Win-Win Negotiation

                   Learn what makes a good negotiator, with James Manktelow & Amy Carlson.

Finding a Fair Compromise

Do you feel that someone is continually taking advantage of you? Do you seem to have to fight your corner aggressively, or ally with others, to win the resources you need? Or do you struggle to get what you want from people whose help you need, but over whom you have little direct authority? If so, you may need to brush up your win-win negotiation skills.

Effective negotiation helps you to resolve situations where what you want conflicts with what someone else wants. The aim of win-win negotiation is to find a solution that is acceptable to both parties, and leaves both parties feeling that they've won, in some way, after the event.

There are different styles of negotiation, depending on circumstances.

Where you do not expect to deal with people ever again and you do not need their goodwill, then it may be appropriate to "play hardball", seeking to win a negotiation while the other person loses out. Many people go through this when they buy or sell a house – this is why house-buying can be such a confrontational and unpleasant experience.

Similarly, where there is a great deal at stake in a negotiation, then it may be appropriate to prepare in detail and legitimate "gamesmanship" to gain advantage. Anyone who has been involved with large sales negotiations will be familiar with this.

Neither of these approaches is usually much good for resolving disputes with people with whom you have an ongoing relationship: If one person plays hardball, then this disadvantages the other person – this may, quite fairly, lead to reprisal later. Similarly, using tricks and manipulation during a negotiation can undermine trust and damage teamwork. While a manipulative person may not get caught out if negotiation is infrequent, this is not the case when people work together routinely. Here, honesty and openness are almost always the best policies.

Preparing for a Successful Negotiation

Depending on the scale of the disagreement, some preparation may be appropriate for conducting a successful negotiation.

For small disagreements, excessive preparation can be counter-productive because it takes time that is better used elsewhere. It can also be seen as manipulative because, just as it strengthens your position, it can weaken the other person's.

However, if you need to resolve a major disagreement, then make sure you prepare thoroughly. Using our free worksheet, think through the following points before you start negotiating:

• Goals: what do you want to get out of the negotiation? What do you think the other person wants?
• Trades: What do you and the other person have that you can trade? What do you each have that the other wants? What are you each comfortable giving away?
• Alternatives: if you don't reach agreement with the other person, what alternatives do you have? Are these good or bad? How much does it matter if you do not reach agreement? Does failure to reach an agreement cut you out of future opportunities? And what alternatives might the other person have?
• Relationships: what is the history of the relationship? Could or should this history impact the negotiation? Will there be any hidden issues that may influence the negotiation? How will you handle these?
• Expected outcomes: what outcome will people be expecting from this negotiation? What has the outcome been in the past, and what precedents have been set?
• The consequences: what are the consequences for you of winning or losing this negotiation? What are the consequences for the other person?
• Power: who has what power in the relationship? Who controls resources? Who stands to lose the most if agreement isn't reached? What power does the other person have to deliver what you hope for?
• Possible solutions: based on all of the considerations, what possible compromises might there be?

 Style is Critical

For a negotiation to be 'win-win', both parties should feel positive about the negotiation once it's over. This helps people keep good working relationships afterwards. This governs the style of the negotiation – histrionics and displays of emotion are clearly inappropriate because they undermine the rational basis of the negotiation and because they bring a manipulative aspect to them.

Despite this, emotion can be an important subject of discussion because people's emotional needs must fairly be met. If emotion is not discussed where it needs to be, then the agreement reached can be unsatisfactory and temporary. Be as detached as possible when discussing your own emotions – perhaps discuss them as if they belong to someone else.

Negotiating Successfully

The negotiation itself is a careful exploration of your position and the other person's position, with the goal of finding a mutually acceptable compromise that gives you both as much of what you want as possible. People's positions are rarely as fundamentally opposed as they may initially appear – the other person may have very different goals from the ones you expect!

In an ideal situation, you will find that the other person wants what you are prepared to trade, and that you are prepared to give what the other person wants.

If this is not the case and one person must give way, then it is fair for this person to try to negotiate some form of compensation for doing so – the scale of this compensation will often depend on the many of the factors we discussed above. Ultimately, both sides should feel comfortable with the final solution if the agreement is to be considered win-win.

Only consider win-lose negotiation if you don't need to have an ongoing relationship with the other party as, having lost, they are unlikely to want to work with you again. Equally, you should expect that if they need to fulfill some part of a deal in which you have "won," they may be uncooperative and legalistic about the way they do this.

 

www.mindtools.com

3 Ways to Win a Negotiation Before it Even Begins

By Jason Selk / Inc.

Admit that emotions are part of the negotiating process 

I came across a great book on negotiation by a Harvard professor, Deepak Malhotra. It’s filled with effective strategies on dealing with tough negotiators—whatever curveballs are pitched your way. Since I’m always looking for the crucial tools that empower people to succeed, this caught my eye. Negotiating is an Achilles heel for many, but it’s a key part of most situations. So how can we better prepare to take control of the game and win it?

Professor Malhotra is a seasoned negotiator who has lent his formidable skills to realms from boardroom battles to diplomatic deadlocks. At Harvard Business School, he teaches negotiating as a highly refined skill to be learned and practiced. It’s not out of reach to any of us. But winning a tense negotiation is not a matter of stubbornness, or aggressiveness, as he writes in Negotiating the Impossible. It starts with preparation–and you can advance your own position far before you’re hashing out that deal. Here are three of his top advance strategies:

1. Get organized.

As a performance coach, I teach about the benefits of setting your priorities and maintaining your focus. According to Professor Malhotra, you can apply the same tactics as you head into a negotiation. Know the rules, the players, and the parameters—before you begin. It’s a form of due diligence that will erase the probability of nasty surprise popping up just when you think you’ve arrived at a deal.

The method he suggests may seem counterintuitive, but it’s not. While it’s commonly assumed that asking questions makes one seem weak and uninformed, the opposite is true: Ask away. It’s the best way to find out firsthand what you need to know: Who is responsible for making the final decision, and if he or she is participating in the negotiation. Ask about the timeline and benchmarks. Try to get an accurate assessment of where the other side is truly constrained, and where there’s room to move.

2. Acknowledge out loud that it’s going to be tense.

I’ve witnessed countless instances when performance diminishes due to burnout or stress, and valuable momentum is lost. In a high-stakes negotiation, everyone has a threshold. There’s a point when the emotional pressure may just seem like too much for someone, and the deal-making grinds to a halt.

Pave the way by simply saying it. Professor Malhotra suggests having a preliminary discussion about how strong emotions are a normal part of the negotiating process. Just allowing for strong feelings works to defuse them; after an understandable peak in the tension, you can all get back to work. The last thing you want is a mutiny: you want to get this deal done.

3. Take care of yourself.

Highly effective people take care of themselves regardless of the situation: they maintain their focus and avoid taxing distractions. Anticipate that your opponent may pitch some curveballs your way, and prepare yourself to not swing the bat.

No matter how much your opponent tries to upset you or gain control with an ultimatum, ignore it. Just don’t listen, says Professor Malhotra. Again, this is a powerful advance strategy for driving a better outcome. If you let someone hang themselves up on a “Never,” they have no room to back down later and still save face. That’s an impasse you may not be able to undo.

There’s a dual purpose to these preparations for negotiating. By reaching a mutual and spoken understanding, and talking about the inevitable stress points, it’s harder for your negotiating partner to pitch a curveball, or walk away. And, in a sense, you’ve both now set the table, which means you’ve already negotiated successfully. By not getting hung up on a dangerous ultimatum, you’re taking care of your negotiating partner as well.

You can’t expect to become a better athlete without working on the mental as well as the physical components of your own performance. Whether it’s to achieve a personal best or a stronger season, it takes preparation and focus to succeed. As Professor Malhotra shows, it’s no different with negotiating–whatever the playing field.

This post is in partnership with Inc., which offers useful advice, resources and insights to entrepreneurs and business owners. 
The article above was originally published at Inc.com.