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The ‘BB3 Strategy’ Approach to a Mediated Negotiation
July 30, 2022
Author: Dr Mary Malecka
A few years ago it cost me an arm and a leg to go to Boston and spend a week at Harvard law school for the program on negotiation course. Now, post-pandemic, everything is available online, and I recently had a day with William Ury and a small cohort of other students benefiting from his knowledge, experience and inspiration on negotiation and mediation skills.
Ury is co-author of Getting to YES, author of Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People, and author of The Power of a Positive No. These are all seminal books which are widely influential in mediation training.
The course title was “Getting to Yes with William Ury’s BB3 Strategy”. William Ury continues to be a driving force behind new negotiation theories and practices. The BB3 strategy is Ury’s new naming for an approach to a mediated negotiation.
The following is from my notes on the day:
BB3:
B for Balcony
Stand back, get metaphorically up above and look at matters as from a balcony. What are the interests, issues, and needs? Keep asking ‘Why?’
As a mediator, inviting each party to ‘view the matter as if from a balcony’ and to assess their own issues, interests and needs, as well as think through what might be the issues, interests and needs of the counter-party.
B for Bridge
Building a golden bridge, to make it easy for the counter-party to say ‘Yes’. This is a concept Ury has often spoken of.
As facilitating mediator, one might guide each party to imagine a victory speech the counter-party might make, and work towards that. Or to metaphorically leave where they are and go to their counter-party’s place and build a bridge, and attract the counter-party over it.
3 for Third Side
Pull in others if possible. What is the larger whole that includes both parties in the matter? Who do counter-parties trust?
The mediator themselves can be the Third Side seeing the situation in the context of the wider given community, in the context of a larger whole.
Question who else is affected, and how others are affected. UBUNTU.
Activate the transforming idea of context, of coalition, of collective, and of the community in which the counter-parties function.
Bring in the idea of the Third Side and of collective power in transforming conflict.
