Make a Successful Negotiation
Negotiation exists in many situations in human life. Negotiation is not found only in businesses; it is often necessary to make decisions with friends, family and yourself. When you're skilled in negotiation, you can build trust and good relationships. The most important tips are here.
Steps
- Ask yourself questions. What do you want? Why is that important to you? Some negotiators say that to get to the root of the issue, you must ask yourself five different "why" questions. You don't have to know everything, but you do have to understand what everybody wants and why.
- Be confident, courteous, calm, and curious. Negotiating provoked strong emotions and emotion causes people to be subjective and can cloud a person's judgement. You have to stay calm at all times and remember to use a positive tone. Cultivating curiosity allows you to relax the situation, focus on the important issues and keep your emotions stable.
- Come up with a win-win solution. In some negotiations, a gain for one party means an equal loss for the other. For example, when you go to buy a car, you want the lowest price and the salesman wants the highest. Another example is a negotiation regarding one's salary, an employer wants to pay as little as possible and you want the opposite. However, some benefits exist for balancing the salary: add in flextime, telecommuting, vacation, etc. These benefits are more than zero in a negotiation and both sides can reach an agreement.
- Aspire for greatness. Define success before you come to the table. What do you really want? Generally, people lack confidence when entering a negotiation and they set their aspirations too low. Think about what you want to achieve before entering negotiations.
- Think about your alternatives. Determine your aspiration and work to create a better one (your alternative). It's important to think about alternatives because the negotiation will not always go as well as you hope. This point is illustrated with an example: when you go a car shopping you consider two cars, one much nicer than the other. The nicer car cost much more and you can only afford it if you can negotiate a good price. Otherwise, you buy the cheaper car. The expensive car is your aspiration; the cheaper one is your alternative.
- Map your range. Your aspiration and best alternative define the range of possible agreements for you. If the other person offers something below your best alternative, don't take it.
- Map their range. What does the other person want? What's their best alternative? Let people know that you understand what they want, understand why they want it, and that you think it's a legitimate interest.
- Reach an agreement. Compare their range to yours. Where do the two overlap? That's where you will find agreement.
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