Negotiation: A tool for life (and the preservation thereof)

in #negotiation7 years ago

One of my favorite sidebar educational opportunities while attending law school was the opportunity to get some advanced training in negotiation and dispute resolution. While unfortunately not a mandatory component of our curriculum, it is a beneficial skill set for any professional advocate to acquire. While you don't need advanced training in negotiation to have a chance at success in most walks of life, you do definitely need a clue. I thought a basic primer might be useful to share and rewarding to write.

We should cover a couple of basics first. The benefits of negotiation include:

  1. Maintaining a civil structure to a dispute or contest that might otherwise turn ugly.
  2. Making sure that you are critical of your own position; not just your opponent's.
    3.Delivering beneficial outcomes that would not be achieved in the classic zero sum game/winner-take-all approach.
  3. It sometimes saves lives, as is the case with hostage situations or tense diplomacy or military conflict.
  4. It's great for use in everyday situations such as parenting.

A few pointers:

  1. Haggling is not negotiating. You might think you're the master because you really put the screws to that car salesman or the guy selling knock off purses on Canal Street. Some people even think it's in their blood. It might be but, again, everyone who has ever made a major purchase might think that he/she won a negotiation but it's usually more complicated than that.
  2. You do not always have to "win" a negotiation to get what you want. Think of it as win-win if you wish or just look at it as achieving your objective without objection to the other side achieving its own.
  3. Negotiating against yourself is a quick path to defeat. While you don't always have to win a negotiation, you certainly can lose one rather easily. Silence, a purposeful pause or simply some good old-fashion bluffing can sometimes yield surprisingly effective results if the other side is antsy.
  4. If you're negotiating on behalf of anyone else, never forget who is in charge. Not long ago I was negotiating on behalf of my employer with a lawyer for one of our tenants. This lawyer seemed to have totally lost sight of the purpose of the negotiation and simply wanted to win regarding every little clause, phrase and provision we were discussing. In the end, the leverage and credibility this individual came into the negotiation with was eroded and his client was unhappy. I was able to simply say that the negotiation was over and we achieved a successful outcome.
  5. Never lose sight of the alternative. Fisher and Ury (the legends of Negotiation and authors of the seminal work "Getting to Yes") coined the term BATNA or best alternative to a negotiated agreement. BATNA is probably your most important tool. Always know what your best alternative would be if you had to walk away from the negotiating table. People too often overspend on a house because they forget that the alternative is literally an infinite set of possibilities in the real estate market. Some people unfortunately also walk away from potentially fruitful negotiations because of pride or spite (family law, anyone?) where the BATNA is not really appealing at all.

The last point cannot be emphasized enough. I mean, just look at the messes that we can chronicle in the world right now where negotiations have broken down or never been undertaken in the first place. For example, when is the last time the US and Syria got together for meaningful talks? Why are there so many crummy international free trade agreements? Why do multi-billion dollar sports leagues have work stoppages? Sometimes the BATNA is rotten. Sometimes it's just not acceptable to a certain culture, society or political group. Sometimes the harm is of no life-altering consequence (the sports example comes to mind) but so much opportunity is still lost.

If I could really offer any useful piece of advice other than remembering win-win and always knowing your BATNA, it would be to try to find one situation in your life this week where you haven't been negotiating but could benefit from it and then go ahead and summon your inner deal-maker.

Be well.

CW

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