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Successfully Using Emotions in Negotiation

June 21, 2010 By 2 Comments

Empathy Strengthens your Negotiation

Masks: Using Emotions in NegotiationIf you properly construct your reflective response, your counterpart’s natural reaction will be to provide more explanation and information. You will find the following tips helpful in learning to be empathetic.

  1. Recognize and identify emotions. Most inexperienced negotiators are not adept at recognizing myriad emotions. You will find it easier to identify others’ emotions if you can easily identify your own. Make it a habit to check how you are feeling. Are you frustrated, stressed, angry, happy, sad, nervous? Then use these skills to identify your counterpart’s emotions.

  2. Rephrase the content. If you restate your counterpart’s comments word for word, she will believe you are parroting her. Doing so not only sounds awkward, but also makes your counterpart angry. The key is to restate the content using different words.

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Interactive Listening Skills

June 14, 2010 By 1 Comment

How can you be sure that you understand the messages your counterpart is communicating? When negotiating, use interactive skills which include clarifying, verifying, and reflecting to be sure that you and your counterpart are on the same page:

  • Clarifying

    You are clarifying when you use facilitative questions to fill in the details, get additional information, and explore all sides of an issue. For example, “What specific information do you need me to provide?” Or “Precisely when do you want the report?”

  • Verifying

    You are verifying information when you paraphrase the speaker’s words to ensure that you understand her meaning. For example, “As I understand it, your plan is . . .”; “It sounds like you’re saying . . .”; or “This is what you’ve decided, and the reasons are . . .”

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Attentive Listening Skills

June 7, 2010 By 1 Comment

Great listening doesn’t come easily. It’s hard work. There are two major types of listening skills: attentive and interactive. The following attentive listening skills will help you uncover the true messages your counterparts are conveying.

  1. Be motivated to listen. Knowing that the person with the most information is usually the one in control of a negotiation should give you an incentive to be a better listener. It is wise to set goals for the amount and type of information you hope to receive from your counterpart. The more you can learn, the better off you will be.

  2. If you must speak, ask questions. To get specific, useful information and uncover your counterpart’s needs and goals, you have to continually ask questions. By moving from broad to narrow questions, you will eventually acquire the information you need to make the best decisions.

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Making the Sale by Building Trust while Negotiating

May 31, 2010 By 2 Comments

  1. Demonstrate your competence. Convincing your buyer that you have both the expertise and the will to support your end of the negotiation builds trust. We are all more comfortable with someone we can look to for honest answers, options and solutions.

  2. Make sure that the nonverbal signals you are sending match the words you are saying. The buyer can tell more about your total message by reading and understanding the nonverbal signals you are sending than by just listening to your words. Congruence between your verbal and nonverbal messages helps create trust in the relationship.

  3. Maintain a professional appearance. Rightly or wrongly, people do judge a book by its cover. A well-groomed, professional appearance is important.

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15 Rules of Negotiation

May 24, 2010 By 2 Comments

Negotiation is a process that can be learned

By following the 15 rules outlined here–and practicing, practicing, practicing–you can perfect your skills at negotiating deals in which everyone wins.

  1. Remember, everything is negotiable. Don’t narrow a negotiation down to just one issue. Develop as many issues or negotiable deal points as you can and then juggle in additional deal points if you and the other party lock onto one issue.

  2. Crystallize your vision of the outcome. The counterpart who can visualize the end result will most likely be the one who guides the negotiation.

  3. Prepare in advance. Information is power. Obtain as much information as possible beforehand to make sure you understand the value of what you are negotiating. Remember, very few negotiations begin when the counterparts arrive at the table.

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Negotiating with a Bully, Shark or, Jerk… What Should You Do?

May 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Based on our research from seminars and training on negotiation skills, we have learned that the most difficult person for many people to negotiate with is a bully, more effectively referred to as a shark in our book, The Only Negotiating Guide You’ll Ever Need.

When most people encounter a shark, the number one goal that jumps in front of them is to get away from the shark. No one likes to deal with a jerk. The problem is, to get away from a shark in a negotiation, many people tend to give in. It is a simple strategy: give the shark, bully or jerk something they want and then GET OUT.

The problem with this strategy is that this is the worst thing you can do when negotiating with a shark. Giving in only rewards the shark and increases the chances they will rely on bully tactics the next time they negotiate with you. The best strategy is to get closer to the shark. We have four different tactics that will help you do that:

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Nonverbal Communication in Negotiation

May 10, 2010 By 3 Comments

Gesture Clusters

Many skeptics argue that it is difficult determining what someone is thinking by singling out one gesture-and they are right. A single gesture is like a single word; its true meaning is vague out of context. But, when gestures come in clusters, their meaning becomes clearer. For example, while a person’s fidgeting may not mean much by itself, if that person is avoiding eye contact, holding his hands around his mouth, touching his face and fidgeting, there’s a good chance he is not being completely honest.

As you study nonverbal behavior, you will begin comprehending the clustering process. When scanning a counterpart for clusters of gestures, view the body in four categories:

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Negotiating Win/Win Deals

May 5, 2010 By 2 Comments

Negotiating Desirable Outcomes

You may not realize it, but you are involved in negotiation a good part of every day. Any negotiation–whether it involves settling on the price of a product or service, agreeing to the terms of a job offer, or simply deciding on a bedtime for your children–ends in one of five possible outcomes: (1) lose/lose, in which neither party achieves his goals; (2) lose/win or (3) win/lose, in which one party achieves her goals and the other does not; (4) no outcome, in which neither party wins or loses; and (5) win/win, in which the goals of both parties are met. It’s easy to see that numbers 1 and 4 are less than ideal, as is number 2 if you are the one who loses! But what about the other two outcomes? Isn’t win/lose just as desirable as win/win, as long as you are the winner?

The Win/Lose Outcome

In some negotiations, you will be the winner and the other party will be the loser. At first, it may seem that this is the ideal situation for you. But think about it. If you have ever lost a negotiation, you know that the feeling is not pleasant. A significant problem with a win/lose outcome is that one person walks away with unmet needs–and this person is unlikely to be willing to engage in future negotiations with the other party. Ultimately, this sets up the potential for a lose/lose outcome.

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The Role of Power in Negotiation

May 5, 2010 By 2 Comments

The word power has had a bad connotation for many years.

It has received this reputation because most people associate the word with one side dominating or overpowering the other. I define power as the ability to influence people or situations. With this definition, power is neither good nor bad. It is the abuse of power that is bad.

Types of Power

Various types of power can influence the outcome of a negotiation. I emphasize the word can because if you have power but don’t use it, your power is of no value. The following are a few types of power that can be significant in the negotiating process:

  1. Position. Some measure of power is conferred based on one’s formal position in an organization. For example, if you are the marketing manager, you can influence decisions that affect the marketing department.

  2. Knowledge or expertise. Knowledge in itself is not powerful; it is the application of knowledge that confers power. It’s important to take the time prior to a negotiation to research facts and statistics, find out what the other party’s goals are, and discover what areas he or she might consider negotiable–and then use this knowledge!

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Nonverbal Negotiation Skills

May 5, 2010 By 6 Comments

Researchers in nonverbal communication claim that as much as 90 percent of the meaning transmitted between two people in face-to-face communication is nonverbal. This means that little of your verbal communication will have an impact on the outcome of your negotiations! If these figures are even close to reality, the importance of nonverbal negotiation skills cannot be overestimated.

Learning the language of nonverbal communications is almost as difficult as acquiring fluency in a foreign language. In addition to studying your own gestures and the meaning you are conveying, you must also become aware of what your counterpart is conveying.

Gesture Clusters

Many skeptics argue that it is difficult to tell what someone is thinking by singling out one gesture: and they are right. A single gesture is like a single word; its true meaning is difficult to understand out of context. However, when gestures come in clusters, their meaning becomes clearer. For example, while a person’s fidgeting may not mean much by itself, if that person is avoiding eye contact, holding his hands around his mouth, touching his face and fidgeting, there’s a good chance he is not being totally honest.

As you study nonverbal behavior, you will begin to understand the clustering process. When scanning a counterpart for clusters of gestures, a good formula to follow is to divide the body into five categories:

[Read more...]

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