The Accidental Negotiator

When we enter into a negotiation, we’d like to think that our minds are  clear and that we are gong to be able to think systematically throughout  the negotiations as we use our negotiation styles and negotiating  techniques. 

However, all too often it turns out that we are being affected by bias that can change how we think. Most of us believe that we have the ability to determine the difference between a situation in which we can rely on our intuition and those that require us to take a step back and give things some more thought. 

However, studies have shown that in most cases we are wrong. 

The next time that you start a negotiation, what will be running through  your mind? 

If you are like most of us, you are excited to get started  and you have a fairly clear idea what negotiation styles and negotiating  techniques you’ll be using to get what you want out of this  negotiation. However, have you really done your homework?  

If you want your next negotiation to be successful, then what you do  before the negotiation starts may determine how it turns out. 

When we start a negotiation, we are filled with hope that by using our  negotiation styles and negotiating techniques we’ll be able to  eventually walk away with a deal. 

However, during every negotiation we  are faced with two possible mistakes we can make. The  first is that we end up walking away from a deal that we should have  agreed to. The other is that we end up agreeing to a deal that we should  never have agreed to. 

How can we avoid making both of these errors? 

So who will you be negotiating with during your next negotiation? Are you going to be dealing with a hard bargainer?  

There are some negotiators out there who seem to think that if they  want to get their way in a negotiation then they are going to have to  use hard-bargaining negotiation styles and negotiating techniques to  make it happen. This means that they’ll have no problems resorting to  using extreme demands, unethical behavior and perhaps even threats to  get what they want. These are the very negotiators who don’t realize  that negotiation is not a win-lose activity. 

However, since you’ll be  dealing with them, what should you do when they start to apply their  hard bargaining tactics on you?

When we are engaged in a negotiation, no matter what negotiation styles  or negotiating techniques are being used we can make the mistake of falling into common cognitive traps  if we are not careful. 

These traps are sneaky and if we are not on the  lookout for them then they can sneak up on us and they’ll end up holding  us back from accomplishing what we are trying to do in this  negotiation. When we do this, we end up making the negotiation that we  are involved in more difficult than it has to be. 

In order to prevent  this from happening, we need to learn how to identify the four different  traps. 

As negotiators we all understand that one of the most powerful tools that we have are concessions. 

However, it’s how we view concessions that really matters. All too often a negotiator can come to view concessions as being a big deal  – they are something that has value to us and making a concession that  really means something is going to end up costing us something in terms  of money, time, or something else. However, this is where we may be  wrong. It turns out that we can often keep a negotiation moving along  simply by making a token concession. 

This type of concession costs us  very little, but it can make a big impact on our negotiation. 

So here’s a question for you negotiator: just exactly what is a mutually beneficial agreement?  

Sure, we all think that we’d like to be able to use our negotiation  styles and negotiating techniques to reach one of these in our next  negotiation, but would we recognize it if we saw it? One way to define  this is to view a mutually beneficial agreement as being one in which  each side grabs as much as it can from a finite pot of resources.  Hopefully you don’t view it this way. A much better way to view it is as  competitive value-claiming with collaborative value creation. 

Now the  big question becomes just exactly how to go about doing this. 

If there is one thing that all negotiators know and understand is that in order to be able to reach a deal with the other side, you first have to be able to trust them. 

We also understand that during the course of a negotiation, trust is something that may develop naturally over time. However, sometimes we can’t wait that long.  If we don’t trust the other side, we can still make safe deals with  them. These types of deals will involve using our negotiation styles and  negotiating techniques to make few concessions, few tradeoffs, and we  won’t share very much information with the other side. However, deals  like this may mean that we are missing out on big opportunities. 

What we need to do is to find way to build trust on the fly… 

Let’s face it – there are a lot of different moving parts to the game of  negotiating with all of the different negotiation styles and  negotiating techniques that are out there. 

When we spend time thinking  about how we can become better negotiators, it can be all too easy for  us to very quickly become overwhelmed. 

When this happens, we generally  end up delaying taking any steps to become better. In order to take this large task and break it down into something that is more manageable, we  need some guidelines on how to proceed. 

So here’s an interesting thought for you: when is a negotiation over and  done with? 

I suspect that most of us would say once the deal has been  signed by all parties. It turns out that this is not the case.  Instead, reaching a deal with the other side and having that deal  signed may just be the start of your negotiations. 

Are you ready for  this?