The Accidental Negotiator

As good as our negotiation styles and negotiating techniques may be, it  turns out that we may be missing one of the most important skills that a  negotiator must have: the ability to listen well.  

During a negotiation, it can be very difficult to listen well to the  other side when they are disagreeing with you. It can take both time and  practice for us to become better listeners. One of our biggest problems  with becoming better listeners is that we have a real temptation to  talk instead of listen. This fault seems to increase the more educated a  negotiator is and the more they know about the topic at hand. I’ve got  some bad news for you: smart people are most prone to making the mistake of not listening. 

How can we go about becoming better listeners?

As negotiators, our job during a negotiation is to understand what the other side is looking for and then make them an offer. 

The offer that we  present to them will hopefully be what we consider to be a great deal  for them. However, sometimes after we’ve made the offer, we’ll get the  impression that the other side does not agree that the offer is all that  good. Why do we have a problem here? 

It turns out that your offer may be excellent; however, it’s how you’ve approached framing in the negotiation that’s holding you back.

As I’m pretty sure we all know, every negotiation that we engage in is  all about information. 

What do we know, what don’t we know. For that  matter, what does the other side know and what don’t they know? We all do our homework before the negotiation starts so that we’ll have as much information as possible. However, there is always the question of how much we should reveal to the other side during the negotiation. Just exactly how close to the chest should we be playing our cards? 

What should we reveal and what should we keep private?

As negotiators, what we tend to focus on with all of our negotiation  styles and negotiating techniques, of course, is the negotiations at  hand. 

It turns out that this is just a little bit sad. The reason is  because we’re going to all of the work trying to craft an agreement that  both sides can live with and we’re not taking the time to focus on what really matters.  What we need to be thinking about is just exactly how we are going to  go about putting the agreement that we’ve created into action. 

How can  we make sure that our agreement is going to turn out to be a success?

As negotiators, our goal during a negotiation is to use our negotiation  styles and negotiating techniques to reach a mutually beneficial  agreement with the other side. 

This, of course, brings up the question:  what exactly is a mutually beneficial agreement?  If  you ask around, some negotiation experts believe that a mutually  beneficial agreement is one in which each side grabs as much as it can  from a finite pot of resources and calls it a day. Ouch. A much better  approach is to combine competitive value-claiming with collaborative  value creation. The reason that you want to do this is not because it’s  the “nice” thing to do, but because it’s been proven to be the best path  to a truly mutually beneficial agreement. 

Now, just exactly how can we go about doing this?

In the world of negotiating, there are a lot of different challenges that we all face. 

What many of us are discovering is that one of the  biggest challenges that we are having to face happens when we have to  negotiate with millennials. In comparison to the baby boomers or the  Generation Xers who followed, many members of the Millennial Generation –  people born after 1981 who have been entering the workforce since 2000 —  seem to approach work life with a sense of entitlement, a craving for  praise, and an expectation that they will ascend the organizational  ladder quickly. 

How are we supposed to deal with these people?

Negotiators always have to deal with the simple fact that a negotiation  is never over, until it’s over. 

What this means is that it is possible  that after months of negotiation and the use of a wide variety of  negotiation styles and negotiating techniques, you reach a detailed  agreement with the other side and shake hands. You are all done, right?  Well, maybe not. A week later, the other side’s procurement officer  calls to tell you that there have to be some “revisions” to the deal.  Perhaps they expect you to deliver the same service package faster than  agreed upon and for less money. This happens after you’ve lined up  resources internally and gotten commitments from your own vendors. In a  situation like this, you end up trying to make the new deal work, since  you can’t afford to lose these key customers. 

What can a negotiator do  when this issue pops up?

Negotiators always have to deal with the simple fact that a negotiation is never over, until it’s over. 

What this means is that it is possible  that after months of negotiation and the use of a wide variety of  negotiation styles and negotiating techniques, you reach a detailed  agreement with the other side and shake hands. You are all done, right?  Well, maybe not. A week later, the other side’s procurement officer  calls to tell you that there have to be some “revisions” to the deal.  Perhaps they expect you to deliver the same service package faster than  agreed upon and for less money. This happens after you’ve lined up  resources internally and gotten commitments from your own vendors. In a situation like this, you end up trying to make the new deal work, since  you can’t afford to lose these key customers. 

What can a negotiator do when this issue pops up?

As negotiators we all know that it is all too easy for a negotiation to  come to a grinding halt. 

You and the other side have exchanged a series  of offers and counteroffers, and you’ve met somewhere close to the  middle—but not close enough. At this point, each side is firmly rooted  in its position and there may seem to be no way forward no matter what negotiation styles or negotiating techniques you choose to use. 

Negotiators understand that this is when it helps to know how to use MESOs in a negotiation.

When we go looking for new ways that we can be successful during a negotiation, we are often looking for the “next big thing”. 

We’d like to  find a modern negotiating technique that perhaps we’ve not heard of  before. 

However, it turns out that if you really want to expand your  negotiating toolbox it might serve you better to spend some time taking a  look at something that is actually very old: bartering.