Critical Skills: Negotiating

Negotiating is an activity that touches on all aspects of life. On the world stage, international diplomacy is the primary example of negotiation: countries negotiate trade agreements with one another, and warring nations negotiate peace treaties to cease hostilities. At the national level, legislators from different political parties negotiate the manner and means of government action, while cities, counties, and other governmental units negotiate terms regarding shared resources. In the private sector, labor unions negotiate with management, and businesses negotiate with vendors and service providers. Even retail commerce entails negotiation as shopkeepers and sellers negotiate with their intended customer base over price and quality through the medium of marketing outreach and feedback.

As individuals, humans negotiate in their daily lives when they are talking with their spouses, discussing shared responsibilities with their colleagues, listening to the demands of their children, or resolving conflicts with their neighbors. Through negotiation humans can reach agreement: whether they are bargaining for advantage, resolving a dispute, or agreeing on a course of action. Every successful negotiation is dependent upon certain basic skills, also known as core skills and competencies, for successful negotiation. There are systematic steps to successful negotiation, including getting prepared, setting goals and limits, communicating clearly, listening to others, and closing the deal.

Core Skills & Competencies

Negotiating is a critical skill, and it includes crucial subskills and competencies needed for a successful negotiation. Proper preparation is the first step for successful negotiation. Parties to the negotiation must educate themselves about their dispute before pinning down what they want to achieve from a potential agreement. Effective preparation for negotiation requires each party to understand the goals and desires of the other party as well as they understand their own. Each party should prepare by understanding in advance as much as possible about their negotiating partner, what concessions that other party may be willing to make, and where they will be unable or unwilling to compromise. This requires an honest and accurate inventory of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in both sides of the negotiation table and a clear understanding of the environment in which the negotiations will take place, including outside forces and competing interests. Identifying shared goals can go a long way toward helping negotiating partners reach a conclusion that is satisfactory to all parties.

Setting up realistic goals is necessary to achieving satisfying outcomes: properly defined and relevant goals lead to better outcomes than unrealistic, overly challenging goals. Establishing one's goals should be a thoughtful and intensive process. It is important for each party to prioritize their goals, keeping them specific and measurable. Vague or ill-defined goals can lead to misunderstandings and a breakdown of negotiations or a quick return to conflict rather than ongoing cooperation between parties. A clear and honest review of all goals often reveals commonalities between negotiating parties that can serve as a starting point for agreement and collaboration between erstwhile opponents.

Communication skills play a crucial role in successful negotiation, and listening is a key part of communication. Some speakers think they are good listeners, but they forget that effective dialogue entails as much listening as talking. The failures of personal and professional relations are often attributable to a lack of communication skills. For successful communication, it is essential for every party to be clear and accurate. Clear communication requires shared vocabulary and accurate language. It also requires the back and forth of speaking and listening. A good listener not only hears but also sees, as many meaningful signals are nonverbal.

Finally, when a mutually satisfactory agreement is reached and all the important issues have been properly dealt with, successful negotiators move to close the deal. A term borrowed from real estate sales, closing describes that point in the negotiation when all concessions appear to have been made and all disagreements appear to have been addressed and resolved. It is at that point that successful negotiators must be most careful. Any misunderstanding or overlooked detail could result in a failed agreement. Specific, clear terms and comprehensive articulations of the rights and responsibilities for all parties going forward are absolutely essential to the win-win conclusion that good faith negotiations seek. Just as preparation for negotiation is a beginning point, closing is the culmination of the negotiation process.

Research & Theory

Negotiation is an act of coordination. Through negotiating skills two persons or parties with dissimilar interests attempt to coordinate their behavior so that they may distribute resources in a manner that will make both of them happy. The practical application of negotiating skills is described in terms of the activities in which two parties engage; Theory and research focus on the underlying issues associated with those critical skills.

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, a recognized expert in the field of alternative dispute resolution, categorizes two types of negotiations: the first is problem solving and the second is adversarial. All negotiations, she says, fall under these two types, depending upon whether the negotiators use the bargaining process to make both parties happy or to obtain benefit at the expense of the other. Russell Korobkin also uses a dual-category framework, but he distinguishes between zone definition and surplus allocation and focuses on the tactics of negotiation rather than on the negotiation process itself.

Psychologists provide an invaluable lens to negotiating skills. In order to understand the entire negotiating process, one must understand the meaning of being human. When disputes and conflicts occur, negotiating skills support humans with a complex pattern of communication to create meaningful interactions between disputing parties. Ethicists, economists, mathematicians, and game theorists also offer an insight to negotiating skills, highlighting their perspectives on the disputing process. Mathematical models not only answer whether negotiation is possible but also attempt to answer how to maximize the benefits for each of the actors, and game theory has been applied to a wide variety of situations in which the choices of players interact to affect the outcome.

Bibliography

Davis, Morton. Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction. Dover Publications, 2012.

Fisher, Roger, and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In. 3rd ed., Penguin Books, 2011.

Gates, S. The Negotiation Book: Your Definitive Guide to Successful Negotiating. Wiley, 2015.

Hornickel, J. Negotiating Success: Tips and Tools for Building Rapport and Dissolving Conflict While Still Getting What You Want. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

Korobkin, R. Negotiation Theory and Strategy. Aspen Law & Business, 2002.

Menkel-Meadow, C., et al. Negotiation: Processes for Problem Solving. 2nd ed., Aspen Publishers, 2014.

Nelken, M. L. Negotiation: Theory and Practice. LexisNexis, 2007.

Sylvester, K. Negotiating in the Leadership Zone. Academic Press, 2016.