Negoiating Pit Falls
CBS News business website had an interesting article last month about negotiating - an important skill for all sales people at whatever level.
We understand at Enigin that this is a skill that always needs developing and hence I would like to share the main points with Enigin Distributors and Enigin employees.
Here are three sure-fire conditions to create failure in a negotiation process:
1. Both sides have the same non-negotiables — It is hard to imagine a successful outcome to negotiation when both parties have established opposite positions on the same “non-negotiable” items. It means that no one is negotiating in good faith, but rather for some other purpose…say, political theater, perhaps?
2. Send surrogates, not decision-makers – Negotiation and “carrier-pigeoning” other people’s messages are two very different activities. If you want to negotiate in good faith, you have to send people with enough authority to frame an agreement, make concessions and accept the general tenets of offers. When everyone at the table is ceremonial, it’s Kabuki.
3. Don’t define what winning looks like – Most good journeys start with a mutually understood destination that everyone agrees to. If only one party knows the destination and forces the other along against its will, it’s called kidnapping. Defining what winning means is also not the same thing as defining what losing means. This committee was brought together with a clear understanding of what failure would mean, but not the same clarity of what winning would require.
Negotiation is not only for national and international policy. Private corporations and sales people negotiate all the time. This frequency does not always mean that they avoid the traps listed above. Frankly, the reasons the traps were there is that they are typical and easy to fall into.
The next post will deal with recommendations to increase the potential of success.
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