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"Unto thine ownself be true, and it must follow as the night the day, that thou canst not be false unto any other."
Hamlet, act 2, scene 3
A participant in the interest approach without a solid awareness of its own interests runs the risk of setting itself up to betray the other side once an agreement has been reached. This will happen in the event that the parties have not become intimately familiar with their own interests then act upon those that they "think" that they have. Only by getting ready to get together can the individual parties come to know that their true interest and the true bottom line for them...their alternatives.
It is important to note that in getting ready, each party comes to know themselves and their view of the problem or opportunity at hand, but they must remind themselves that they can only speculate as to the interests and alternatives of the other party(s). Accordingly, getting together is a necessity if there is to be a solution crafted.
Roger Fisher and Danny Ertel, GETTING READY TO NEGOTIATE: THE GETTING TO YES WORKBOOK, Penguin Books (1995).
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