Summary: Strategic Negotiation

Review and Analysis of Dietmeyer and Kaplan's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511018279
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Negotiation

The must-read summary of Brian Dietmeyer and Rob Kaplan's book: `Strategic Negotiation: A Breakthrough 4-Step Process for Effective Business Negotiation`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Brian Dietmeyer and Rob Kaplan's book `Strategic Negotiation` shows that negotiating effectively isn't really an art. It is a science or process that can and should be systemised as deals are becoming more and more complex. In their book, the authors provide a formal four-step process for strategic negotiation which will take the guesswork out of negotiating and enable you to blueprint each transaction. This summary explains each of these steps and how you can apply them.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand key concepts
• Improve your negotiation skills

To learn more, read `Strategic Negotiation` and discover the key to becoming a world-class negotiator.

Summary of Strategic Negotiation (Brian Dietmeyer and Rob Kaplan)

Preliminary: Establish Goals

Before you attempt to negotiate anything, stop and quantify exactly what you’re attempting to accomplish. Think about what you want to achieve before you start determining how to go about achieving it to stay headed in the right direction.

Most people plunge right into the back-and-forth details of a negotiation without first taking the time to consider why the negotiation is important. This is because people tend to approach negotiations tactically rather than strategically. They are more concerned about getting to where they’re going than they are where they actually want to end up.

If you have no negotiation goals:

• You can waste a lot of time and effort bargaining hard for items which later turn out to be of little or no value.
• You can damage your long-term relationship with the other party for a few concessions that turn out to be worthless.
• You won’t be able to recognize a good deal when you see it.

Ultimately, your goal in any negotiation will be easily stated:

“To create joint value for both parties and then divide it in such a way that the ongoing relationship is strengthened rather than weakened or diluted.”

This may sound good in theory but difficult or even impossible to achieve in practice. The simple fact, however, is that unless there is something in it for both parties, nothing of substance will occur. Making the aim of the negotiation to create more value and split that value both ways also changes the nature of the negotiation substantially. If the other party realizes you’re trying to create a smarter deal for them, they will naturally be impressed. Once they you have several successful negotiations behind you which prove definitively that you genuinely want to help them at the same time as you help yourself, an exceptionally strong relationship will emerge.

Put differently, your aim should always be to enlarge the pie rather than argue over who gets the biggest slice of the current pie. As shown on the graphic below, the traditional approach to negotiating has focused on how to divide the economic benefits which are found in the agreement zone between both parties. Whoever had the greatest power in the negotiation could be expected to secure the larger proportion.

A more astute approach, however, is for both parties to work together to increase the size of the agreement zone as a whole. That way, no matter how the agreement zone ends up being divided, both parties come out ahead. The economic benefits of the enlarged agreement zone can then be divided between the two parties in such a way that it is fair given the ongoing relationship.

The idea that both parties will come out ahead by working together to enlarge the agreement zone may seem counterintuitive at first since it goes against the traditional adversarial approach to negotiation. People may well think the idea sounds good in theory but probably won’t work in the real world. The potential benefits, however, are impressive and far reaching:

• You’ll be able to create and negotiate larger rather than smaller deals and transactions.
• The atmosphere and tone of your negotiations will change. Instead of trying to grind out every possible concession, you’ll be collaborating to come up with new opportunities that benefit both parties. Once you’ve conducted a few negotiations along these lines and have some credibility, each successive negotiation will become easier and more productive.
• You’ll be strengthening your relationship with the other party, – and hopefully creating even more opportunities to do more profitable deals in the future.

Note that to enlarge the agreement zone and to carry out a successful negotiation, you must be looking at more than one item. If you’re just negotiating on price alone, a negotiation process or strategy won’t be able to achieve much. The more different items there are in the mix, the greater the opportunities there will be to enlarge the agreement zone. In the vast majority of situations, this won’t be...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of Strategic Negotiation (Brian Dietmeyer and Rob Kaplan)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright