Podcast episode 025: successful negotiation skills (part 2 of 2) [27:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4140)

In today’s second of two podcasts in a series on project management negotiation skills, we continue our discussion on principled negotiation with Joe Friedman, of the consulting group Zehren-Friedman Associates, Ltd.

Joe holds a BSBA and MBA from Ohio State University and has over 25 years of sales, sales management and training / consulting experience. With many years providing sales and management training programs at Northeastern Illinois University, First National Bank of Chicago, and The Executive Technique, a firm specializing in presentation skills training, Joe teamed up with David Zehren in 1993 to create Zehren-Friedman Associates, Ltd. Their 13-person firm is entering its 18th year in business and specializes in teaching the “persuasive arts” of selling, presenting, negotiating and influencing. Clients are in a wide variety of industries, from banking to health-care to printing to advertising to services to manufacturing and everything in-between. Joe is responsible for client development, program delivery, people development within the firm, and holds the title of CFO.

Show Commentary

As discussed in Part 1, as you enter a negotiation, you want to try to start the process by “growing the pie” and creating a win-win outcome.  But what happens when that is not possible?  Then you should fall back to tactics in order to meet your needs on your shopping list.

What’s this “BATNA” thing?

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury describes the Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement, or BATNA.   Typically, you would not accept a worse outcome than its BATNA.  For example, if I offered to buy your car for $1,000, then your BATNA would be $1,000 if you decided to “shop around” to see if others would offer you more for your car.  In other words, if someone else offered you $900, you could always fall back to the BATNA of $1,000 that I offered. 

Another example of BATNA is the use of outsourcing.  If I know that it would be easier to get a capable resource for my project outside of the company than I could by working through internal functional managers, then guess what…  I would probably be more likely to use outsourcing.  If I needed to I could always fall back to my BATNA and use an internal resource.

Personal Input Tactics

Personal input tactics are a list of physical, emotional, or psychological things that people do during negotiations.  One person may use anger as a tactic as opposed to perhaps positivity and persistance.  These personal input tactics can be used in conjunction with other negotiation tactics.

The Games That People Play

The reason that tactics exist in negotiations is to enable you to get the things that they want without making concessions.  Each tactic falls into one of the three following categories:

1.) Pushing to get the terms you want

2.) Playing it straight

3.) Playing the angles

Pushing to Get the Terms You Want

Two tactics that fall within the “Pushing to Get the Terms You Want” category include “The Bogey” and “The Crunch”.

“The Bogey” is a tactic that usually starts with a complement, but then usually asks for a concession.  “You have done a great job getting things done on this project, but I would like to see you show up for more meetings,” is an example of a bogey.

“The Crunch” is a tactic that takes a tough stand to get concessions.  “You gotta do better than that on your offer!” is an example of using “The Crunch.”

Playing It Straight

One tactic in the “Playing It Straight” category is “Delaying Your Position.”  This is a positive tactic whereby you hold back on sharing your position until you completely understand the other party’s “shopping list.”  By delaying your position, you prevent the initial tug-of-war of positions that so frequently causes an escalation of demands.

Playing The Angles 

“Playing The Angles” tactic category includes “bluffing” and “good cop / bad cop”. 

“Bluffing is where you give the impressionthat you have more power or information than you really do.  Moms are very good at this tactic!  I can’t tell you how many times I ended up cleaning my room when confronted with having to spend the rest of the day inside if I didn’t.  Would my mom really have kept me inside all day?  If you knew me as a 6-year old, you would probably say, “errr, probably not!”

I always think of some TV police drama like Law and Order or Hill Street Blues when I think of “Good Cop / Bad Cop”.  But this tactic could be as simple as using your manager as the “bad cop” in order to make yourself look reasonable.  If I told you, “my manager has told me that I can’t do a deal in which I need to commit to headcount,” then my manager would be starring in a bad cop role.  And of course, I would be playing the part of the nice doughnut-laden good cop.  Mmmmm…  Doughnuts!

Role Playing

A way to prepare for a negotiation is to practice a role play scenario with a friend, mentor, or someone that can give you feedback.  And no, I am not talking about that kind of role play where you are the angry bad cop and your boyfriend is the naughty apprehended robber!

What I am talking about is what I discussed in Episode 6 on Sympathetic Project Management, where I talked about the training I received on assertive management from Caltech.  In that training, we did role plays of various real situations that required principled negotiations.  Role-playing is a powerful tool to help prepare you for what could be a difficult negotiation.  I recommend that you practice a negotiation role play before the discussion happens.  It won’t prepare you for every alternative or outcome, but it will help!  And besides, if you are going to start crying during the negotiation, wouldn’t you rather know now….  Steve?

Finally, remember that understanding why something is on someone’s “shopping list” can be even more important than just understanding what is on their shopping list.  By understanding the why - you can help find creative solutions to bake a big ol’ win-win pie!  Mmmm…..  Win-win pie!

What negotiation tactics do you use?  Leave us a comment or email us and let us know!

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