Here's the road map to everyday negotiation in Singapore

Deals and agreements are made every day in the work environment, whether internally with colleagues or externally with business partners. Disputes are settled, synergy is created, and the vital process of negotiation determines the outcome for each party involved.

Negotiation occurs along two axes – vertically and horizontally. Vertically, we negotiate with our superiors on matters such as salary increase, work scope and project budget. With our subordinates, negotiation occurs when assigning them working tasks and supervising their working process. Among our team mates as well, negotiation is required to resolve conflicts that may arise.

Horizontally, internal negotiation is required for coordination across the different departments to get things done. In external liaison with clients, negotiation is used to achieve win-win deal terms and conditions. That is, to ensure clients’ needs are fulfilled while having our own interests taken care of at the same time. Likewise with vendors, negotiation helps to ensure that the expected quality of goods and services are delivered on time.

Based on our research results and practical experiences, ESSEC Institute for Research and Education on Negotiation (IRENE) has developed the 10 Principles for structuring a negotiation (Lempereur and Colson, 2010). These principles will prove to be indispensable for any negotiation to progress and achieve success.

These are fundamental principles that will guide you in structuring any negotiation at any point in order to negotiate as effectively as possible. Here, I would just introduce 3 starting principles:

1. Preparation before Action: Before any of your negotiation, did you know enough about your target counterpart? Your bottom line? And, alternatives or options to walk away from the negotiating table? Do you prepare your arguments to persuade your counterparts with? Do you know how to prepare the meeting environment to create a good atmosphere to facilitate the negotiation?

Over the past years, through my work as a consultant helping companies improve their negotiation performance, I found surprisingly that a lot of the negotiators prepare their negotiation only when their counterparts arrive at the reception - a mere 5-minute preparation while walking to the meeting room!

Since they didn’t have their targets clearly figured out, they ended up not asking enough. Since they didn’t know their bottom line, they ended up giving too much concession. Due to their lack of research on alternatives, they had no choice but to accept a less favorable proposal. In the end, their inadequate preparation led them to mediocre results!

The 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe.” So remember, Preparation is key to negotiation success, and it certainly pays to enter into any negotiation well-prepared.

2. Listening before speaking: Sometimes, because we are too eager to persuade our counterparts to accept our propositions, we forget to ask a very key question: what do they really want? Without knowing what your counterparts want, it’s really hard to find a solution that can fit their needs and persuade them to accept your ideas.

Let me illustrate with an example: A young man is asked by his boss to do a project out of town for 3 months from next week. But, the young man refuses to do so. The boss then tells the young man again that he has to go since it’s the company needs him to and it’s an order.

The young man says “No” again, insisting on his rights as a free man saying that no one can ask him to do anything he doesn’t agree to do. In the end, the discussion/negotiation ends in a heated argument with them shouting at each other. And, of course, there is no solution but only broken relationships.

Now, this could have been different if only the boss could ask a very simple “why” and listen more to this young man before his pushing back. The situation would have taken a completely different course. The young man might have told the boss that he got a new girlfriend and the assignment could jeopardize his relationship with her.

That was why he said ‘No’ to the assignment. On knowing his employee’s real motivations and dilemma, the boss might then explore other possible options to fulfill the company’s needs while at the same time helping the young man resolve his own issues.

While this might run against our natural intuition, a good negotiator should always be a good listener first.

3. Making the pie bigger before slicing it: Many people assume wrongly that negotiation is always Win-Lose. You win, I lose or vice-versa. Think about this: if we can get a smaller portion of a bigger pie, would it be better than getting a bigger portion of a smaller pie?

As with the earlier example of a young man refusing to go out of town for an assignment, if they had stopped arguing and claiming on each own interests, instead listened to each other and get to know each other’s motivations, maybe the boss could increase his budget so that he can travel back home more often to see his girlfriend.

Who knows, in reciprocating his boss’s good will and support, our young man could well be working harder and longer hours when he works out of town to compensate for the extra budget he gets.

To go a step further, the boss might even pay for his girlfriend to travel to see him as a gesture to reward him for his good performance. By creating more value and making the pie bigger, the sharing of the pie now becomes easier thereby increasing everyone’s benefits in the end.

In the professional world, negotiation is more sophisticated than what I have illustrated although the fundamentals of the principles still hold true. Corporate honchos and politicians engaging in mega deals and policies will have to hone their negotiating skills through more rigorous training and experience. We may not be born a good negotiator but we can definitely learn how to become one.

For reference and further reading: ‘Méthode de Négociation’ is a French bestseller written by two ESSEC professors. The book is translated into 7 languages including English - "The First Move: A Negotiator's Companion" - and Chinese "谈判的艺术".
IRENE: irene.essec.edu