- Overcoming Deadlock in Negotiation
- Take a Break
- Recap What Has Occurred
- Decide What Will be Lost
- Express How You Feel
- Change the Subject
- Attempt to Secure an Agreement-in-Principle
- Try Bridge-Issue Agreements
- Discuss What Alternatives Remain
- Make an Important Disclosure
- Ask a Hypothetical Question
- Try Using a Quick Close
- Diagram Differences
- Give Something to Get Something
- Bring Up Future Needs
- Discuss Good Association
- Change Locations
- Call it Quits (least recommended always)
- Most Common Techniques for Quick Close
- Alternative – either/or close, offer of a choice
- Assumption – assuming the other party is accepting and ready for more details
- Concession – few concessions in reserve till the end, as a sign of goodwill, to come to an agreement
- Incremental – one issue after another
- Linkage – settling remaining issues as “concession for a concession”
- Prompting – immediate agreement via final offer with special benefits
- Summarizing – summarize discussed and agreed and prompt confirmation
- Splitting the Difference – meeting halfway on the remaining differences
- Trial – trial offer where objections indicate further areas to discuss
- Ultimatum or Else – to force to make a decision on last offer
- Exploding Offers – Not only an offer, but the last offer. Used to force a quick acceptance by ending the negotiation. It is used to restrict the ability of the recipient to comparison shop. It is one of the hardest strategies to deal with. If used against you:
- try to explain the reason, uncover interests
- point to to some mutual interest
- generate some reasonable options
- The Farpoint Gambit – Used against exploding offer to fight the fire with fire – when the other options mentioned above are not working. This is a very powerful comeback against exploding offers and should be used if you are genuinely interested in the offer, and if there genuinely are the issues that would make difference for you to make a decision. You can also use it when you think the party making you an exploding offer is actually not behaving ethically. So the strategy is: to accept provisionally – but make sure your provisions are reasonable, such as:
- need for further clarification
- lack of authority of negotiator
- genuine desire of commitment
- emphasis on avoiding dubious morality
- Joint Problem Solving Principles to Consider
- Ask, Listen, Learn – active listening, avoiding yes/no questions, asking open questions
- Begin with the end – i.e. mention all the points you think your opponent is about to mention
- Use reciprocity to build trust
- Always have several options, multiple offers, – just think of the sequence with which to reveal those
- Adopt side by side approach instead of face to face approach for problem solving, not for blaming each other.
- Adopt Persuasive Style
- Understand their Story
- Be Open to Persuasion
- Be both Empathetic and Assertive
- Frame in terms of what recipient cares about
- Seek arguments that feel fair to both sides
- Persuade with stories and analysis
- Be prepared to stand with counter-arguments
- Build substance and relationship credibility
- Understand recipient feelings and appeal to them
- Respond to the emotion with the emotion
- Deal and Manage YOUR feelings too
- Apply and Consider cultural filters
Task to Prepare
There is no specific task to prepare for this reading apart from getting yourself familiar with the tactics presented here and discussed in class.
During the upcoming class we will have some team competition. We will split into two competing teams and will have to make some rounds of decision trying to achieve objectives set.
Looking forward to seeing you in negotiations!