Summary: The Art of Negotiation

Review and Analysis of Wheeler's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9782511024300
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Negociación

The must-read summary of Michael Wheeler's book: `The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Michael Wheeler's book `The Art of Negotiation` explains that negotiations rarely go as planned. With that in mind, the cornerstone of good negotiation strategy is to find ways to manage uncertainty. This summary points out that the faster you go through the learn, adapt and influence cycle, the better you will be as a negotiator.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand key concepts
• Expand your knowledge

To learn more, read `The Art of Negotiation` and find out how you can adapt to every negotiation situation and get what you want.

Summary of The Art Of Negotiation (Michael Wheeler)

Learn

Do all you can to learn about the other party before you negotiate and prepare well but keep in mind your most valuable learning will always happen during the negotiation itself. Keep your wits about you and maintain a clear top-down perspective and you will be best situated to learn how to bring your negotiation to a successful conclusion.

Whenever you start a negotiation and start planning yourstrategy, there are three questions you should ask:

1. Should I negotiate?
2. Is now the time?
3. Do I hedge or go all in?

• Should I negotiate? – you have to figure out whether you will get a better deal by negotiating for more or whether you stand a chance of losing the deal which is already on the table.
• Is now the best time to negotiate? – you have to decide whether you’re currently in a strong position to negotiate and therefore likely to get a better deal.
• Do I hedge or go all in? – you have to make a decision on whether you should put all your chips on the table right at the outset so you’re viewed as a serious player or whether you will start with a not so serious opening offer.

In answering these questions, you’re carrying out a “premortem” – you’re projecting yourself into the future and trying to visualize what a good negotiation outcome will look and smell like.

A good way to approach a negotiation in an even-handed but confident manner is to carry out a reasonable premortem where you answer those three questions and also factor in two other pieces of data:

1. You think of all the major setbacks which might arise and give some thought as to how you will handle those and get the negotiation back on track.
2. You also anticipate some of the upside surprises which may also arise and figure out what may happen if you aim high.

Thinking hard about upside benefits and downside threats simultaneously might sound strange but doing so puts you into a mindset of cautious optimism. In most negotiations, this is the kind of approach which tends to generate the best outcomes.

“You need the optimism and self-confidence that you’ll be able to seize opportunity when things break your way. But you have to accept that in negotiation your fate is never solely in your hands. Some of what happens in a given case will be either unpredictable or beyond your control. Negotiation strategy must allow for that reality.”

– Michael Wheeler

In addition to doing a negotiation premortem, you should also construct a deal triangle which looks like this:

A workable agreement will be positioned somewhere in this deal triangle. It will need to satisfy:

1. Your interests – smart negotiators always go into a negotiation having thought out:
   • A benchmark deal which would be acceptable.
   • A couple of alternative but equivalent packages.
   • Some ideas about potential changes or tweaks.
2. The other party’s baseline – what you anticipate their initial offer will be based on the clues they have sent out. You also want to watch how their baseline might shift during the negotiation.
3. A list of external or outside constraints – the real-world factors any agreement will need to allow for. These might be economic, legal, company policy, a deadline by which a deal must be struck and so on.

Once you’ve carried out your premortem and constructed yourdeal triangle, it’s them time to zoom out a little and analyze your likelihood of being able to reach an agreement. The best way to do this is usually to construct a matrix which looks like this:

• You’re A-quadrant deals are where your odds of agreement are high and the expected payoffs would be huge.
• If you have competition, you may have to offer sweeteners to win agreement. Doing this would net you less so you’ll likely end up with B-quadrant deals.
• C-quadrant deals are usually long shots where the payoff would be impressive if you can pull it off but the deal is unlikely to come together.
• D-quadrant deals are dead-end deals which deliver little if any benefits anyway.

Admittedly your negotiations won’t fall neatly into these quadrants most of the time. However, sitting down and figuring out where the deal on the table at the present time or in the near future is positioned allows you to craft a game pl...