We are often confronted by situations that call for negotiations at different levels. Be it vegetable vendors or buying garments or purchasing a house/flat/apartment or tying up a business venture, each of these calls for different approach to negotiations. Whether domestic, personal or business conditions, negotiations involve resolving conflicts and interests to the best of all concerned. In business situations, negotiations are indeed an indispensable part of any financial activity.
In any negotiation, it is important to first identify the goals that you are seeking and also to size up the likely goals for the other side. This provides clear objectives to attain and helps in working your way around them. The next thing is to weigh what you can trade off to gain from the other, and similarly think of what the other side can possibly lose to gain in return from you. Being ready with alternatives is another important element of negotiation. It helps you to climb down from hard stances and aid in meeting the goals halfway, if not in entirety.
There are also other subtle elements as relationships, emotions and anticipation to deal with. Using psychology and great deal of common sense, you have to analyze in depth the nature of relationship involved, the precedents if any, basic anticipations from both sides and other aspects.
Along the same lines, a clear view of the importance of winning, the impact of failure or winning on your future opportunities and overall situations are some of the other aspects that must be thoroughly considered.
In all these, the style of negotiation is of prime importance. Ideally, negotiations should end on a pleasant note, where both parties feel positive and satisfied about the outcome. A brazen approach to negotiation that leads one side to become a total winner while reducing the other side as a clear loser can create ill feeling and a sense of unfairness, which could affect long term.
In all these long haul to negotiation, Mind Maps can serve as a route map to your destination. Beginning with laying down your goals and that of the other side, right up to exploring alternatives and the impact of emotions, anticipations and other elements in the negotiating process, Mind Maps can help a great deal to plot your way through the various aspects of a winning negotiation.
Using Mind Maps you can outline all the goals pertaining to you and the possible expectations from the other side. Next you can explore the trade-offs that both the sides can place on the negotiating table as well as in coming with up alternative proposals at different levels. With Mind Maps you can explore in full all the intricate details and see the link and association between the various elements of negotiation. Weighing the emotional factors involved, relationships, and the anticipated outcomes through weighted analysis can all be most thoroughly done using Mind Maps. This way, Mind Maps can help you to gauge clearly where your path and that of the other side lie.
Like a rider plotting the best and pleasant route to the final destination, Mind Maps help in providing a comprehensive view of the whole process so you could see the links in the chain and know how to tackle them at every point. Being ready for sudden contingencies with ready answers and solutions will further help you to thoroughly prepare for any kind of turn in the negotiating process.
Mind Maps therefore are excellent tools for making an in-depth analysis of the various steps to negotiations and to handle them effectively. By using Mind Maps for different types of negotiations, you will gradually learn how to approach negotiations. In the long run, it will help you to hone your negotiating skills.
About the Author:
Dr. Vj Mariaraj is a Mind Map enthusiast and has been using Mind Maps for the past twelve years. He has created over 5650 Mind Maps. To learn more about mind mapping send an email to freemindmap@aweber.com He is the founder of BusinessBookMindMap.com that creates Mind Map Summaries of Business Books. To learn more visit http://BusinessBookMindMap.com/mind-map.php?ea18
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