getting to
YES
NEGOTIATING AGREEMENT
WITHOUT GIVING IN
by ROGER FISHER
and WILLIAM URY
with BRUCE PATTON, EDITOR
REVISED EDITIONS BY
FISHER, URY, AND PATTON
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Houghton Mifflin Company 1981
Published in Penguin Books 1983
Second edition published 1991
This third edition published 2011
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright Roger Fisher and William Ury, 1981, 1991
Copyright Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, 2011
All rights reserved
Research at Harvard University is undertaken with the expectation of publication. In such publication the authors alone are responsible for statements of fact, opinions, recommendations, and conclusions expressed. Publication in no way implies approval or endorsement by Harvard University, any of its faculties, or by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
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