Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)

In negotiation theory, the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement or BATNA is the choice of action that will be taken by a party if the current negotiations break down and an agreement cannot be reached. BATNA is a critical process and the guiding principle for a successful negotiator. A party should generally not accept an inferior resolution than its BATNA. It is imperative that caution is exercised to make sure that the deals are given their correct value, taking into account all considerations, such as relationship value, time value of money and the probability that the other party will keep up to their side of the bargain.

The BATNA is often conceived by negotiators not as a safety net, but rather as an asset in negotiations. Even though a negotiator’s alternative options should, in practice, be easy to evaluate, the attempt to understand which alternative symbolizes a party’s BATNA is often not invested. Alternatives need to be genuine and actionable to be of importance, On the other hand, without the investment of time, alternatives will usually be included that fails on one of these criteria. A lot of the time, managers overrate their BATNA while concurrently investing too little time into investigating their real options.

Attractive Alternatives is essential to develop a very strong BATNA. In Getting to YES, the authors give 3 suggestions of how this can be achieved

• Inventing a list of actions you might take if no agreement is reached
• Converting some of the more promising ideas and transforming them into tangible and partial alternatives
• Selecting the alternative that sounds best

BATNA Rules

A BATNA is not disclosed unless it’s beneficial. In negotiations involving cross-cultural exchange, all parties need to take into consideration for cultural cognitive behaviors and not permit judgments and biases to affect the negotiation. The individual should be removed from the objective. The purpose here is for negotiation parties to be aware of. Preparation at all levels, including prejudice-free thoughts, emotion-free behavior, bias-free behavior are helpful according to Morris and Gelfand.

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