CHAPTER 4 STEP 2: CREATING A SHARED VISION C ompanies that treat each other as parties to their success achieve trans- formational results because organizations are working together to achieve a shared purpose or vision for the future. Each organiza- tion may have different motivations for wanting to achieve that vision, but the vision for the future remains the guiding point. Creating a shared vision may seem out of context for a book on negotiating. Many books that discuss negotiation strategies and tactics recommend that a negotia- tor’s first step is preparation. In the what’s-in-it-for-me (WIIFMe) context, this means that a negotiator is simply preparing to maximize his position vis-à-vis his counterpart. Even when approaching a negotiation as a prob- lem-solving exercise, conventional techniques focus on looking through the lens of self-interest to find shared interests as the first step. These cum- bersome approaches assume there is no shared vision for the future and this is therefore not part of the negotiation. WHY A SHARED VISION? Yogi Berra, the famous baseball player and manager, once quipped that if you don’t know where you are going you might not get there. 1 This muddling of words is quite applicable for negotiating successful partner- ships. High-performing, highly collaborative partnerships have a pur- pose that is greater than a series of transactions. Some form to meet an external challenge in the market; others form to perform a core function for a company, and yet others are internally focused to achieve transfor- mational results. J. Nyden et al., Getting to We © Jeanette Nyden, Kate Vitasek, and David Frydlinger 2013