Negotiation takes two parties to carve some outcomes based on mutual interests. This mutual interest can be some dealing or even can be some dispute. But as in this topic I will only consider dealings not disputes. A good negotiator is one who produces a WIN-Win situation between both parties. Gerard I. Nierenberg, author of The Art of Negotiation, argued that "everybody wins" is better than "winner takes all" approach. This WIN-WIN philosophy assures that all parties benefit from the negotiation process.
With the global business, distances are shrinking and we have created a global village. Merger, dealing, employing and procurements are taking more and more time of management. Lack of better negotiation can lead to failure. So, firms throughout the world are concentrating on negotiation skill of their employees. In past it was considered that negotiation skill is a personality trait and the person having such skills can only do good business. They also believed that anyone can't achieve it as it is god gifted. But in my opinion negotiation is not a personality trait at all; anyone who has zeal for it can achieve it. This article will try to give out the best negotiation strategy, which once followed will generated WIN-WIN situation.
The process of negotiation
Different literatures talk about different steps of negotiation. I will try to put up the optimal from them. We can classify negotiations in three chronological steps – before, during and after.
1. Preparing for the negation –
a. Know your goals. Negotiation can be of vivid shades like, you want to approve your conditions, you want to take agreement of someone or you have to win a better price tag. All these must be clearly stated in your mind. Also draw out flexibility in your goals.
b. Set floor and ceiling. Any agreement has some points to ponder, and each point has a range. First chart out all the points in the negotiating agreements and also the floor and ceiling of each point. Like, if you are a human resource manager and you have to negotiate for an employee, the salary and benefits ranges should be set, before going in negotiations.
c. Know your authority limits. If you are negotiating on behalf of someone else like for your company, you also know what exactly what are your capabilities and what are your limitations. See, when you are negotiating for your company always remember that you are not the company, but you are only the employee of that company, so, don't take anything personal.
d. Fix a meeting. This is obvious point, but it is worth mentioning. Make sure that your meeting time, place and person to meet should be well decided. The time and place chosen must be comfortable to both the parties. Also make sure that you are communicating directly to concerned authorities not to mediators.
2.Negotiating Process
a. Generating the best deal for you. Always make sure that you got the most from the negotiation. Even if you have some compromise, the over all outcomes are in your favor. This should be the first policy of your whole negotiation.
b.Communicate directly to concerned stakeholder. Whatever your communication media be (face to face, telephonic, mail or online), always talk directly to the concerned authorities. If you are communicating to middle man (like secretaries or receptionists) you can never final a deal.
c. Let them speak first. This is helpful in some cases when the other party is making more favorable deal than what you have thought of. If you speak first they will change their tone. This is also applicable in your side.
d. Setting wins conditions of the other party. See what points are WIN conditions for the other party. Sometimes other party is more concerned about some less useful part of agreement; you can take advantage of it by popping up that portion as core issue and make them feel that they have won the agreement.
e. Be trust worthy. Do not try to dodge your opponents in negotiation, try to make them understand you and trust you. And when I said "make them" I never mean "fake them", so, you must be trustworthy and this is one quality that will help you most in getting the 'YES'.
3. The aftermath of negotiation
a. Nothing should be considered as a full and final in any agreement. Verify that the outcomes are exactly according to the agreement of negotiation, if they are not, we can go for a further step in the negotiations.
b. Analyze the negotiation. We can learn from old experiences, this also works in negotiation. Try to analyze whole process, "what worked what not", "what went wrong" these should be analyzed, so that we can improve our skills for future negotiations.
New research in the field
Now some more topics are added and being researched in negotiation skill. One of such topic is "adding emotions to win negotiations." Anything that makes you win your goals must be considered in business dealings, so this can also be tried.
Conclusion
Negotiation is something that can only be won by will power and confidence. Your thinking of better alternatives and understanding the limits of your negotiation can help you most. Any negotiation is called successful only when both parties win, "Winner takes all" approach is not a better negotiating policy.
Manu Dutt Tripathi is a young energetic computer professional working as a consultant DBA in leading IT firm of Bangalore, India. He has a master degree in computer science. He is an active member of many technical forums and help users and computer professional through out the world.
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