Types of negotiation

We often have to haggle. To divide something up. To agree something. In a shop, in the family and in relationships, at work. When two interdependent parties resolve a conflict in order to improve their own position, when they give ground together, try things out and look for a solution - that is a negotiation. What lies at the heart of negotiation? When is there no point in trying to reach an agreement? And when does it make sense to manipulate?

What makes a negotiation a negotiation?

1. There are two or more parties.
   If more than two parties take part, they are more likely to be representatives. In the end it is still two who reach the agreement.
2. Interdependence. Both parties understand that at the end they will have more than they had at the start. The hardest person to reach an agreement with is the one who needs nothing. He wants to keep the status quo. And then he becomes part of the landscape, that is, either part of the problem or part of the solution.
3. A conflict of interests. Something is being divided up all the same. There is something that can be agreed. If you pay the asking price in a shop, that is not a negotiation.
4. The parties try to improve their position, or at least not to make it worse. Where there is a fear of losing something, a whole set of feelings and emotions switches on. We are not negotiating with a machine. People are easy. It is living people who are difficult.
5. The parties look for a solution together. If there is only one solution, it feels like driving a bullock down a tunnel with something unpleasant waiting at the end.
6. The parties are ready to make concessions. Without concessions it is communication by ultimatum.
7. The parties use different methods to reach their aim.

When should you not negotiate?

1. When we are not prepared. As a rule, and at the very least, a lack of preparation leads to lost opportunities. The prepared always beat the unprepared. Even a little preparation improves your chances of winning. As part of our preparation, for instance, we gather information about the other side and so reduce the risk of losing, or else create a situation in which the negotiation is no longer needed at all.
2. When the situation does not change, or when my position will get worse. Every negotiation has a "budget": of effort, of time, of money. And when too much effort is called for, it is better not to enter into it. It is also CATEGORICALLY CONTRAINDICATED to negotiate in a situation where everything is at stake. And it is equally contraindicated from the position of "I DON'T CARE"
3. When time is working for us. Deadlines start to press on the other party, and only our generosity decides whether we negotiate or not. Here it is simpler to dodge and to avoid until the other side runs badly short of time. Not to be confused with the situation where we drag things out from fear of losing.
4. When we are short of resources. Nobody negotiates with the weak; the weak are dictated to. If we have no resource, we should be ready to submit or to slip away. But once terms have been put to us there is nowhere to slip away to: a situation has already arisen in which a kind of dependence has been created. We do, though, have three other rules that strengthen our position (more on that later)))) If it is our opponent who is short of resources, then it makes sense for us to raise the price and dictate the terms.
5. When you have no skills. "Someone is playing games with me that I do not understand." But another rule applies here: a negotiation is hard-nosed exactly to the degree that you are unprepared. The winner in a negotiation is the one who is better prepared, who has more ready-made moves and who switches between them faster.
6. When you are offered a "dirty" deal that breaches moral and ethical norms. Reputational risk has acquired weight and value today. In our age of recorded information, when records are stored on digital media and spread easily, reputation is an important factor. And reputation affects trust.

Three models of negotiation

Negotiations can be businesslike, hard-nosed, and ... no longer a negotiation at all, but war

(1) Constructive and businesslike

We talk business. The win-win model. BUT! Here the golden rule of negotiation applies:

When we have 100 euros at stake and both participants want the larger share, no deal will be done. That is why we add further options - time, resources. For instance, I take 70 euros for myself and you get something else on top.

Here the relationship is always worth more than the final result. I can make a compromise, but I shall keep the relationship. Because we are interdependent; we have acquaintances in common.

(2) A power struggle, or Hard-Nosed Negotiation

With manipulations, where one side pushes the other through. As a rule the power resources here lie in different areas. You have the administrative resource, I have the financial one, and we start pulling against each other.

Hard-Nosed Negotiation is usually a one-off. It is a one-off deal, and we shall never see the person again. Reaching your personal goal matters more than keeping the relationship. BUT! Confrontation of that kind is becoming less and less possible nowadays. And so it drains away into manipulative techniques.

A power struggle usually begins with each side testing the other's position. They start pressing on you from the very beginning to find out how much effort it will take to deal with you. If you let a manipulative move pass and do not answer it, it will be repeated several times over, each time harder. If we put up no resistance at the first stage, when the pressure starts, we are showing that we can be treated this way - and rule No. 4 of negotiation comes into force:

And the negotiation slides into the next pattern: a war of annihilation.

Why does ignoring a dig not work? A negotiator who makes digs can be of two types. It may be a deliberate tactic to "eliminate" you (to make you leave), or it may be an insecure, aggressive style of behaviour. In the second case you will be prodded until you explode.

(3) War

Personal ambition is put above resources and above reaching the goal. A participant is ready to invest far more than he can gain. As a rule it is an attempt to "eliminate" the other participant.

Forms of insecure behaviour

Three strategies of insecure behaviour are fixed in the animal world; you can watch them in the television programme "In the Animal World", and in people)))

1. The Fearful, or Timid one. The true form of timid behaviour! Run away! In a negotiation this tactic looks like this: one side starts shouting "How dare you! Is that any way to speak to me!", walks out and slams the door. He has left the negotiation - no man, no problem. He has removed himself. For the other side the war is won, the opponent is "eliminated".
2. The Aggressive one. This too is a form of insecure behaviour, one that people with some physical presence and some experience of confrontation can afford. They are carried forward, right up to physical violence. In a negotiation it sounds like this: "Are you out of your mind? Have you completely forgotten where you are?!? Do you know who you are talking to? Do you think this is a market stall?" Personal insults are a form of insecure behaviour which says: "I am not sure of myself". In nature, by contrast, no predator feels aggression towards its prey. Seizing the prey is its key behaviour. A tiger or a lion shows aggression only towards members of its own species, when territory is being divided, or offspring defended, or females shared out.
3. The Detached one, or the one "Out in the Cold". They look straight through you and are mistakenly taken for self-assured. They freeze. This is the frog or reptile type, which lies low, plays dead and waits for the moment when it can bolt, or for the danger to pass by. It is nature's own form of paralysis, and most people react in exactly this way, since it is one of the most widespread biological responses to danger.

To reach your goals in a negotiation it is important to act WITH ASSURANCE. Assured behaviour costs energy, it is not instinctive and it does not switch on at once. If we are trained, we can switch it on after a short interval.