7 Secrets of Running a Wildly Successful Negotiation

Nego­ti­a­tions fail, stall or break­down for var­i­ous reasons. Don’t let these seven high fre­quency nego­ti­a­tion killers strike down your strate­gic alliance oppor­tu­nity, stall your long range plan­ning, or bud­get­ing process.

The good news is that just like most aspects of busi­ness, par­tic­u­larly if it’s mar­ket fac­ing, the actions dur­ing a nego­ti­a­tion are easy to rec­og­nize and cat­e­go­rize if you know what to look for.

I wanted to expand the con­ver­sa­tion beyond my busi­ness devel­op­ment and finan­cial plan­ning expe­ri­ences so I con­sulted with those that are shoul­der deep in it day-in and day-out (all by choice because they love it). The num­ber one nego­ti­a­tion lockup was unan­i­mous, one party chooses not to nego­ti­ate.  They take a stance that is non-negotiable in their mind and then just decide not to nego­ti­ate at all.

Sound all to famil­iar? It should if you have, or have had, young chil­dren. The clas­sic exam­ple that I refer to when describ­ing this phe­nom­e­non is that of you try­ing to get them to share a toy. In a two year old’s mind once some­thing is out of their grasp it will never come back and the value (fun) has been lost. Their hand grasps the toy tight and 100% of their focus is on mak­ing you stop. Despite fac­ing a sig­nif­i­cantly less than desir­able, or avail­able, out­come they can­not get beyond ‘toy must be in hand’. What they are unable to rec­og­nize is that by shar­ing it pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to focus on other toys (value sub­sti­tu­tion) and include some­one that might make play­ing even more fun (incre­men­tal value).

Think about it, when you don’t engage the other side there is no nego­ti­a­tion, just stand­off.
 
6 Other Kill Zones
Want other rea­sons why nego­ti­a­tions stall? Here are six other most com­mon reasons:

1. Mis­un­der­stand­ing the oth­ers’ points of view, not hear­ing what’s being said.
2. One or both sides do not under­stand the prob­lem and try to resolve the con­flict by resolv­ing the wrong prob­lem.  This with­out fail leads to arguments.
3. One or both par­ties don’t plan out what they need or even know what they need.  That leads to false sig­nals, mis­un­der­stand­ings, weak argu­ments, confusion.
4. Nego­ti­at­ing with a per­son who is not a deci­sion maker, or the sub­ject mat­ter is “out of bounds”.
5. One party just hag­gles on one issue; price, time, etc.  This is not a nego­ti­a­tion and it may lead to both sides being dis­ap­pointed by just hav­ing a bit of what they really want.
6. Nei­ther party makes a pro­posal.

Be True to Self
How can you avoid this dilemma? Answer the fol­low­ing ques­tions before you engage the other party.

• Why do I want what I want?
• Do we both have some­thing to gain?
• If the nego­ti­a­tions end with­out agree­ment what’s the cost?
• Will it help to give them con­vinc­ing argu­ments as to why my pro­posal is fair for them?
• Am I likely to be defen­sive or antag­o­nis­tic with this person?

And lastly, remem­ber that you have two ears and eyes while you only have one mouth. Lis­ten and observe twice as much as you speak. Actively and empa­thet­i­cally digest what­ever they say.