Negotiation plays a key role in your business activities. Filip Hron, managing director of International Negotiation Consultants (INC) shares his tips on how to achieve your goals by asking the right questions.
So you have a negotiation coming up? Perhaps this is a salary negotiation, an annual price negotiation for an ongoing contract, or negotiating the sale of your business. You realise the importance of this negotiation and therefore spend some time up-front thinking about what you really want. That is time well spent!
Now, some of us will at this point feel a temptation to negotiate with ourselves before we negotiate with the other party. We may ask ourselves questions such as “Am I too greedy by asking for this much?” or “What if they get angry and upset with me, and the relationship suffers as a consequence?” or “What if they break off negotiations, which would be terrible because I have no alternatives?”. When we ask a question of ourselves, we typically also come up with an answer! As a result we may revise our starting position downwards.
Some of us ask ourselves a completely different question at this point, namely “if I really want this, then perhaps I need to ask for more than I want, because there’s always a bit of give-and-take before parties reach agreement”. As a result we pad our starting position, revising it upwards.
In either case, whichever group you associate with, the result will often be the same, and that is that the other party is unlikely to accept our opening position? Why is that?
Well, let’s first ask ourselves why we negotiate? In the end, it comes down to trying to get what we want. We have needs, and we think the other party may play a role in helping us satisfy our needs. This is an important insight!
So why does the other party negotiate? That’s right – for exactly the same reason, to get what they want. Now let me ask you this: in deciding the outcome you want for this negotiation, how much effort did you spend on thinking about how to get the other party what they want? Did it even cross your mind?
I asked the last two questions in a recent seminar, which 30 senior managers attended. Only three participants answered “yes”.
One of the most fundamental reasons for why the other party does not accept our suggested option is that this option typically does a poor job of satisfying the other party’s needs – it is simply not in the other party’s interest to agree to an option that only satisfies our needs and not theirs!
A key turning point in negotiations is when at least one party changes the conversation from “This is what I want from you!” to “How can I help you?”. But let’s not stop there. “You” and “I” still emphasises that we are separate, distinct, mutually exclusive parties, and may imply that we are opposing parties. If we instead start talking about “How can we help each other get what we want”, then we take the first major step towards negotiating in a way that can lead to win/win outcomes. Remember, when we ask a question of ourselves, we typically also come up with an answer!
Filip Hron is a professional negotiator with solid credentials in the field. He had advised on multiple commercial negotiations in the $100-$10 billion range, and he has trained thousands of participants in negotiation. He is in the unique position of having worked with a large portion of reputable negotiators and negotiation companies in APAC, and regularly presents in negotiation at several universities. Filip is managing director of International Negotiation Consultants (INC).
Comments
Post new comment