My BATNA

In class on Monday, we learned about Roger Fisher and William Ury developing the BATNA technique. BATNA stands for the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. Your BATNA can be seen as your point of leverage in a negotiation. For example, I know I can sell my guitar to my brother for $1,500, so when other people offer to buy it, I can demand more than that. Therefore, my BATNA would be my deal between my brother and me. It was published in Fisher and Ury's book "Getting to Yes." I had never heard of this book before, but I know how important negotiating is, so I am going to go to Half Price Books and see if they have it. My grandpa was a great negotiator and so is my dad, so between what they have taught me and what I can learn from the book I ought to make a pretty good negotiator myself one day. I'm kind of excited...
We, The Guardians of B230, presented our service learning project proposal to the CEO and Board of Directors today. Afterwards, during the question and answer session, I realized that we had good plans on what to do but had failed to realize smaller details, such as how many phones the YWCA needs. Small things like that need to be ironed out before the project unfolds so that there are not any major wrinkles when the time comes to fulfill our project. I still, honestly, believe that our group is a fantastic group because of the respect we have for each other, everyone's open mindedness to the group's ideas, and by always avoiding groupthink by weighing every option.

---DLM---