Hi friends, I have been training on the most required topic on Negotiation skills in various industry to Senior and middle management. Indeed the most interesting required subject, used by each one of us on day to day basis but sometimes FAILS or its not as per our value …… It becomes difficult to be working towards Creating Value or Claiming value. Expanding your pie is a great task in negotiation by making other party happy too. But Still Why Negotiation fails. Great thoughts from my trainees who actually helped in pen down what usually lacks in failed negotiation :
– Lack of Preparation
-Fail to use tactics ( Poor little me, Nibble, Straw Man, Switching, Good cop Bad cop….)
-Understanding need of other and
-Competing approach
Please remember – No two negotiations are same but it all depends on whats your own goal with the negotiation you are dealing with. I have always works on 22 ‘don’ts’ from Krauthammer’s Research and Development cellar.i.e
- make this a single-issue process – “price agreement or nothing”
- be single-intention when considering a particular element, such as price, “this price, no lower/no higher or nothing”
- horse trade – unless of course, you are selling a horse
- unveil or limits too early – or bluff on those limits
- force an agreement to the detriment of the relationship (‘one-shot’ versus ‘partnership’) – this approach will also mean that even this particular agreement is a fragile one
- consider the goal as being a one-side victory – for your side
- underestimate, or fail to foresee, what the consequences of a breakdown could cost
- put out all your arguments from the beginning (the ‘bombardment through argumentation’ approach)
- talk to fill the gaps
- fail to understand the ‘why’ behind the reaction of the other party
- polarise your behavioural approach using EITHER ‘hard approaches’, like battle or power, OR ‘soft approaches’, like exchange or circum navigation
- accept no concessions
- neglect to seek a quid pro quo for every concession you make
- give nothing away, when the other party considers it important that you should
- insist upon or demand something which costs the other party
- block on a disagreement
- use moral blackmail
- seek only your personal interest
- mask your interests and reveal nothing
- focus on standpoints
- devalue or denigrate the product, service or offer of the other party to heighten your own power so as not to expose yourself to a block “in that case, no sale!
- shy away from confrontation and contestation where this is clearly called for.
Anubha Walia is leading Trainer in Negotiation skills training with other key topic i.e Team Effectiveness, Creative problem solving, Leadership. Founder of Prism Trainings and Consultancy, she has not only worked with some top brands in India and Abroad by Human Process Intervention and but also her impressive client portfolio has made her stand apart by her engaging skills with participants. http://www.prism-global.org
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