- Ask open-ended questions to retain control and divert attention
- “How can I do that?”
- Fast, emotional thinking informs and guides our slower, rational response
- Assumptions blind, hypothesis guide
- Make yourself unimportant to the negotiations
- Cognitive bias is focused on making a coherent story, not gathering information
- Focus on listening to their wants, needs, and aspirations
- Slow the conversation down
- Generally you want the playful voice but sometimes late-night-dj
- Repeat the last three words they said
- To calm aggression
- Use the late night DJ voice
- Start with “sorry”
- Mirror
- Silence, at least 4 seconds
- Negotiating should be a discovery not a contest
- Label feelings with, “It seems like…”
- Clear the road before advertising the destination
- Getting a “no” helps you clarify things
- People have a need to say “No” to feel in control so get them to say it early
- “Is now a bad time?” is good to ask
- “Have you given up on this project?” is like walking away from the stubborn child who refuses to leave the park
- The goal is to help them feel safe, secure, and in control
- “Yes” is often an escape route
- “That’s right” is gold, “You’re right” is death
- Be careful of compromise, it often leaves both side unhappy and turns out a worse outcome
- No deal is better than a bad deal
- When assessing a threat, look for answers to who, what, when, where
- “What does it take to be successful here?”
- “How am I supposed to do that?” asks the other party to help and while helping them feel in control
- The other side always has a team… Make sure you are engaging everyone on that team
- “Yes” is nothing without “how”
- “How will we accomplish our contract?”
- “How do we know we are on-track?”
- “How will we know when we are off-track?”
- People who can break the deal are often more critical than the deal maker
- There are assertive, accommodating, and analytical people
- Analysts
- Want time to think before responding; they value precision in their responses so try to can consider all the angles
- Do not care for human interactions
- Expect equity in anything given
- Accommodators
- Love social interaction and seek engagement
- Do not necessarily need reciprocity
- Takes silence to mean anger
- Assertives
- Need to feel heard before they can listen
- Value victories
- Takes silence as an invitation to keep talking
- Give them an inch and they will go a mile
- Analysts
- The golden rule is wrong here (and most places): Treat other how they want to be treated
- Focus on the issues not the person
- It is good to hit the pause button when things are not going well
- Decreasing concessions ending are ideal:
- Set an extreme anchor
- Close the gap between the anchor are your real number by half
- If needed, close by a quarter
- End on an exact, non-round number to make it feel like you are at your end
- Look for the “black swans” (the hidden motivations behind the negotiator’s behavior)
- Leverage is having something the only side wants
- Look for their “religion”: the beliefs that drive them to action
- “They’re crazy” is our way for saying, “They do not make sense”
- One side has information the other does not
- They have a constraint they do not want to share
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