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Getting Ready to Negotiate

Negotiation Model

The authors define a five-stage model of negotiation:

  1. Preparation
    1. Information Gathering
      • Information to define your objectives and support your case
      • Information about the opposing sides goals and objectives, hwo they are likely to view you, and what they are seeking to achieve
    2. Planning and Goal Setting
      • Defining your goals
      • Setting your limits (when to walk away)
      • Planning your opening
      • Defining alternatives
      • Defining and Agenda
  2. Opening - Communicating your goals to the opposition, listening to their opening argument
  3. Bargaining - A back-and forth process in which each party makes concessions and revises its demands in order to reach an agreement. The length of this process can vary greatly.
  4. Closing - The two parties formalize the conclusion, usually in a written document, to clarify the terms of their agreement. There is often a closing ritual to celebrate the agreement
  5. Implementation - Following the agreement, the agreement is implemented. This may go smoothly, or the parties may discover the need to renegotiate the terms in arrears.

The authors assert that these stages are part of every negotiation, though in some cases, the duration may be very short: if each party is completely amenable to the other's statements in the opening phase, there will be little to no bargaining.

The author also lists a handful of factors that can also influence the length of the negotiation stages: how well the parties know one another (or want to know one another), how well prepared both parties are, the culture in which the negotiation is taking place, etc.

The Players in the Game

The author defines a number of situations that will dictate or affect who is involved in the negotiation:

An odd concept is negotiating with yourself - as the authors categorize the internal back-and-forth involved in making a decision as a kind of negotiation. This seems a little wacky to me, and is an odd way to look at the decision making process, but may in some cases be accurate when a person is of two minds.

Most of the time, the process involves negotiating with a single opponent - the term "opponent" is the author's choice here. Some key considerations here are:

There are also cases in which parties must negotiate through agents. Real estate transactions are a common form. The benefits to using an agent is that they have experience in the subject matter that enables them to better handle negotiations and that they have more expertise in negotiating in this arena. Agents also allow you to keep a distance from your opponent, which can enable you to slow down the process.

However, there are also disadvantages to using an agent - they bring their own agenda to the table, they many not carry out your instructions as desired, they add cost to the negotiation, they filter communications (intentionally or unintentionally) and may cause miscommunication, and they may have adversarial relationships with other agents.

The relationship with an agent must be managed carefully: choose an agent you are comfortable with, make sure they know your objectives, set clear limits to their authority, and ensure that you are included in conversations when necessary.

In some cases, there may be negotiating in groups and teams. This is increasingly common with the present management style of "coaching" and allowing authority to reside within a group of people. Formally or informally, a spokesperson generally emerges, but so long as multiple parties are present, the water stays pretty muddy.

Defining Goals and Interests

The authors define two critical questions, to which the answers should be very clear before the onset of negotiation:

  1. What do I want out of this negotiation? (Goals)
  2. Why is it important for me to get those things? (Interests)

In the best cases, goals are specific and measurable: you can more easily tell if you succeeded to "buy a car for less than twenty thousand dollars" than if you "got a good deal on a car." Nebulous goals should be examined in detail to quantify them whenever possible. However, there will always be some nebulous goals that cannot be quantified (e.g., to ensure that you opponent thinks you have been fair with them) - you have to subjectively assess how "well" you have done, when possible.

Also, a negotiation may not accomplish all of your goals, or that the goals that are accomplished are fulfilled to your complete satisfaction, so it's important to prioritize your goals so that you can make sure the most critical ones are not abandoned for less important ones in the process of negotiation.

What follows are various ways of assessing goals:

One way to assess the importance of a goal is to assess the importance of an underlying interest: achieving a thing is important for a reason, and the prescience of that reason determines the importance of the goal.

The authors suggest the "why" approach - when you look at what you want, ask why you want that. There may be another "why" to be asked, and then another, before you can get to the roots of what you are trying to accomplish.

Another method of assessing a goal's importance is to predict the practical consequences of not achieving the goal.

Finally, the author suggests looking for alternatives - if a specific thing cannot be achieved, is there something else that can be done that will achieve the same end.

Studying the Opponent

Regardless of whether the relationship is competitive or collaborative, it's important to consider the other guy's strategy: what it is he's trying to accomplish, and what he may do in the pursuit of his own goals. Ultimately, getting the agreement of the other party is the key to success in negotiation.

You being with assumptions about the other party's concerns and issues, begin to detect them in their overtures to negotiate, but they do not disclose their concerns until the negotiation begins. Even then, there may be some gap between what they claim to be their concerns and what their concerns actually are - whether by intentional deception, accidental omission, or misidentification by the other party.

In addition to understanding their concerns and issues, it is also necessary to predict their negotiation strategy and determine how to act and react. As with their concerns and issues, you being with an assumption. It may be possible, through research or reputation, to refine that assumption, or you may have past experiences with them.

If your opponent is a skilled negotiator, be aware that he will also be studying you. In competitive negotiation, the pre-negotiation period is often a game of "spy vs. spy" in which both parties may attempt to mislead the other to gain advantage. In collaborative negotiation, it's often best to share information in advance of negotiations in order to build consensus and recognize sensitive areas.

Some research (or at least, consideration) should be done on the following topics:

Objectives

Interests and Needs

Alternatives

Reputation, Style, and Behavior

Authority

Strategy and Tactics

Ultimately, this information will give you an understanding of the other party, and the ability to anticipate their actions and plan an effective response. The alternative is to be taken by surprise and react spontaneously, and your reactions may not be the most productive ones. This is a significant point: there is a common misconception that the skill in negotiation is tactical - but the skill is more strategic in nature. It is not so much what you do in the negotiations, spontaneously, but what is done in advance.

Steps in Analysis

Some of this seems redundant, but it's worth listing:

  1. Define your objectives
  2. Define the underlying issues
  3. List the objectives in order of importance
  4. Consider the other party's objectives
  5. Consult with other stakeholders
  6. Set specific goals for the outcome
  7. Identify your limits and your alternatives
  8. Select a strategy
  9. Develop supporting arguments

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