While not every person is required to participate in high stakes negotiation, there are times in every person’s life when knowing how to ask for what one wants is valuable. Large corporations, attorneys, and governments deal in negotiations, sometimes under extreme pressures, on a regular basis. Professional negotiators are called in under these circumstances to represent each side in order that crucial interests are met.
Unless a business person experiences negotiations regularly, or is trained in tactical negotiation, he may be losing out on sales, company growth, and key employees. Without this knowledge and feeling at a disadvantage, he may be tempted to attempt tactics that he would not normally consider. Misrepresentation, leaving out facts, embellishing, and manipulation may enter the negotiating arena to gain an upper hand. This can leave the participants feeling uneasy and dissatisfied.
While some people may feel they would not be comfortable using negotiation tactics, it is important for everyone to know they exist and what they look like. They are being used on you every day.
We are negotiating all the time, according to Roger Dawson, Author of “The Secrets of Power Negotiating” Anytime you are eye to eye with another human being, you are negotiating. Dawson states that success in life comes from mastering negotiation skills.
Dawson shares in his book that everything you want in life is already owned by someone else. He feels that the most successful negotiations are those that come from a place of turning people on to wanting to help us get what we want. This is possible when we are able to get them what they want as well.
Win/win negotiations happen when two parties are able to sit down and work out their problems together and come to a place where both win in the negotiation. This is a more desirable method that attempting to dominate or outsmart the other person to get them to do things they would not normally do. Dawson recommends this method over what is known as positional bargaining.
According to Dawson, there three fundamental rules of creating a win/win negotiation scenario:
Rule #1: Narrowing negotiations down to one issue creates a win/lose situation. When there is only one issue to be resolved in the matter then someone will win and someone will lose. There are always multiple factors. Piecing together those various elements can create a situation that both people can win.
Dawson recommends never narrowing the negotiations down to one issue. Doing so places you into a scenario of positional bargaining. Approach negotiations as a problem solver and avoid defending your position. You will be in the mindset of cooperation and can search for how to get the other party what they are looking for without giving up what you are looking for.
In our next blog we will share Dawson’s second and third rule, and compare win/win negotiating to positional bargaining.
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