Posts Tagged ‘team’

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Succeed By Bringing The Ghost Whisperer To The Negotiation

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

Don't Look Now, But You're Negotiating With More People Than You Think You Are

Don't Look Now, But You're Negotiating With More People Than You Think You Are

So there you are, sitting across the the table from the other side starting a negotiation. If only you are able to use your considerable negotiating talents to convince them that what you want is best for them, then you’re sure to get what you want – right? Nope, it turns out that although you might think that it’s just you and the other side talking, it turns out that room is actually crowded with negotiating ghosts that you’re going to have to learn to talk to…

The other side of the table rarely represents just themselves. No matter if you are trying to buy a car from them or sell them a house, you are really talking with someone who is really part of a larger organization. This can be a whole company, a spouse, kids, a banker, etc.

What this means to you as a negotiator is that the other side is going to have to satisfy the demands of their extended team (upper management, sales, the union, the spouse, etc.). They are going to have make sure that everyone on their side has their needs met before they can reach an agreement with you.

Although there can be quite a mix of people whispering into the other side’s ear, there are four common characteristics that all of these impacted parties will share:

  1. Not All Will Agree: This means that there will be conflict among members of the same team. If they can’t agree, then this will impact the other side’s ability to agree to your proposals.
  2. Nobody Is The Same: All of the different individuals that the other side is representing have different needs and different priorities. This may be why the other side seems to be changing their direction so often.
  3. Not All Are Equal: Although there may be multiple parties whispering into the other side’s ear, not all of them have an equal role to play when it comes to making a final decision.
  4. Not All Benefit The Same: Just as all are not equal, so too not all will benefit the same amount from whatever deal you are negotiating.

All of these Ghost Whisperer issues lead you, my dear negotiator, to one simple conclusion: you need to come up with a way to deal with all of these “negotiation ghosts”. Here are four tips for doing so:

  1. You need to find out who is really making the decision on each issue in the negotiation. Keep in mind that it might be a different person for each issue.
  2. Make sure that you get commitments from the people behind the other side when it comes to the value of the thing that you are offering and the validity of your offer.
  3. Have the fundamental realization that the other side will be unable to give you the “yes” that you are looking for until his people allow him to give it. This means that your job is really to help him to get them to give him permission.
  4. Oh yeah, you’ve got the same issues – you are really negotiating on the behalf of many different parties. You need to be a good enough negotiator that you are able to get your people to approve your ability to reach an agreement with the other side.

When you negotiate, whom do you have whispering in your ear? Have you even negotiated with the other side when you didn’t know who they needed to please? How did you handle this? Has a deal ever been agreed to and then nixed because some outside party’s approval was not given? Leave me a comment and let  me know what you are thinking.

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Single vs Team Negotiation: Which Is Better?

Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Sometimes It Takes A Team To Complete A Negotiation Successfully

Sometimes It Takes A Team To Complete A Negotiation Successfully

Sorry – that’s a trick question. Most of the time when we talk about negotiating skills, we talk about how you can improve how YOU negotiate. However, in the real world, negotiations are often done by teams of negotiators.

The reasons for this are fairly simple: negotiations more often than not can take a long time and just the physical strain of active negotiating can wear a single person down quickly. Additionally, often special subject matter knowledge is required in order to hammer out specific issues and no one person posses all of that information. It takes a team to negotiate well.

There is, of course, one additional reason for preferring to negotiate using a team instead of a lone individual. During a negotiation so much is happening that a single individual is often hard pressed to stay on top of all of it.

Using a team for your negotiations allows you to use a group of people to capture all that is occuring. You can also use the team to jointly review what has transpired and make better decisions.

There are several reasons for not wanting to use a team as a part of a negotiation process. Here are three of them:

  • Requires Coordination: When you are the sole negotiator, once you know what you want to accomplish and how you are going to make it happen, then you are set. However, if you have a team of negotiators, then you need to make sure that everyone on your team REALLY understands what the goals are. This can be a challenge to do, especially if your goals change during the negotiation.
  • Sharing Information: In order for a team of negotiators to work together successfully, they need to all be aware of the same information. This will require that all information about the negotiation be collected, shared, and reviewed prior to the start of the negotiations. This can be a challenge under the best of circumstances and if the team is geographically distributed then it becomes even more difficult.
  • Showing Disunity: In the end, negotiating is all about power. Having team members become confused or showing disunity will reduce your power and increase the other side’s power.

With all that being said, you would think that nobody would ever use a team to perform a negotiation. However, you would be wrong. There are a number of compelling reasons why teams should be used more often for negotiatons than they currently are:

  • Better Coordination: Using a team allows you to distribute the tasks of negotiating among team members. This means that documents that need to be produced or facts that need to be checked can be done in parallel to the negotiations and this will speed the process up and reduce confusion.
  • More Experts: A single negotiator can only provide his / her expertise to the negotiations. A team can provide a much broader collection of experts and this should help the discussions move much faster.
  • Moral Support: Since a negotiation can continue for a long time, it’s easy to become disheartened if it appears as though an agreement will never be reached. If you are working with a team, it will be must easier to “keep a stiff upper lip” and not give up.
  • Listen Better: One set of ears can only hear so much. In fact, not only can multiple ears simply hear better, but they can also hear things differently which might help the negotiation move along faster.
  • Plan Better: A plan that is created by a single negotiator is as good as that negotiator. A plan that is created by multiple negotiators is often much better because it reflects the different inputs of multiple people.

What has your experience been: do you do better when you negotiate by yourself or when you negotiate as part of a team? When you are on a team, what role do you play? Which type of negotiation more often leads to a successful outcome? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in strategy | 1 Comment »

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