How would you characterize your negotiating style: Are you collaborative, competitive, or compromising? If you have trouble answering that question, you’re probably not alone. That’s because skilled negotiators typically take on all these styles during a negotiation: they listen closely and collaborate to create value, they compete for the biggest slice of the pie, and they make compromises when necessary.
negotiation skills tips
The following items are tagged negotiation skills tips.
Are You an Overconfident Negotiator?
In 1901, J.P. Morgan wanted to buy the Carnegie Steel Company from its founder, Andrew Carnegie.
Carnegie was 65 years old and considering retirement. As Harold C. Livesay recounts in his book Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (Little, Brown, 1975), when Carnegie finally decided he was ready to sell, he jotted down his estimate of his company’s worth in pencil: $480 million. Carnegie had the sheet of paper delivered to Morgan, who took one look and said, “I accept this price.”
Overconfidence About Future Failure or Success: Limiting Strategic Miscalculation in Business Negotiations
Over-precision doesn’t necessarily lead us to think we’re better negotiators than we actually are. Rather, it causes us to trust our initial instincts too much.
Sometimes we’re actually overconfident that we’ll perform worse than others. This tendency applies to competitive situations, including negotiation.
Those who underestimate their ability to be competitive usually will choose to stay out of a negotiation.
Business Negotiations Skills Tips: Curb Your Overconfidence
Here are four pieces of advice that current negotiation research offers to reduce your overconfidence.
Negotiation Skills Tips: Risky Power Plays
Attempts to exercise power can backfire. As a negotiator, you must balance these three risks against the potential benefits of developing and exercising power.
Practicing to Be Spontaneous
In both improv and negotiation, confidence often comes from having fallback routines. Improv performers buy time by resorting to “physical business” – pouring an imaginary glass of beer, for example. Seasoned negotiators use similar gambits to slow down the clock and get their bearings:
Team Building, One Player at a Time
In late October, the Detroit Tigers were preparing to face off against the San Francisco Giants in Major League Baseball’s World Series. In 2002 and 2003, the Tigers had two of the worst seasons in baseball history, losing a combined 225 games. But through years of calculated decision making and negotiations, team president Dave Dombrowski and his staff rebuilt the team from the ground up, writes Noah Trister of the Associated Press. The Tigers have reached the World Series for the second time in seven seasons and, at the time of this writing, are favored to beat the Giants.
Negotiation Skills Tips: Be a Relationship Negotiator
During talks, effective relationship negotiators focus on a variety of noncontractual issues, including:
Getting to know the other side well
Establishing a positive personal chemistry between the leadership of the companies involved
Understanding and respecting each other’s cultures, expectations, and goals
Putting mechanisms in place to foster communication after the contract is signed
Ensuring that the proposed deal is balanced and advantageous for both sides
Identifying and planning for potential obstacles to implementation
Managing Internal Conflict: Russia’s Bid to Join the WTO
In June 1993, a little over a year after the fall of communist rule in Russia, President Boris Yeltsin submitted an application for Russia to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the precursor to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Eighteen years later, in November 2011, Russia finally was voted into the WTO, which administers international trade rules among its members. This past August, the nation officially became a member of the organization.
When Time Isn’t Money
Due to deeply ingrained gender stereotypes, women may find it easier to negotiate their time instead of their financial compensation.
Consider that men and women are likely to rely on gender-stereotypic arguments to support their demands in negotiation. For women, the gender-stereotypic notion of being caregivers is readily available and likely to be well received. By contrast, men, who generally are expected to be the primary family breadwinner, have less difficulty negotiating financial issues than women do.









