In life, you don’t get what you deserve… You get what you negotiate!

You are negotiating all the time! When buying a car, discussing your salary, acquiring a house, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner, etc. At the end of the day, a negotiation is a situation in which two parties with potentially competing incentives and goals come together to create a solution that satisfies everyone.
Negotiating might be complex and to do so, you will require skills such as conflict management, problem solving, emotional intelligence and even creative thinking. Yes creativity is key! Actually, finding high-value solutions that meet both interests is key! And this relies on the capacity to create a space to productively explore all the possible options. Picture both parties side by side instead of face to face.
Always spend the same amount of time to getting ready as you think the negotiation will take.
But negotiation of any size requires time, commitment and careful preparation. The rule of thumb is that you should spend the same amount of time to getting ready as you think the negotiation will take at a minimum. You get it, take time to prepare and you will be a better negotiator! Anyway, the point is that a lot of people fear negotiation or just perform badly because they lack of discipline and this is usually due to five common mistakes.
1. Committing too early
Don’t wait for your counterpart to make the first move. Take the initiative and establish how you will work together. Be sure that you both already agree on the core issues to avoid any frustration later on. Drafting an agenda will help you to communicate with the other party about how you expect the negotiation will go.
Power comes from negotiating with discipline
Tell your counterpart you want to develop value together and reach a win-win agreement. You guys are both there to solve a problem together so invite your counterpart to join you in this mode. But always lead the way and don’t rush! Try to understand first your counterpart.
2. Failing to listen
First of all, ask good questions to demonstrate that you are truly listening to you counterpart. Then listen to what they say and summarize their main arguments. Demonstrating you understood their points will give you credits. They want to be heard, give them this pleasure! So be sure you really understood each one of their interests and always find the reason why they care so much about it.
Once you have learned as much as possible from the conversation, only then you can start to share information yourself. If you are suggesting an option, be sure you also deliver the reason why you do it. This being said, keep it brief! Then double check whether the counterpart understood correctly your position. Make sure you are engaged in a collaborative discussion, not a debate. Because in the end you are always negotiating a potential collaboration.
To communicate effectively, remember to be both assertive and empathetic. Ironically being open to persuasion can make you more persuasive. Caring for your counterpart, through listening and considering his point of view or even assuming you might have something to learn will make them do the same. After all, Epictetus said that we had two ears and only one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. He has a point!
Why do you have two ears and only one mouth?
3. Focusing on position, not interest
In a negotiation, it is important to distinguish between positions (the what) and interests (the why). Go beyond what you want and identify why you want it. What are your deep-down needs, aims, fears, and concerns in the negotiation. Identify your relevant motivations. Write down every interest you can think of. Then take each one in turn and ask yourself why it’s important. Keep asking the 5 whys! Five iterations of asking why is generally sufficient to get to a root motivation.
Now do the same for the other party! What could be their interests? Talk to people who know your counterpart and find what they care about most. Again, it is crucial to understand why they care for these interests. So feel free to ask what they are trying to achieve. Get the global context and read between the lines. If you can’t get enough information, make hypothesis suggesting possible (or even provocative) options. They will most probably react and deliver crucial information. The key is to just make your counterpart speak to uncover his genuine interests. Now you have explored the field and you know what to leverage when making further propositions.
4. Evaluating options too soon
The goal now is to develop all the possible solutions that can meet the interests of everyone. You have to write down as many as you can. The more options you have, the best will the negotiation turn out. These are just possibilities and do not represent any formal commitments. You are just brainstorming so far.
Negotiation is all about creativity
The clue is to be creative at this stage. Don’t be afraid to imagine crazy ideas. These ones might lead you to new perspectives. It is important to think out of the box. Do not judge so far. Rather focus on generating possible solutions. Explore your counterpart’s ideas before accepting or refusing them. You will have time to evaluate them later. When you go through this brainstorm process together, it becomes easier to negotiate on the final terms afterwards as you both feel ownership over the solution.
This being said, never forget your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). This is the most advantageous alternative course of action you can take if negotiations fail and an agreement cannot be reached.
5. Mistaking the people for the problem
For many professionals, negotiation is by definition a source of conflict. But it shouldn’t! The problem is that you might tend to mix both relationship issues with the actual substance of the relationship. It is crucial in conflict management to separate these two. So do not make concession for the sake of making the other party happy. And you know what? You would not just be making a bad deal but you’d actually be damaging your relationship itself. Such a behaviour will weaken you and might become the norm later on.
Making concession or offering discount will not build trust!
Instead, be someone great! Make the first move and work hard on making the relationship stronger. Don’t wait for reciprocation. Just do it unconditionally and keep your goal of a successful deal in mind for building your relationship.
Actually, studies show that the honest and sincere negotiators are the most successful. Because you don’t collaborate with someone you don’t trust, period. That’s why first creating trust by showing genuineness is so critical.
Conclusion
In other words, negotiating is a collaborative process to solve a joint problem. It is all about building bridges instead of walls. If you want to know more about negotiation, have a look at the following readings.
