NEGOTIATION IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION SKILL
What is negotiation?
Negotiation is a formal discussion between people who are trying to reach an agreement. The people who usually do negotiation are group or organization
What are negotiation styles? Explain!
There are five long-recognized styles of negotiating which characterize both approaches to resolving disputes or making deals and the default approach taken by each individual to negotiating. These styles can be thought of as means for achieving negotiated outcomes as well as a categorization of individuals negotiating.
1. Avoiding
- Primarily concerned with avoiding intra-personal conflict
- Is useful when the the stakes of a negotiated outcome are not worth the INVESTMENT of time or the potential for igniting conflict
- Characterized by sidestepping, postponing, and ignoring the issue or situation
- Effective when avoidance of the situation or issue does not greatly affect the relationship and short term task is not important to either party
2. Accommodating
- Primarily concerned with the relationship between the parties
- Easily gives the other side concessions in hopes of strengthening the relationship, but often gives away too much too soon
- Tend to neglect their own needs in favor of helping the other side get what they want
- Effective when long term relationship is important and short term task is not important
3. Compromising
- The style falling between accommodating and competing
- Useful when time is a concern or there is a strong relationship between the parties
- Requires concessions from both sides to find agreement
- Does not focus on legitimate or fair standards for settlement and instead utilizes “Meet in the middle,” or “Split the difference” solutions
4. Collaborating
- Focuses on using problem solving methods to create value and discover mutually satisfactory agreements
- Utilizes the creativity of both parties to find solutions to both sides’ interests
- Tend to be assertive about their needs and cooperative with the other side
- Effective when long term relationship is important and short term task is important
5. Competing
- Primarily concerned with achieving their own goals regardless of the impact on others
- Views negotiation as a win/lose rather than a problem solving activity
- Often utilize manipulative tactics such as attacks, threats, and other aggressive behavior to achieve their objectives
- Effective when long term relationship is not important and short term task is important
Explain the negotiation process!
These are the negotiation process:
1. Preparation
- Preparation is instrumental to the success of the negotiation process. Preparation involves the following activities:
- Gathering Information: One needs to learn as much as one can about the problem and ascertain what information is needed from the other side.
- Leverage Evaluation: Evaluation of one’s leverage and the other party’s leverage at the outset is important because there may be a number of things one can do to improve one’s leverage or diminish the leverage of the other side.
- Understand the people involved: It is important to know the people with whom the negotiation is to take place.
- Rapport: It is helpful to establish a rapport with the opponent during the early stages, that is, before the bargaining process begins is helpful. This was, one can determine early on how cooperative the opponent is going to be.
- Know your objectives: Clarity of objectives is absolutely essential. It needs to be decided in advance how much you are willing to concede to the opponent and what your priorities are. All arguments and justifications should be ready.
- Type of negotiation: Anticipate the type of negotiation expected, that is, ascertain whether it will be highly competitive, cooperative or something unusual; whether the negotiation will be face to face, by fax, through a mediator, or in some other manner.
- Plan: Decide on the negotiation approach and plan accordingly.
2. Opening
Here the two sides come face to face. Each party tries to make an impression on the other side and influence their thinking at the first opportunity. This phase is important because it sets the tone for the negotiation to a large extent. It involves both negotiating parties presenting their case to each other.
3. Bargaining
The bargaining involves coming closer to the objective you intended to achieve when you started the negotiation. In this phase, the basic strategy is to convince the other side of the appropriateness of your demands and then persuading the other party to concede to those demands. For this, one needs to be logical in one’s approach and frame clearly-thought-out and planned arguments.
4. Closure
The closing of a negotiation represents the opportunity to capitalize on all of the work done in the earlier phases. The research that has been done in the preparation phase, combined with all of the information that has been gained is useful in the closing phase. It also involves the sealing of the agreement in which both parties formalize the agreement in a written contract or letter of intent. Reviewing the negotiation is as important as the negotiation process itself. It teaches lessons on how to achieve a better outcome.
What are the characteristics of negotiation?
1. Leave little to chance.
Win/Win negotiators know this: everything that can go wrong just might. Negotiation is a dynamic process with numerous moving parts, all of which are negotiable. They expect the unexpected and prepare accordingly:
- Who am I negotiating with?
- Why are we negotiating?
- Where is the best place for the negotiation to take place?
- What is the timeframe for the negotiation?
- How will I manage the negotiation?
- What are the key issues and outside influencing factors? Do I understand them?
- What is my BATNA? My settlement range (MAR and LAR)? Opening offer or counter offer?
- What are the independent standards (i.e. price comparables, appraisals, surveys or other professional opinions) to support my opening offer or counter offer? Concession strategy?
- Do I have a prioritized list of potential concessions and trade-offs?
- How do I make this a win/win negotiation?
- How do I deal with a win/lose counterpart?
- How do I break a potential deadlock?
There’s so much more, but this gives you a good idea of the planning involved in a successful negotiation. Win/Win negotiators know this kind of serious preparation does not guarantee a winning negotiation – but they also know that without it, they’re heading for certain failure.
"Just as improvisational actors prepare a great deal before they act, the more prepared you are to negotiate, the easier it is to improvise." -William Ury
2. Be patient, persistent and creative.
Advantage always goes to the patient negotiator who persistently pursues creative win/win solutions. Negotiation is a complex process that takes time. Progress usually comes in small increments. Impatient negotiators who lack persistence often leave potential results on the table and make costly mistakes. The most successful and effective negotiators are the most creative. Good solutions eventually come to those with the patience to wait for them, the persistence work for them and the desire to produce innovative win/win results. And don’t forget, some of the more difficult negotiations will likely call for quite a bit of stamina. So be ready!
"During a negotiation, patience means not being rushed into a decision because the other party is looking for a resolution."-Chester L. Karrass
3. Listen, listen and then listen some more.
The most successful/effective negotiators spend far more time listening and asking questions than they do talking. Gathering information and then thoroughly understanding that information takes precedence over sharing information. Once you fully comprehend your counterpart’s frame of reference, it’s easier to know what to share and how to share it in order to build trust and move the negotiation forward. Win/Win negotiators use:
- Active listening techniques (they suspend judgment and focus on understanding what is said by their counterpart).
- Reflective listening techniques (they repeat, summarize or reflect back to their counterpart what they just heard in question format).
- These techniques are used to gain valuable information about their counterpart’s positions and rationale. Successful/Effective negotiators realize that it’s next to impossible to persuade their counterpart to adjust their point of view if they themselves don’t understand it.
"Standard techniques of good listening are to pay close attention to what is said, to ask the other party to spell out carefully and clearly exactly what they mean, and to request that ideas be repeated if there is any ambiguity or uncertainty."-Roger Fisher
4. Show empathy.
What is empathy? It’s an attempt to understand, be aware of and sensitive to the feelings, thoughts, experiences, frame of reference, interests (needs/priorities) and positions of your counterpart. Successful/Effective negotiators understand that in order to manage conflicting points of view and achieve a win/win result, you must provide your counterpart with convincing reasons to exchange their ideas for the ones you suggest. Your counterpart will be much more receptive and your rationale much more convincing if he/she is confident that you understand and that you are sensitive to his/her point of view, interests (needs/priorities) and position. Empathy builds rapport, encourages information sharing, establishes mutual respect and moves the negotiation forward in a positive direction.
"The most important tool, the No. 1 quality of a great negotiator is empathy. Whether you’re negotiating a financial transaction, whether you’re negotiating conflict, whether you’re negotiating something horrendous or something benign, it all boils down to how well you can see the world the way they’re seeing it."-Deepak Malhotra
5. Be sensitive to nonverbal cues.
Not only are successful/effective negotiators sensitive to nonverbal cues, they can also read the ones that actually matter. Experienced negotiators are really good at sending nonverbal cues meant to disguise information, and in some cases, outright deceive their counterparts. Win/Win negotiators focus on two nonverbal sources that are difficult (not impossible) for inexperienced negotiators to control: the eyes and the voice. Believe it or not, people’s eyes and voice can provide valuable nonverbal information about both the relationship and the emotional state of the parties in a negotiation. When messages delivered verbally conflict with messages delivered nonverbally from the eyes and voice, experienced negotiators tend to attribute more credibility to the nonverbal messages.
"When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first."-Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. Don’t take things personally.
When you feel angry, frustrated, embarrassed, defensive or just plain upset because of the effects your counterpart’s beliefs, attitudes or behaviors are having on you in a negotiation, it’s extremely difficult to respond intelligently and calmly. If you react emotionally, the consequences tend not to be in your best interests and usually make a bad situation worse – not better. Through Mental Sublimation, successful/effective negotiators have learned to detach themselves emotionally by accepting the fact that the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of their counterparts do not belong to them. And as a result, they don’t take responsibility for them either. This is one of life’s most important skills: how to “not take things personally”.
"Half our mistakes in life arise from feeling when we ought to think and thinking when we ought to feel."-Deepak Chopra
7. Be an innovative and creative problem-solver.
Negotiations are competitive. And so they should be. If a win/win solution is to be found, this spirited rivalry calls for a cooperative attitude capable of joint problem solving and compromise. When successful/effective negotiators find themselves faced head-on with problematic issues that impede the movement towards a mutually acceptable conclusion, they suggest the following joint problem solving approach. This requires both negotiators to view problem issues as opportunities rather than impossible barriers:
- Clearly identify “problem issues”: their causes, effects and impact on the negotiation.
- Prompt each side to explain their interests (needs/priorities) in relation to the problem issues and why they are important.
- Clarify similarities and differences between the parties’ interests (needs/priorities) and how they impact the development of a win/win solution.
- Propose trade-offs (what ifs): “What if we lower the price to a more acceptable level for you, if you extend the proposed contract to a more acceptable duration for us?” Perform a reality test for each proposal.
- Agree on a creative win/win package. Remember, the most successful and effective negotiators are the most innovative and creative.
"What makes many negotiations seemingly impossible to resolve? It’s often a fear of scarcity, and the idea that there must be a winner and a loser. The alternative: find a way to expand the pie, so that there’s more for everyone."-William Ury
8. Stay flexible.
Negotiation is movement. It is an exercise in flexibility. The opening offer or counter offer is never the final mutually acceptable solution. Yes, all generalizations are false (including this one)! Experienced negotiators go through the habitual ritual of developing:
- A realistic and justifiable settlement range (MAR/LAR).
- A range of solutions from “most acceptable” to “least acceptable”. Here, it’s important to note that every solution within the range is acceptable (some more than others) and not one of them compromises the negotiator’s interests (needs/priorities).
- Successful/Effective negotiators show their flexibility by proposing creative ways to satisfy the interests of both sides at the lowest cost to one another. A win/win solution within the respective settlement range is the focus. As the negotiation unfolds, you must be both flexible and adaptable in order to effectively tolerate conflict and stress.
"Flexibility is an important trait in negotiations; it’s the key to compromise, which in turn is key in reaching concessions and conclusions."-Chester L. Karrass
9. Learn from your mistakes.
As you strive to be a successful/effective negotiator, no matter what stage of development you are in currently – newbie, absolute pro, or somewhere in the middle – there will be times when your intuition, intellect, self-control or self-discipline fails you. When that happens, you make mistakes that can find you doing or saying things that are not in your best interests…
- When you fail to plan adequately and find yourself failing in the negotiation
- When you focus on positions instead of interests
- When you assume everything is negotiable and it isn’t – or vice versa
- When you make an important decision under time pressure with harmful consequences
- When you react negatively to your counterpart’s behavior instead of responding positively to the issue at hand
It happens to all of us. Those who learn the error of their ways quickly and move on become successful/effective negotiators. Those who don’t, make the biggest mistake of all.
"My mistakes, I find, are my best teachers. A negotiator needs to learn. A mistake is only temporary; the failure to learn is permanent."-William Ury
10. Adopt a Results with Relationship approach.
From the get-go, a successful/effective negotiator’s approach is to achieve win/win results – a mutually acceptable solution that satisfies the interests (needs/priorities) of both parties with, not at the expense of, the relationship. They avoid confrontation, intimidation, blaming, constantly interrupting, talking over top of the other, putting others on the defensive or threatening their self-esteem. They focus on clarifying and satisfying another’s interests (needs/priorities) rather than debating each other’s positions. They remain calm, cool and collected throughout. Their continuing movement is towards a fair and mutually acceptable solution.
"Three characteristics that distinguish good negotiators: the ability to put oneself in the other’s shoes, the ability to assert one’s interests without attacking the other, and creativity in inventing solutions for mutual gain."-William Ury
Explain the positive effects and the negative effects of negotiation!
Positive effects:
- It limits the number of players to those involved in the dispute. This allows for a focused approachto problem solving.
- You get a better deal. You may be able to take less of a punishment. In short, your outcome is more favorable to you.
Negative effects:
- You might make the person you're negotiating with angry and you might get a harsher penalty. The negotiations could sway to their advantage.
- If the viewpoints of the parties are to distant then progress is difficult to achieve.
- There are technically no rules surrounding the practice of negotiation. This means that when you enter into a negotiation process there are no concrete uniform standards or protections to ensure that the process will be fair, that it will be timely, etc. Therefore, it is especially important to know your own personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of the person with whom you are negotiating.
Inggrid Diani P.
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