1.6 Skills for Negotiation

After the previous section, you may feel like you have a strong sense of when to use negotiation as a conflict management strategy. However, you still may be wondering what sets apart a good negotiator from an ordinary negotiator. In this section, we are going to cover four qualities of negotiation that will help you achieve greater success and stand out from other negotiators.

1. Being Transparent

Make no assumptions about the extent to which the other party understands you, your interests, or your intentions. The fewer efforts you make to be transparent, the more cause the other party will have for speculation and even suspicion.1 Conversely, the greater effort you make to be transparent and forthcoming, the more trust the other party will have in you and in the negotiations themselves. There’s no such thing as being too transparent, unless you start oversharing about what you’re going to have for dinner when you go home. Be clear about all of the pertinent details including the meeting time and location, who you will be bringing with you, and what the schedule will be for the negotiations. This way, you will not leave it up to chance that you and the other party will arrive on the same page about the basic aspects. The less room for ambiguity, the more you and the other party will be able to focus strictly on the substantive matters at hand.

2. Being Conversational

This is akin to the quality of being a great communicator and relationship builder. While it might not be possible in all circumstances, research has suggested that a little small talk with the other party can go a long way during a negotiation process. It makes sense. Just by showing you are willing to make a human connection beyond the scope of negotiating over some finite resource, you can earn the goodwill of the other party and set the stage for a more cooperative process. It doesn’t even have to be small talk. Sometimes, all it takes is a short introductory phone call or email to make sure you and the other party get off on the right foot.

It’s not all about talking. It’s about listening too. Try to refrain from coming up with your own talking points while the other party is speaking. Instead, do your best to listen closely to what they are saying and verify what you are hearing by paraphrasing things back to them. The art of being a great listener goes a long way with earning people’s trust and gaining their confidence. If you can practice this, you will find that you are able to conduct far more amicable and collaborative conversations during negotiation.

3. Being Inventive

When it comes to negotiation, people can often get locked in a certain way of thinking about the terms being negotiated. They can see compromise or competition as the only way of approaching those terms. This is a rather uncreative approach to the task of satisfying both parties in a negotiation and helping everyone walk away with the maximum benefit they could achieve in cooperation with one another. So instead, rely on your inventiveness to think of other means by which you and the other party can bargain with each other.2 Doing this will require having a thorough sense of what the other party’s interests actually are. If you sense that the other party feels most strongly about one or two terms they are demanding, see if you can find a way to make concessions on those matters in order to open up more flexibility in other areas. If there is something you can tell the other party values a lot more than you do, put that on the table in exchange for something that perhaps you value more than the other party.

Something to be careful of is anchoring bias. This is a technical term for a cognitive bias in which someone will place too great an emphasis on the first piece of information they encounter. For instance, in a salary negotiation the first number you encounter will shape your perception of all of the negotiations that follow. By definition, this is not something you can avoid altogether, since there will always have to be a first piece of information. You do need to be mindful of how to use anchoring bias to your advantage, as well as to prevent yourself from being unreasonably swayed by your own anchoring bias. Take the time to be confident of your interests and BATNA to avoid the influence of anchoring bias. Set anchors in negotiations when you find the opportunity to do so.

4. Being Self-Assured

No one wants to negotiate with someone who seems unsure of why they are negotiating in the first place. Conveying confidence in a negotiation means being willing to commit to an agreement that works in your favor, but also knowing that you can walk away from the conversation if you feel the outcome will be worse than your BATNA. You should not ever feel you need to shy away from your BATNA or be sheepish about it in front of the other side. In fact, having a strong sense of your BATNA will be a source of power for you during negotiations. Both you and the other side will understand that if the terms are not favorable enough to you, you can always walk away and still pursue another favorable course of action that does not require cooperation from the other party. The best negotiators will spend a lot of time strategizing and understanding their BATNA before ever entering negotiations.

On the other hand, if you and the other party do manage to reach an agreement you deem acceptable, be ready to execute it properly. During the contract writing stage, incorporate timelines and benchmarks that will give both you and the other party a sense of trust that the agreement you have reached will be upheld to the best of both of your abilities.3 Furthermore, if you feel it is necessary, make sure to include language that accounts for dispute resolution. This is in case at a later date, you and the other party disagree about the agreement and require renegotiation or other conflict management strategies such as mediation or arbitration.