Thursday, January 25, 2007

BATNA

"BATNA" (pronounced bat-na) is a new term I learned in negotiations class, and I'm a little obsessed with it. I think I'm a little obsessed with negotiations class in general.

BATNA is an acronym for Best Alternative To the Negotiated Agreement. In a negotiation, pretty much all of your power comes from your BATNA. A simple, quick example is that if you have an offer from someone who wants to buy your futon for $100, you would never accept an offer from another party for under $100, unless they could sweeten the deal somehow to get it to a value of more than $100 ($90 and they haul it out of your third floor apartment for you, and then give you a backrub?). $100 is your futon BATNA.

I think BATNA needs to be worked into my day to day vocabulary and I'm keeping an eye out for such opportunities. It should have some good applications in conversations about dating.

2 comments:

Turd Ferguson said...

Ha. We have to learn BATNA in law school too.

RB said...

Do you guys take negotiations class? I bet my professor is hotter than yours.