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Negotiation
is always the most nail-biting process in any business and some of the major
impacts (positive and negative) can be the result of any good or badly handled
negotiations. A negotiator or a negotiating team in any firm is viewed as a
result-driven individual or group.
Negotiations
are therefore meant to win in prima facie. However, to attain long term
collaborations and results some sacrifices must be made. All stakeholders in
any business (internal or external) ultimately expect the results to benefit
them or their firm and attain maximum take away.
Theoretically,
negotiations are broadly classified into two types namely the integrated
negotiation and the distributive negotiations. These are popularly known as
deal negotiation and dispute negotiation in the corporate world.
Deal
negotiation is a negotiation where all the parties involved in the negotiating
process can get almost equal benefits and generally it is said that these
create an overall value. Whereas, in dispute negotiation, the benefit of one
will be the loss of the other.
Though
from a broader sense you could feel that deal negotiation is superior to
dispute negotiation, there is no such superiority/inferiority among these
classifications. This is due to the inseparability of dispute or distributive
negotiation from any business environment.
In
a micro level, an individual saying "No" can also be considered as a
distributive negotiation but it is never said to be a bad result of
negotiation. Some circumstances mandatory-ly require one person to win and the
other to lose the negotiation to produce a better outcome.
In
another angle, deal negotiation has varied types of resources and one party may
find beneficial with a specific resource which the other party might not. So,
they look for something else which benefits them, and a more friendly approach
is followed throughout the process.
In
the dispute negotiation, the resources are common for both the parties and
therefore they try more dominant methods like manipulation, information
withholding, etc.for gaining the benefits because it will impact a direct loss
if the other win.
As
negotiation is inevitable in any relationships be it professional or personal,
distributive or integrated, it is extremely important to learn handling
negotiations and turn it effective.
Every
negotiation can be an experience and always consider the intangible resources
of learning's you get from any negotiations which may help you in the future
negotiations. It can also guide you to become an effective negotiator in
general.
Here
are 4 tips for you to improve your negotiating skills:
1. Set Your Objectives Clear
Never
attend a negotiation session without having set your tangible goals and
estimated outputs. Make a list of all the possible benefits/resources that you
could gain from the negotiation and then prioritize those which you essentially
required to gain as well as those you may desire to gain.
Having
a clear goal of what you need to achieve will guide you to focus more on
spontaneous decisions. However, spontaneous discussions and decisions should
never contradict your objectives but should only be a complement to your
defined goals.
2. Prepare Well in Advance
Apart
from just setting your objectives and goals, in-depth preparation on the matter
of negotiation must be home worked. For instance, if you are representing your
firm for the negotiation, identify the strategic importance for the company
from this negotiation.
Another,
preparation area is to understand your give-away limit in the negotiation.
Identify the threshold of your sacrifices well ahead of the negotiation so that
you will know when to stop your negotiation. Keep this list as realistic as
possible so that the outcomes would support your goals.
3. Listen More
Like
any other meetings, negotiation discussion also requires this art of active
listening to get the most out of it and generate good results.Never let the
other person feel that you are defending them but try to listen to them
carefully and make them feel that they are important.
Showing
interest to their purpose and objectives can bring a friendly environment and
it is easy to discuss the matter in any such environment. Active listening will
also help you give a broader picture of the resources that you may potentially
gain and to know about the unspoken benefits.
4. Stay Calm
In
the book “How to win friends & influence people”, Dale Carnegie quoted that
the best possible way to win an argument is to avoid it.Most often in a
negotiation, we might probe to get discomfort or might lose our temper.But
getting angry does not help any of the parties in wining.
Staying
calm and composed throughout the discussion helps to emphasize our needs and
create long term relationships with optimum results. Never take the comments
from the discussion personal and react to it.Remember that if you stay calm the
other person too is in your control.
Written
by – Arun S.
Edited by - Adrija Saha
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