Negotiators lie. In fact, they do it quite frequently. When confronted with what you believe are deceptive tactics how do you determine if your suspicions are correct? 1. Ask probing questions. Never ask “yes” or “no” questions. By asking probing questions you are attempting to reduce the likelihood of lies...
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Blog
Making Effective Arguments
You are engaged in a verbal tug-of-war. You are making point after point yet it seems like an exercise in futility. Why don’t they buy it? The trick is to make your case with the point of view of the other side in mind. Watch for signs that they are...
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SF Supervisors’ Titanic Negotiation Fiasco
Talk about screwing up a negotiation! The San Francisco Board of Supervisors managed to take a potential win-win negotiation with Larry Ellison’s Oracle Racing Team and turn it into a textbook case of how not to negotiate. Everyone loses and now the finger pointing starts but as a negotiation coach...
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Rebuilding Trust
When trust is breached or when there has just been a case of miscommunication your challenge is how to rebuild the trust between you and the other party. Usually miscommunication occurs when the parties are not in regular contact. This is especially exacerbated when there is little or no face-to-face...
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Reciprocation
One of our cultural norms is the rule of reciprocation. In short, it means that you should try to repay, in kind, what someone has done for you. This is a powerful negotiation tactic. Reciprocation means that when you give something you can reasonably expect that the recipient will repay....
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Bargaining Power
Dump your concepts or power based on your opponent’s relative strength compared with yours. Instead ask yourself: What you are going to do if there is no agreement? What is the other side probably going to do? If you can answer these two questions you will have a much more...
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Setting Your Negotiation Goal
When you undertake a negotiation you need to be very clear on what the fundamental objectives of the negotiation are: 1) You should try to create as much value as possible. Your goal should be mutual gain. You should focus on the interests that can help you and the parties...
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Contingent Contracts
Since very few of us are psychics, predicting the future with 100% accuracy is a futile exercise and can be very dangerous. Negotiation is about setting agreements that will live in the future. Contingent contracts are a way to protect yourself in a negotiation. Here are a few tangible benefits...
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Angry?
Studies show that responding with anger to another negotiator’s offer can often get you what you want. An angry negotiator more often than not will reject a lowball offer than will a placid negotiator. Anger often extracts lower demands and larger concessions from the other party. It seems that there...
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Stressed Out?
Seems like a good time to talk about stress. It’s tough to be an Alfred E. Neuman character these days and just say, “What, me worry?” The fact is that many people anticipate important negotiations with the same sense of foreboding that they reserve for root canals. But be aware that...
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