Negotiation Tips (15)

1. Develop Good Options that Bring Value to Both Parties: 

Good options (solutions) begin with clear interests. Once you have done your digging work and made a list of the interests on both sides of the table, you can begin exploring options by considering what solutions would satisfy the most interests. To get a good overview of the interests, star the priorities and mark them as shared, differing or conflicting. Be creative in how you might satisfy the interests. You can create more value and innovative solutions in a negotiation when you satisfy as many of the differing interests as possible.

2. Separate Your Position from Yourself

Recognize your views are not you to prevent hurt from another’s disagreement. When someone criticizes your strongly-held conclusions, you begin to view the criticism as an attack on your person. When others criticize your position, frame your position as outside of you to create a safe zone. Separating the position from your self provides the necessary comfort to stand up to disagreement.Reconsider your reaction as a choice of interpretation. Sometimes the other person does not intend to attack you as a person. Sometimes the other person does intend to attack you as a person. Jumping into attack mode often makes things worse. For a moment assume you are not being attacked. Rather than getting flustered, rather than getting overwhelmed, you can be calm and able to respond more effectively.

3. See Everyday Conflicts as Cross-Cultural

Before jumping to conclusions about the other person, seek cultural clues in the conflict. All interactions are cross-cultural in one simple sense. Each person brings different cultural experiences to the table. Even if you are from the same family, cultural gaps widen by growing up in different generations, going to different schools, being of opposite genders or simply looking different. What appears to you as irrational, the other person views as perfectly sensible. Your own culture is often invisible to you, like water to fish or air to human beings, yet highly visible or recognizable to the other species. Individuals often remark that they never felt more American than when they lived abroad. Consider everyday interactions as cross-cultural to bridge the omnipresent differences.

4. Ease Into the Tough Projects

No matter how well you ease into a tough topic the person may still react strongly. Avoid using that reaction to blame the other party or to not raise the issue at all.  No ideal time often exists for difficult topics, but there are better times. Consider setting a future time, to allow the other person to prepare for such a discussion. Send a signal that the topic is manageable to reduce anxiety.  Going into your own mistakes is rarely easy but uniquely powerful. Share the deeper reasons for raising the topic to frame the conversation positively. "People only see what they are prepared to see." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. Create Your Individual Success Target

Before any communication with another person can be successful, have a clear picture of what you are striving for. We all have conflicting goals or desires. Perhaps when you don't feel satisfied with an outcome, it has less to do with the other person or the issue than it has to do with not being clear with yourself. Calmness naturally comes from knowing what you are shooting for. Ask yourself, "What is success?" Look at your own needs continually. Take a 5000 foot view on your situation.

6. Planning Ahead

If you have an opportunity to do so—if you have the luxury of planning ahead—put some thought into where and when to hold your important conversation. We often underestimate the effect of our environments on our emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Finding a setting where the two of you will be comfortable will help you lower your defenses and focus your energies on the conversation. You can pick a quiet restaurant rather than a deafeningly loud one, set up a morning meeting rather than a late one so everyone is fresher, or pick spot away from the office to put you and your colleague in a more open mindset. A change of scenery can often help people see things in a new light rather than defaulting to old scripts.

7. Do a Walkthrough (Prepare)

Before every race, Edwin Moses, perhaps the greatest hurdler ever, would visualize the entire race, the exact number of steps in between each hurdle.  You could actually see Moses physically “run through” each hurdle  before the race started. Before Kristi Yamaguchi entered the ice skating rink for a routine, she would imagine herself doing each move from beginning to end while listening to the music.  We have seen the impact of roleplaying preparation for an upcoming stressful meeting or conversation.  It increased competence and confidence and decreased stress and anxiety.

8. Get Into Your Communication Zone

In sports, it's called being in the "zone" or the "flow.” Performers, like athletes, who are in the zone, often speak of not "thinking" about what they're doing.  They often describe a state of relaxation and focus, as if the performance is coming forth spontaneously from deep within, rather than forced.  That ability to perform at the very highest possible level is possible in negotiation as well.  Like athletes in the zone, good communicators don't seem to get thrown off by difficult issues or tactics or people.

9. Imagine Being Bored by Conflict

By consciously choosing to lose interest in the conflict, you won't fall into the trap of instant reaction that we all do from time to time.  Consciously pushing the pause button on your conflict responses and letting go and consciously getting bored of the conflict, you may see a path out of the difficulty.  Allow yourself to react to the issue itself rather than the conflict and deliberately maintain a calm demeanor to influence how the parties discuss the issues.

10. Be An Ambassador in Adversarial Situations

It is easy to get stuck in the “us versus them” dynamic. The more adversarial a situation becomes the more likely the blow up. Taking on a diplomatic mindset will enable you to be more assertive, calm and poised in creating a meaningful dialogue rather than a fractious debate. Ambassadors accomplish this by keeping communication channels open, listening for and delivering difficult messages with the best framing possible, and enhancing credibility and trust through their actions of integrity.

11. Use Demands As Cues

When you or the other person starts to make demands or ultimatums in a more adversarial way, look at those as clues to figure out what's really going on for yourself or the other person. When someone blurts out something that seems out of character, it may be because they feel like they have been pushed over some limit. Understanding that limit will help understand that there may some principle or belief that has been violated.

12. Peace Comes When Speaking From Within

Go within yourself to find out what really needs to be said. When you speak from that place, words come out differently. You know that it was something that should be said. You will find yourself feeling more confident in yourself as a result.

13. Relationships Get Better Or Worse

Relationships can lull you into complacency by the absence of negativity or complaint.  However, reflect on relationships that matter to you. Over time, they deteriorate if not given the proper attention. Consider family relationships, where you expect them to be constantly strong. If ignored, you can be shocked by the difficulties that arise.Relationships can improve as well.  When you run a business no matter how big or small, you might have heard the saying that if the business is not growing it is shrinking. Recognize that relationships are in a constant flux to keep them growing. The perspective you take towards relationships dramatically alters them.

14. Say What You Are Not Saying

When you communicate with someone, there's generally a gap between what you say and what you're thinking. First of all it's beneficial that this gap exists.  What may be going on in people's head may be irrelevant to the group as a whole, unnecessarily hurtful, inappropriate timing, damaging to one's self. Dialogue or discussion takes into account interests beyond the speaker's. At the same time, if your inability to say what you're really thinking is costing you and the other person then that gap needs to be closed. To determine if and what you should say:

1) Identify the gap between what is thought and said,
2) Recognize the pluses and minuses of sharing

3) Reframe and reality test what you will say before you say it.

15. Agree with as Much as you Can

When you find yourself disagreeing strongly, agree with as much as you can so you can initiate an affirming atmosphere. Disagreeing is easy. Try creating a positive space by affirming something in the conversation and watch the tension decrease.