Negotiating More Effectively

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Negotiating More Effectively
Inter-American Defense College USIP - OAS May 2007
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What is Negotiation?

• The most difficult thing in any negotiation,
  almost, is making sure that you strip it of the
  emotion and deal with the facts.
• - Howard Baker
• Never cut what you can untie.
• - Joseph Joubert
• Success in negotiation comes from viewing the
  conflict as a common problem to be solved for
  mutual benefit.
• - Dean Tjosvold
• Negotiation is the art of letting them have your
  way.
• - Daniele Vare

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Negotiation Is.

• A process of communication
• Aimed at achieving your goals
• By persuading the other side to say Yes to a
  proposal
• That meets your interests better than your best
  alternative.

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Ten keys to Negotiating Successfully

• Prepare
• Set Your Goals
• Focus on Interests
• Listen Actively
• Build relationships
• Offer Concessions
• Stay Calm
• Generate Options
• Use Leverage
• Get a Commitment

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1) Prepare

• Clearly identify your interests
• Consider the other sides interests
• Know your Best Alternative To a Negotiated
  Agreement (BATNA)
• Estimate the other sides Best Alternative to a
  Negotiated Agreement

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2) Set Your Goals

• Set goals that will achieve your minimum
  interests and help others achieve theirs
• Propose the best deal you feel you can justify
• Aim High!

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3) Focus on Interests rather
than Positions

• Positions
• What you want
• Concrete demands
• Can lead to deadlock

• Interests
• What you need
• Concerns, aspirations
• Can facilitate problem solving

To get from Positions to Interests ask WHY?
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4) Listen Actively

• Ask questions to understand the others viewpoint
• - What is important to you?
• - What is your view of this situation?
• Acknowledge respectfully without agreeing
• I can understand the way you feel based on
  your experiences, but my experiences have been
  different.
• Let others know you are listening
• Encourage Clarify Reframe
• Elicit Empathize
• Restate Summarize

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Seek to understand before you persuade

• Dont fixate on justifying your demands
• The Importance of Elicitation
• Assume there is information you do not have
• Gain understanding of others perspectives
• asking questions
• restating and clarifying
• empathizing
• Present your ideas in a way which is
• appealing to them
• build on their proposals
• ask for their advice

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5) Establish relationships Build Trust

• Establish Yourself
• Who do you represent and how do you represent
  them?
• Establish Rapport
• A feeling of affinity and goodwill
• A personal relationship with negotiating
  counterpart
• Build Reciprocity
• Mutual obligations based on prior actions
• What we owe others or what they owe us

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Reciprocity
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6) Offer and obtain concessions

• Start with an issue where agreement is easiest
• Dont offer large concessions up front
• Message I really need this agreement OR
• That issue wasnt really important to me
• Help the other side make concessions
• Ask for and build on their input
• Portray agreement as a win for them

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7) If you reach an impasse STAY CALM

• Avoid rash responses
• Do not let anger, frustration, or emotions
  control your actions
• Take time to think and regain your sense of
  perspective

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8) Generate Multiple Options

• Think outside the box
• Brainstorm to develop new ideas and proposals
• Invent now, evaluate later

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Thinking Outside the Box Join all the dots by
using four straight lines, without lifting your
pen from the paper or going through each dot more
than once
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One Solution Take the lines outside the box!
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9) Use leverage

• Create coalitions
• You are not alone
• Employ negative leverage cautiously
• Threatening the other side can strengthen their
  resistance
• Use warnings instead of threats
• What do you think would happen if we dont
  reach agreement? Have you considered how
  seriously that would harm your interests?
• Seek normative leverage
• We negotiate based on norms of fairness
• Frame proposals using norms accepted by the other
  side as legitimate

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10) Get a commitment, not just an agreement

• Put agreements in writing
• Make agreements public
• Make your performance contingent on their
  fulfillment of terms
• Establish dispute resolution process

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The Effective Negotiator
. is a masterful communicator, . honors the
relationship before the deal, . is prepared, .
focuses on determining and revealing
interests and needs, . probes, questions and
communicates cooperation, . has a high
level of cultural awareness, . stays flexible,
stays calm, STAYS.