Negotiation comes down to a single decision
Yesterday's Daily Tip discussed the stages of negotiation. Today, we’ll cover the 3 possible approaches and 4 rules to keep in mind.
Dealing with conflict in a negotiation often comes down to a single decision: should you be softhearted and make friends, or hardheaded and make enemies?
In the softhearted approach, the goal is agreement at the expense of getting your needs met. You yield concessions, trust blindly, bend to pressure, and disclose your bottom line early in the negotiation. And you end up paying too much for a car you don’t really like.
In the hardheaded approach, the goal is winning at all costs. You demand concessions, distrust, apply pressure, and maybe even lie about your bottom line. And you end up with a cheap car and an enemy, or no car and an enemy.
There is a third way: the “principled approach” steers between the two extremes.
Your goal could be a fair, mutually agreeable outcome.
Personality can be kept out of it.
You can reason with your opponent and remain open to reason.
Proposals and counter-proposals can be judged according to objective criteria rather than seen as a contest of will.
And you’ll end up paying a fair price for the car you want.
4 rules to Principled negotiation
Once negotiation has begun, there are 4 important principles to remember:
Separate the people from the problem
Understand your opponent’s needs
State the problem in terms of interests
List the options
After this, you can turn options into proposals and counter-proposals.
Tomorrow, we’ll begin looking at these rules, starting with the first, separating the people from the problem.
Adapted from Messages, The Communications Skills Book, by Dr. Matthew McKay.
