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 tips
The following items are tagged negotiation tips.
Status Anxiety
Sometimes in negotiation we are forced to deal not only with the issues on the table but also with concerns about status.
One famous instance took place in the late 1980s, when Robert Campeau, head of the Campeau Corporation and then one of Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Fascinating Business People,” tried to acquire Federated Department tores, the parent company of the prestigious department store Bloomingdale’s.
A bidding war over Bloomingdale’s escalated between Campeau and R.H. Macy. Campeau won with an irrationally high offer – but had to declare bankruptcy shortly thereafter.
Negotiation Tips: Try Skills-Based Strategies First
Before launching a workaround, run through this list of skills-based strategies adopted from Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation by William Ury (Bantam, 1993).
Fickle Intuition
Placing Trust in Others
When it comes to trusting others, negotiators often rely on their gut instincts.
Recent studies indicate, however, that extraneous factors can sway such judgments.
For example, Michael Kosfeld and other University of Zurich researchers introduced a twist in a classic trust game in which subjects must decide on how much money to invest when there’s no guarantee that the party playing the “trustee” will return the investment or share the gains.
Negotiation Tips: A Value-Creation Checklist
By following these tips in your next negotiation, you’ll improve your chances of meeting everyone’s interests.
Before you sit down at the bargaining table, imagine a wide-range of options and packages, including some that may seem far-fetched.
When talks begin, remember that getting down to business too quickly can stand in the way of building trust.
Emphasize to your counterpart the importance of separating the “inventing” from “deciding,” as Fisher, Ury, and Patton suggest in Getting to Yes.
Don’t worry about adding complexity. Bringing new issues, options, and parties to the negotiation is likely to create value.
Avoid artificial deadlines, though it can be helpful to decide when it’s time to concentrate on the packages you’ve identified.
How to Negotiate When You’re Literally Far Apart
Imagine that you’re the CEO of a sports clothing manufacturer based in Chicago. You recently traveled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to meet with a distributor who has a rich and diverse network in the European sports market.
During the business trip, you both express enthusiasm about the possibility of a joint venture and agree to give the potential alliance more thought.
Back home, you learn that one of your competitors has discussed similar plans with the same distributor.
Seeing May Be Misleading
Consider the first-ever televised debates between the U.S. presidential candidates in 1960.
Studies of the audience after the first of four debates revealed that in the eyes of television viewers, charismatic and confident John F. Kennedy was clearly victorious over the sullen Richard Nixon, who had a five o’clock shadow and was also underweight and pallid because he had spent two weeks in the hospital because of a knee operation.
Advance Your Prospects by Asking for Advice
Successful professionals understand the value of self-promotion – helping others see what you’ve accomplished and what you can achieve for them.
How Much Exclusivity is Enough?
On February 14, 2005, telecommunications giant Verizon announced that it would buy MCI for $6.75 billion in cash and Verizon stock. The announcement followed closely on the heels of two other announcements of big telecom mergers: first Sprint and Nextel, then AT&T and SBC Communications. In light of this rapid industry consolidation, only one player would be stranded without a partner: tiny Qwest Communications, whose market capitalization was less than one-fifth that of any of its soon-to-be-merged competitors.
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.
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