The Accidental Negotiator

Let’s face it, during a negotiation things can go wrong. 

You were making  progress using your negotiation styles and negotiating techniques to  work towards reaching a deal one minute and then all of a sudden you find yourself staring at an impasse.  You have made offers to the other side, they have made offers to you  and you thought that you were approaching middle ground; however, it now  appears as though you are not close enough to agree on a deal. Now what is a negotiator to do? 

This might be the time for you to start to use MESOs in this negotiation.

In addition to different negotiation styles and negotiating techniques  there are a number of different things that negotiators need to be able  to deal with during a negotiation. 

Being overconfident is one of these. What we need to understand is that if we allow ourselves to become overconfident, then there is a good chance that it is going to affect both our judgement and our decision making process. 

What we need are ways to detect when we are becoming overconfident and ways to deal with it when it happens.

Negotiators view every negotiation as a type of game. 

hey show up ready  to use their negotiation styles and negotiating techniques to compete  with the other side in order to see who can walk away being a winner.  I’m pretty sure that we all realize that we should be cooperating, but  instead all too often we end up competing to see who can win. The reason that we do this is because we arrive at the negotiation with the assumption that we’re dealing with a fixed pie – there is only so much to be had, and somebody is going to walk away  with more and somebody is going to walk away with less. We view a  negotiation as being a win-lose competitive situation. 

What we really  should be doing is working with the other side to find more value in the  negotiation.

During a negotiation, sometimes something amazing happens. 

When one side  presents a number to the other side, that side can all of suddenly end  up irrationally fixating on that first number that was put forth at the bargaining table. This number is called “the anchor”. The other side (or us) can become fixated with it no matter how  outlandish it may be. Even when we know the anchor has limited  relevance, we can sometimes fail to sufficiently adjust our judgments  away from it. This is an example of the anchoring effect in  negotiations. 

Negotiators can use anchoring to reduce risk in a  negotiation.

When you jump into a negotiation, do you know what you want to get out  of the negotiation? 

Perhaps a much more important question is does  the other side have a set of expectations regarding what they want to  get out of the negotiations no matter what negotiation styles or  negotiating techniques are used?  It turns out that as a  negotiator, one of your responsibilities is to make sure that during the  negotiations you take the time to carefully manage the other side’s  expectations. You need to make sure that when the negotiation is over,  their expectations have been met. 

Now comes the big question – do you  know how to go about doing this?

When we enter into a negotiation, we are thinking about one thing: what  we’d like to use our negotiation styles and negotiating techniques  to  get out of the negotiation. 

Let’s face it, we’re rather self-centered when it comes to planning how our next negotiation is going to turn  out. As I’m pretty sure that we are all well aware of by now, thinking  only of ourselves when it comes to negotiating can lead to some long and  trying negotiations. 

What if there was a better way? It turns out that it is and it has a name: logrolling.

In the world of negotiating, despite all of the different principled  negotiation styles and negotiating techniques that get used, there are a  number of tactics that have achieve classic status. 

One such technique is called the “good cop / bad cop” approach.  You’ll encounter this when you sit down to negotiate and one member of  the other side says that they really want to be able to reach an  agreement with you and at the same time another member of the other side decides to present you with an outrageous, even insulting, offer. A member of the other side urges them to make a concession.  This makes that member of the other side seem like a trusted friend.  You find yourself taking his advice and working hard to bridge your gap  with person who made the insulting offer, even proposing concessions you  never intended to make. 

Guess what – you just fell for the good cop /  bad cop tactic.

Negotiating is hard. 

Negotiating when you are a woman is even harder.  Historically women have not been as aggressive as men. They have been  willing to settle for what is offered to them. However, to truly be  successful negotiators women need to start to think about what a man  would be able to achieve in their position. 

What women need to start to  do in negotiations is to start to employ more assertive behavior.

Negotiators are always looking for ways that they can get more value out  of their next negotiation. 

Although there may be many different ways to  accomplish this such as using different negotiation styles and  negotiating techniques, one way that we tend to overlook too often is by  negotiating a right of first refusal. Just in case anyone doesn’t  remember what the right of first refusal is, also known as a matching right or right of first offer, it is  defined as being a guarantee that one side to a business deal can match  any offer that the other side later receives for what is being  negotiated. 

As negotiators we need to realize that the rights of first  refusal could be a win-win tool that can enhance your negotiation skills, but to ensure that it is mutually beneficial, it needs to be negotiated with care.

As negotiators, there are a few books that I’m guessing that we have all  pretty much read. 

One of the classic negotiating books that everyone  should have on their shelves is “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement  Without Giving In”. In this book, the authors explained that negotiators  don’t have to choose between either waging a strictly competitive,  win-lose negotiation battle or caving in to avoid conflict. What they  said was that negotiators can and should look for negotiation strategies  that can help both sides get more of what they want. If we take the  time to listen closely to each other, treat each other fairly, and  explore options to increase value, we can find ways of getting to yes  that reduce the need to rely on hard-bargaining tactics and unnecessary  concessions. Great idea. 

Now exactly how can we go about making this  happen?