Often you might hear people saying ‘Win that negotiation! It’s extremely critical for our business’ and similar stories unfold…
Is negotiation then all about winning?
In a recent interview to The Forbes magazine, Prof. William Ury of Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation (PON) says, “Most negotiations take place in the context of long-term relationships, as in a marriage. If you are always asking: “Who’s winning this marriage?”, the marriage is in serious trouble. Focus on your interests- short-term and long-term. It may be instructive to remember the Chinese billionaire who made his fortune by always giving his business partners a little more than he took for himself; everyone wanted to be his partner and they made him rich!”
Profoundly, insightful- Isn’t it? Negotiation is a a collaborative process to further win-win outcomes for all involved and hence, it’s ‘value-driven’, ‘values-driven’ and ‘principle-driven’!
Value-based Negotiation then, is all about creating and claiming ‘value’ through collaborative process where focus is on these four pillars,
- People- Separate people from the issues. This is aptly summarized in Prof. Ury’s words as “We’re negotiating with human beings, not computers. So often, we are trying to solve a problem and the people — their emotions, their ego — get in the way. The first challenge in negotiation is to disentangle the people (or psychological dimension) from the problem (or substantive dimension). Be soft on the person, hard on the problem”.
- Interests- Focusing on interests rather than position will provide for creative solutions to the given issue. This will help empathize with the other side and chances are better that they are more committed to the agreed outcomes rather than renegading. This will prevent us from the headaches of positional-bargaining which mostly turn out to be win-lose affair
- Options- Inventing multiple options for contemplating action is anyway a better idea than being stifled with a single point agenda. How creatively and collaboratively parties engage in negotiation process separates effective negotiations from not-so effective ones. In negotiation arena, often it’s said that- One is fixated, two is a dilemma; It’s three where solutions start emerging!
- Criteria- Basing your negotiation actions and decisions on some objective and rational criteria will save from heart-breaks. This will be viewed as impartial, fair and transparent by all the parties. ‘Yield to principles and not pressure’ is a great dictum in negotiations.
When you combine these tenets of principled-negotiation with the practice of value-creation & value-claiming you get ‘Value-based Negotiation’– a model of negotiation that has the potential to rewrite your negotiation paradigms and practices!
To know more about ‘Value-based Negotiation’ and how it can benefit you and your teams be more pragmatic and effective in everyday negotiations and conflict resolution, please click the link here and visit the page-https://www.facebook.com/ValueBasedNegotiation
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