The cooperative negotiation style aims at making the piece of bearskin to be distributed larger.
The competitive negotiation style aims to secure the biggest piece of the pie for itself.
"Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation" (EmIV) combines collaborative and competitive elements for the benefit of the best possible win-win negotiation outcome.
The guiding question for today's podcast is: How can you manage to maximize your value in negotiations and minimize the risks, namely – failure of the negotiation on the one hand and "being taken to the cleaners" on the other hand?? This is a challenging task and I will talk about how you can use Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation (EmIV) to find a sensible balance between the cooperative and competitive elements of negotiation.
This may sound complicated at first hearing, but it can certainly be learned by following the 3 steps presented later. And this is certainly worthwhile, because in very many situations – not only in business, but also in everyday life – negotiations are necessary. Because in most cases you can't simply determine what you want to have, you come to an agreement with one or more other people about it. Thus, the outcome depends on what interests these other people have and how they intend to assert their interests.
What negotiations are all about? Basically, it is a continued communication oriented to the achievement of a common agreement. You and your negotiating partner have both the same and different interests. An equal interest is often, for example, to maintain the relationship and thus create a good condition for future cooperation. Both negotiating parties have a specific goal and know that they are unlikely to achieve 100 percent of it.
There are two fundamentally different types of negotiation styles: the cooperative style and the competitive style. The cooperative style aims at making the piece of bearskin to be distributed bigger. The competitive style aims to secure the largest piece of the fur for itself. There needs to be both cooperative and competitive elements in negotiations, but the distribution should be balanced.
The big challenge now is to secure a proper outcome for yourself (competitive element) and at the same time find a mutually acceptable outcome while preserving the relationship level (cooperative element). This is true negotiation art.
Over the course of my own sales career, I've been involved in the preparation and execution of a great many negotiations, and over time I've developed an approach that I'm happy to share with you. And since it's probably easier to remember, I've given the concept a name: The "Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation" (EmIV).
Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation" (EmIV) combines cooperative and competitive elements for the benefit of the best possible win-win negotiation outcome.
By way of introduction, let's take another look at the different types of negotiators, and then start with the three steps of emotionally intelligent negotiation.
At one end of the spectrum, those in need of harmony easily make concessions for the sake of peace, and at the other end, the hardliners stubbornly insist on their position. While some often lose sight of their interests, others implement them regardless of losses. However, this approach severely impairs the relationship. In the one-dimensional movement between these two extreme positions, many good and feasible solutions fall by the wayside, not to mention the basis of the relationship for future business transactions. Emotionally intelligent negotiation starts exactly here and expands your options for action as well as the quality of your negotiations and their results in three steps.
Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation Step 1 – Make interests clear
The first step is to become clear about one's own interests. This step should already be done before the start of negotiations. Write down what is important to you in connection with the topic to be negotiated. For this purpose, my template for the preparation of negotiations is suitable, for example. To do this, move away from a one-sided focus on a particular position that needs to be asserted. If both sides act in this way, there is a risk that the negotiating partners will very quickly find themselves facing positions that are obviously irreconcilable. The disadvantage of a position, once established and communicated, is also that it is difficult to abandon without losing face. It is an obstructive mortgage for the further course of the negotiation. Positions – that is, what you absolutely want to achieve packed into a catchy formula – often have the characteristic of being concise, clear and sometimes in need of interpretation. But how often, in the heat of the moment, do we bother to check our interpretation? In many cases, this feedback loop is omitted and this is counterproductive.
Emotionally Intelligent Negotiating Step 2 – Creatively Developing Solution Ideas
In a further step, you exchange interests with the negotiating partner and start a creative search process for possible solutions that take these interests into account. This requires a climate of openness and genuine motivation on the part of the negotiating partners in order to achieve good results that are acceptable to both sides. It is important that you consciously initiate this step or even invite them to do so. In practice, it has proven effective to generate creative solution ideas in a certain period of time (for example, in 30 or 60 minutes), without evaluating or "pinning down" the other side. Ideally, the energy and motivation of the negotiating partners should not be directed toward confrontation, but toward finding a joint solution. In this phase, the proverbial skin of the bear is first made bigger. The more intensively and creatively this phase can be lived, the better it is for the overall process and its results. In this phase of the negotiation, as already mentioned, it is important not to evaluate yet. The evaluation comes later. I am convinced that brainstorming in this sense is a communicative core competence in negotiation management.
Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation Step 3 – Evaluate and agree on solution components
Only in the third step do you evaluate and negotiate the solution ideas now on the table. In many cases, it has proven useful to pause after the creative phase, in which the options are first considered by each side separately. It may be that in such an internal assessment, ideas proposed by the negotiator are seen as unproblematic, so you might agree to them in conjunction with other attractive points. In this way, you will meet with more acceptance from your partner and create a better negotiation result overall. In this case for your negotiating partner, who will however make concessions at the next negotiating point. In this way, solution constellations often become visible that you had not thought of before and that you would not have thought of beforehand, even with intensive preparation. Another decisive advantage is that you and your negotiating partner have worked together on the ideas for a solution and are therefore in the same boat. In many cases, better negotiation results can be achieved with this approach. An overall solution that takes into account both legitimate interests of the negotiating parties and promotes and strengthens their relationship. The separation of creative search for as many substantial solution options as possible and the evaluation is an important success factor of the principle of the "Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation" method.
If possible, I recommend that you agree on such an approach with the negotiator of the other party in a one-on-one meeting prior to the negotiation. This gives him the opportunity in his preparation for the negotiation to inform his "co-negotiators" and to discuss the approach to be taken.
Prerequisites for "Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation" are:
A separation of interests and fixed negotiating position.
An appreciative atmosphere, in which the exchange of interests and a creative solution search without immediately occurring evaluation and decision on (non) acceptance is only possible.
Active listening with reconfirmation of the understanding of the expressed interests to exclude misinterpretations.
Open exchange of information. Of course, there are secrets you want to keep. But beyond that, there are interests worth communicating. Only in this way can an exchange take place about what is interesting and attractive for the counterpart.
Now what is special about "Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation"??
The special thing about this is that one initially seems to move one step away from the agreement by creatively seeking solutions without evaluation. However, it is worth taking this step, as new and better solutions are possible in this way. A major advantage of "Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation" is that an overall solution can be found that best serves both interests.
So much for my introduction to the successful concept of "Emotionally Intelligent Negotiation". This topic has still many facets and there I still have some to convey. More about this later in further episodes of my podcast.
If you want to learn more, why not subscribe for free to my sales updates, checklists and tools that I discuss my podcast at www.aulls2.de below on the home page and subscribe to my podcast at www.aulls2.en/blog. There you will also find the text for this podcast.
For today I thank you for listening, until next time.