The Practical Negotiation Handbook

A Five Step Approach to Lasting Partnerships

Melissa Davies

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781398601819
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Negotiation

Effective negotiations lead to sustainable partnerships, help both parties to achieve higher goals than they would alone and allow organizations to avoid the costly price of conflict. This book outlines a simple and powerful method of negotiating, either in person or virtually. The Practical Negotiation Handbook outlines a tried and tested five-step process for negotiating lasting agreements, with best practice case examples, checklists and tools. This thoroughly practical guide brings together over 25 years of the author's experience negotiating in a variety of countries and contexts to give you the confidence to negotiate any kind of contract or agreement, large or small.Using a 'solution-focused' approach which centres around preferred outcomes rather than conflicts, and on questioning and listening to the other party rather than trying to convince or impose and making assumptions, this pragmatic book will help build your profile as an ethical and respected negotiator. From contextual analysis and goal preparation to the importance of communication and building an offer, it cuts through the theory and clearly outlines the skills needed to influence the outcome and implementation of any negotiation.

Part One

Mindset, process and prerequisites

Part One covers the best mindset for successful negotiations as well as the overall process, its five steps and necessary prerequisites.

01

Introduction and mindset

What is negotiation? What makes a good and respected negotiator? How do you define a successful negotiation?

When faced with a situation in which you need someone to help you get what you want, when you want or have to bring people together to collaborate, when a conflict needs to be managed, any time you require others to achieve the desired result, there are several strategies you can use. This chapter explores different ways of handling such situations, moving from unilateral approaches to a more bilateral or multilateral approach. The advantages and disadvantages of each strategy will be pointed out through examples, with a special focus on the one bilateral approach – negotiation.

Why do people tend to resist unilateral approaches? How should the other party be viewed in a bilateral approach? Why do people engage more when they have been listened to and taken into consideration? This chapter will explore somes answers to these questions.

The mindset with which the other party is considered is extremely important. This mindset follows the similar underlying premise as Nelson Mandela did, when he pointed out during his life-long struggle that if you want to make peace with your enemy, you need to work with your enemy. Then they become your partner,¹ someone with whom you can work. This negotiation approach views your counterpart as your opportunity. This very specific mindset is linked to being an excellent and respected negotiator and will be explained. Realizing that your counterpart is your best opportunity (partner) for reaching a deal will have noticeable effects both on how the encounters take place and on negotiated outcomes.

Working with the other party

The most important indicator of a good negotiation is its lasting result. Negotiation is often viewed as a struggle, a metaphorical wrestling match that involves scoring points, winning, ‘good guy/bad guy’ tactics, struggling, manipulating, even damaging the other, at times to the detriment of the relationship. These tactics endanger any long-term collaboration or partnership. What if there were another way to approach negotiation? A solution-focused approach? An opportunity-based approach? A more positive, respectful and enjoyable approach? What if negotiating was something which you could actually look forward to?

Negotiation is an art, the art of exploring how each party can get what they want, where each party explores the conditions under which they could say yes to the other party’s requests and needs, while ensuring that their own needs are met.

The world abounds with examples of – at times spectacular – negotiations that have failed, peace agreements that have never been put into effect, business deals that have never actually happened. Consider a change of paradigm. How would it feel if you had the certainty that you needed the other party to achieve your aim, an aim that was better reached together than alone? If you considered them as partners?

If you knew deep inside yourself that the key to success lay with working with the other rather than against that person, your whole attitude would change.

Imagine negotiation as:

• a process, a discussion and a collaboration – not a struggle or a battle
• enhancing each stakeholder’s goals, thus enabling each party to grow
• a clear, simple and realistic way of managing relationships in a transparent and respectful way

Different strategies for handling a conflict of interest

Let’s work through an example illustrating most common behaviours when faced with conflicting interests, and where you need a person or a group to obtain something.

EXAMPLE

Imagine the following situation: a last-minute board meeting has been organized this evening to handle some critical problems linked to a very important project of which you are project manager. Your presence is required by the main sponsor of the project. This situation is incredibly difficult for you, as this evening you have organized a special surprise party for your daughter’s 18th birthday, which is a significant event. Friends and extended family are coming over. It is also important for you not only as helper and organizer, but also simply for your presence: you have been working away from home a lot recently and have promised your daughter that you will be there for her birthday.

You have made up your mind. Even if your work is important, you have decided that you wish to go to your daughter’s party, without jeopardizing the project advancement that will be discussed tonight with the project board and sponsor.

What can you do?

When you want something that involves other people, or when there is a conflict of interest, one or several courses of action tend to be used, almost automatically, amongst which can be identified attempts to:

• convince
• impose
• threaten
• buy
• manipulate
• haggle and compromise
• arbitrate
• suggest solutions and alternatives
• give up

Convince

To convince someone is to ‘make somebody believe that something is true’, and comes from the Latin word convincere, from con (with) and vincer (conquer), so to overcome or defeat in argument. You use arguments that are solid and meaningful to you in order to convince the other to change their mind, to think like you do. Without necessarily realizing it, you are trying to influence them to ‘stop being them’, i.e. different from you, so as to become like you.

When you convince someone, you put forward what is important to you and what has a value for you; you bring in your arguments. You seek to influence the other so that what is important to you becomes important to them.

How do most people react when faced with, for instance, a seller trying to convince them that their product or service is the best and that they really should buy it? The more the seller tries to argue their point, insist and sell, the more people have a tendency to turn away, to refuse the purchase, to block. This is often in reaction to feeling coerced or harassed rather than from lack of interest in the product being sold. Most people resent being told how they should feel and what they should do, particularly when faced with convincing reasons that do not come from them.²

EXAMPLE OF CONVINCING

‘Thank you for having organized the meeting, but tonight is not possible. You have a family too, I know you can understand. You know how important my children are to me, and my daughter is 18 today. Please try to understand my situation, my daughter would be so upset, even angry if I didn’t show up. I am sure you realize how upsetting it would be for me and my family. It would make my life on the project much easier if I were to show my family that I can work hard and at the same time be present for important moments such as birthdays…’

Impose

To impose something (on somebody) is to decide and simply tell the other person about your decision, to force somebody to have to deal with something that is difficult or unpleasant. ‘This is how it should be.’ In this strategy you take a unilateral decision and impose it on the other party, regardless of what they may say or think. Have you ever had a decision imposed on you? How did you like it? ...