Positional Bargaining: The Soft Or Hard Approach?
I am always on the lookout for things that might prompt an idea for an article, and television shows are as rich a source as any. We can glean an insight into how certain management skills are used by watching them in action on the small screen. For example, Dragons’ Den is the place to witness hard-nosed negotiating skills over sums of money that run into the tens of thousands of pounds, and Grand Designs shows us project management in action, including delays and unexpected problems, and their remedy.
My latest television-prompted idea came from a less obvious source, however; I was watching a rerun of an episode from series one of House, the American medical drama, starring our own Hugh Laurie.
In this episode, the meticulous misanthrope, Dr House, observed a slight change in the behaviour of one of his staff. He gauged by her attempts to manipulate her colleagues that she had recently had her nose in a book on how to brush up on your negotiating skills. He informed her colleagues that they had been duped by ‘soft positional bargaining’. This was a new term to me, and so I decided to look into it. Here’s what I found.
Positional bargaining involves adhering to a set position and negotiating for that single target, regardless of other factors.
By way of example, I give you a couple who are negotiating over their preferences for a pizza delivery. One party is a vegetarian, however, and that person adopts a stance of positional bargaining. She states that they can either order separate pizzas according to their dietary preferences, or a large vegetarian option to be shared, but a single pizza with a meat-based topping is not an option. The immovable goal of the vegetarian, her positional standpoint, is that she has a meat-free pizza.
The other party agrees to share a vegetarian pizza on the condition that they have chilli peppers on it. The vegetarian allows this concession because it does not affect her ultimate goal.
This is a rather simplistic example, although it does demonstrate the point. But this is simply positional bargaining; where does the soft part come in?
Soft bargaining is a negotiating technique that is probably best described by contrasting it against the more commonly used term, hard bargaining.
The fundamental difference between soft and hard bargaining is that with the former, the goal is agreement, where the goal of the latter is victory. While the soft bargainer will allow concessions, his hard counterpart will demand them. Soft bargaining has no problem in disclosing the bottom line, where the hard bargainer will play those cards close to his chest. While soft bargaining allows flexibility to change position, hard bargainers will dig in on their position.
These positional differences throw up one obvious conclusion: in negotiations between inflexible hard bargainers and more vulnerable soft bargainers, the hard option will always come out with the better deal. This is true to a great extent, so is there any room in negotiations for soft bargaining?
The answer is yes, but a lot of thought should be applied before the decision to adopt a soft negotiating stance is adopted. So in what kind of situation would soft bargaining be useful?
If you know what the goal of your opposite number is, and you are happy to concede to it, then soft bargaining can bring about a satisfactory outcome for both parties, without placing any strain on the relationship.
There are many different approaches to negotiating, some more effective than others, but they all have their uses in certain circumstances. Learning which method to apply based on the information you possess is a step on the road to becoming an expert negotiator.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on negotiation skills training london onsite, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Perfect Persuasion: A Positive Influence On A Successful Business
During an unsuccessful challenge for the Republican nomination in the 1968 US Presidential Election – both contests eventually being won by Richard Nixon – Michigan Governor George Romney spoke of the influence the military had had on forming his opinion of the Vietnam War. He claimed that he’d been ‘brainwashed’ into believing hawkish views on the conflict which he later found to be untrue – a claim to which Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy retorted, ‘Brainwashed? I’d have thought a light rinse would have sufficed’.
Hopefully, when you’re looking to influence others in the course of your work, you won’t hold the same opinion of them as McCarthy did of Romney. But you’ll still need to be looking at something rather less than brainwashing; an aggressive, forceful approach to persuasion is rarely a good idea in business, and certainly not if you’re looking to maintain a positive and harmonious relationship. Trying to bash an idea into an individual’s mind will only lead to them associating the notion with an unreasonable attitude and an unpleasant experience – and whatever the circumstances that require you to be persuasive, whatever the intended outcome, that can never be a good result.
Successful influencing is about cooperation, agreement, harmony. It’s not about merely telling another what it is you want them to do or think, but of convincing them that that action or way of thinking is right. As such, it’s a question of understanding yourself, and what effect and impact you have on others, what impression you make. How you are perceived by others creates – or destroys – an environment in which influence becomes easy to apply effectively.
The most important word in that is ‘perceived’. When it comes to influencing others, how you feel in a meeting, negotiation or any other work interaction or relationship is of far less importance than how you appear to feel. You might be angry or upset inside, yet by projecting an image of calmness and supportiveness, your audience will feel more comfortable and receptive to what you’re telling them, more willing – if unconsciously – to be guided by your arguments.
And that guiding is what you should want to achieve – not pushing anyone into a decision, but leading them towards making the right decision of their own volition. Yet how can you be sure that your actions are having the desired effect, are creating an environment commensurate with successful influencing? The key lies with seeing yourself as others see you. It’s essential to understand the impression you put across and the impact you create, not merely from your own (let’s face it, utterly biased) perspective but through the eyes and ears of others.
Appreciating what those eyes and ears pick up requires an understanding of its own, an awareness of their situation. What are their intentions and expectations? What might they be expected to have concerns about, and what may be for them a source of optimism? How does their situation compare to yours – strong, weak, superior, inferior, senior, junior? What would you expect their initial view of your position to be?
How they view you, the environment you create, and the stance you’re taking will be very much dependent on those issues – so your approach must look to address them. For instance, perhaps you’re working with an individual who is visibly nervous and in a markedly inferior position to yourself: in this case, successful influencing will require a lot of calm consideration and supportive words, encouraging them to feel that you’re on their side. Or perhaps the opposite is true, perhaps you’re faced with someone in a senior position who’s starting from a position of having little time for your suggestion: on this occasion, the metaphorical arm around the shoulder is no longer going to help; instead, clarity, firmness, and commitment may be more prized.
An understanding of who you’re trying to influence and how they might be feeling – both about the matter in hand and the circumstances in which they find themselves – is crucial to being able to adapt your behaviour in order to control the way that you are perceived. And it’s important always to remember that how you feel inside is irrelevant so long as the perception of you is conducive to the persuasion you require. Understand yourself, understand others, and you’ll find that you can have the most positive influence on your organisation’s future.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on influencing skills courses london, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Negotiating Skills: The Two Approaches
Possibly as a result of seeing the 1998 film The Negotiator, I associate the word with someone having specialist skills to be used only in dramatic situations such as high-level government meetings, talks between warring factions or employers and strikers, or the police trying to coax someone down from a high building.
However we are all negotiators to some degree and we see people negotiating all the time, at work, in school and on television. Shows such as Deal or No Deal, where the banker tries to negotiate the purchase of the contestant’s box and Bargain Hunt where contestants try to negotiate the best price for an item are examples.
Whatever level negotiations are at, be it high-level or low-key, they generally fall into two types; distributive and integrative. I have invented a scenario from the aforementioned Bargain Hunt to illustrate the marked difference between the two, so with your cash in your hand, off you go.
The first item to catch your eye is a genuine Victorian Rubik’s cube for forty pounds. Your expert tells you that he would expect it to make only about thirty or forty pounds at auction, so you need to get the price down if you are to make a profit.
You haggle quite amicably with the stallholder; telling him why you would like the item for thirty pounds and listening to his reasons why he could not possibly let it go for a penny less than thirty-five. As you have enough money to meet his full asking price should your negotiating fail, you are bargaining from a position of financial comfort and any discount you get will be seen as a success.
Eventually a compromise is reached and the item is bought with five pounds knocked off the price tag. This is an example of integrative negotiation and it usually results in both parties being satisfied.
With time running out you only have fifteen pounds left and you spot what looks like a stick that the stallholder has been throwing for his dog, but which your expert assures you is an authentic Georgian rounders bat. The price asked is twenty pounds, and you are faced with a totally different scenario to that of your last purchase.
This time you do not have the funds to meet the asking price so you must beat the stallholder down to what you can afford. You have absolutely no room to manoeuvre, being unable even to meet him half way at seventeen pounds fifty. Far more persuasive tactics must be employed and if the sale goes ahead then only one party (you) will benefit and the other will lose out.
Seeing your stubborn refusal to budge on price, the stallholder crumbles and you shake hands on a fifteen-pound deal. He informs you that you drive a hard bargain, before wiping what looks like dog saliva off the bat with his sleeve and handing you your new purchase in a supermarket carrier bag. This is an example of distributive negotiation and it requires a far more hard-nosed approach than does integrative negotiation.
The different approaches towards distributive and integrative negotiation sometimes run at complete opposites.
For example, when involved in distributive negations such as the latter of the two scenarios above, it is important not to display any signs of weakness to the opposition.
Tell tale signs such as over-eagerness or demonstrating a need for what the opposition holds could be pounced upon. If the stallholder in the second scenario above knew that the customer had only fifteen pounds with him, then he would have been placed in a position of strength because the customer’s cards would all be on the table. Distributive negotiations are best played out with a poker face.
In integrative negotiation, however, the opposite is true, as it is more productive to share information and to co-operate. This time, using the former of the scenarios above as an example, a satisfactory compromise was reached through co-operation and the exchange of information relative to the needs of each party.
Understanding the differences between distributive and integrative negotiation makes the negotiator better prepared and knowing which type to adopt in differing scenarios increases the chance of a successful outcome.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on negotiating skills courses, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Some Things To Avoid When Managing Upwards
As a football daft adolescent I was a keen reader of the magazine Shoot! which was famed for such features as cardboard league ladders and a cartoon strip called You are the Ref. In the latter of these an imaginary situation from a game of football would be described and the reader had to make what he or she thought to be the correct refereeing decision.
It was through this column that I learned such facts as a player cannot be offside from a throw in, and a goal scored inadvertently by a stray dog on the pitch would not stand. So to pay homage to this entertaining and informative strip, here is my own effort, minus the pictures, You are the Middle Manager.
A worker is about to send a package to a client and she asks you, as her manager, if the package should be sent first class or second. You tell her that, as there is a penalty for late completion of this job, all communications should be carried out in the most efficient way possible and so the package should be sent first class. At this point a senior manager who is also in the office, and has overheard the conversation, pipes up. He reminds you that the firm is currently in the middle of an economy drive and that the package should be sent second class.
This is a delicate situation. You have been overruled by a senior colleague who is making what you believe to be an ill-judged decision and while your middle management status allows you to direct the worker as to posting the package, you hold no such power over your senior. If this package is sent second class and the delay in delivery causes a hold up in the job, then the responsibility for it may well beat a path back to the door of your office.
So what do you do?
You manage upwards. That is to say you use various skills to go against a decision made by a senior colleague without incurring his wrath. You put your head into the lion’s mouth, as it were, and bring it out unscathed.
Managing upwards requires just the right balance that is not too pushy but not too timid either. The following points to avoid may help you get an idea of how to strike that balance.
Do not visualise your senior colleague as an opponent. Always remember that you are both playing for the same side and the success of that side is the common goal. Get to know your manager; find out what motivates him (or her) and any likes and dislikes.
Do not exaggerate your needs in the hope that this will stand a greater chance of success. If you try to win favour by saying that the sky will be blue if you get what you want, or that it will fall in if you don’t, you may be found out and all subsequent requests will be subject to more in-depth scrutiny. The best policy is to tell it like it is.
Do not sweep problems under the rug. If you have to tell your manager something negative, that a project has fallen behind schedule for example, then do it straight away. Yes you will be chewed out for it, but running projects to schedule is a part of your job and sometimes things just don’t go according to plan.
The thing to remember is that the longer you put off coming clean, the more severe the censure will be when you are forced to hold up your hands. And if a project does fall behind schedule, don’t be tempted to keep it under wraps in the hope that you can get it back on track without anyone being wise to your plan. You may fall even further behind and have to approach your manager with some news he really doesn’t want to hear.
Do not fawn and grovel in order to stay in the good books, as this is like waving a flag that says weakling. Agreeing with everything your manager says will only project you as a yes man who lacks assertion, and when promotions come around guess who will be left on the shelf? Remember that managing upwards is what good middle managers do and some disagreement with seniors is bound to occur.
But do not be intimidated either. You have worked hard to achieve the status of middle manager and you do not want to jeopardise your position by coming across as a shrinking violet. Saying no to the boss can actually be a positive move, providing you can back up your reason for disagreeing with reasoned argument. This will project you as a good manager who is prepared to stand up for what he believes to be right, and this is no more than is expected of you.
So brush up on your upward management skills and give yourself every chance of being noticed for the good middle manager you are. Alternatively, ignore the advice above and have your name permanently affixed at the bottom of the managerial league ladder.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on managing upwards training, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Hot Tips for You To Improve your Negotiation Skills
There are all kinds of skills that one needs to be truly successful as an entrepreneur, and one of those skills is the ability to negotiate. Pretty much everything we do in life involves negotiation in one way or another, and over the years, it is a skill that can be finely tuned. If you are planning on becoming an entrepreneur, you are really going to have to lean on your negotiating skills a lot, especially in the beginning, in order to ensure success. Here are some hot tips to help you be a better negotiator:
The power of abundance is essential: It is true that the more people have, the less they worry about losing a little bit. This can actually be a state of mind for everyone. You just have to believe that you have an abundance of something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be money. You can have an abundance of talent, skills, or anything else, which will help give you the confidence to get out there and be able to negotiate your butt off. Remember to stay calm and believe in yourself, and you will be in an awesome position for negotiating anything.
Body language is so important: A lot of what you say doesn’t come out in words. More than 50% of what you say comes from your body language, which can make or break a lot of deals. To become a better negotiator, it is a really good idea to learn about body language, and how you can use it to your advantage. Here is a great example. A lot of people often don’t know what to do with their hands. The often end up sitting or standing with their arms crossed, which can actually show disinterest or even worse. Just knowing about how body language works and how to use it properly will give you a great edge when it comes to the art of negotiation.
Prove that you have value and that your services or products are really needed: When you are negotiating anything, you are always trying to get the upper hand and the best way to do this is to explain the benefits of what it is you are trying to promote or negotiate for and the problems that these benefits solve for the person you are negotiating with. Having the right attitude, along with body language and making an irresistible offer will really help you to seal the deals you make.
Sometimes you have to walk away to get what you want: Negotiating involves haggling, and sometimes, you just have to get up and walk away from the table, and make the other party think that you are no longer interested in making a deal. Basically, you and whoever you are negotiating with are throwing out prices, and you can either accept something, or walk away. This involves a little bit of acting, but you can actually win your negotiations by doing this, because there is a possibility that the person you are negotiating with is going to be afraid of losing the deal all together. And, if the deal still doesn’t suit you, there are always going to be others down the road that you will negotiate to your satisfaction, and those you are dealing with know it. This makes it even easier for you to pretend to walk away, helping you to seal the deal in the end. And remember, at worst case scenario; you can always just walk away if the deal does not feel right for you, in fact you should!
Andrew McCombe is the owner of Activate Your Business where they teach new and existing business owners to Start, Grow and / or Automate their business(es) with EASE, so they can live a life of EASE. For more information visit Activate Your Business