Win-Win Negotiation Strategy!
A negotiation strategy that ranks as the most popular and accepted way of conducting business negotiations is the win-win strategy. The examples of win-win negotiations illustrate the concept as one where both sides not only win, but also feel that they have won.
Negotiation involves a dialogue between two or more parties aimed at striking an agreement that resolves differences.
Traditional negotiations take the positional bargaining approach, where each side in the negotiation process tries to gain favorable terms with scant regards for the other side, and which naturally meet resistance from the other side. Negotiations end when all parties identify a common ground and reach an agreement on this basis.
The win-win negotiation approach is a newer approach to negotiation, and it is the preferred option among the other negotiation styles of win-lose, lose-win, and lose-lose. In this approach, one party looks at the other as a partner instead of trying to corner the maximum advantage.
Key points when aiming for a Win-Win outcome include:
- Focus on maintaining the relationship - ‘separate the people from the problem’.
- Focus on interests not positions.
- Generate a variety of options that offer gains to both parties before deciding what to do.
- Aim for the result to be based on an objective standard.
Rules for win-win negotiating
1. Listen carefully to the other party. Don't interrupt the other party, don't spend your listening time figuring out how you're going to shock the other party when he or she finally stops talking. Most people carry on an inner dialogue with themselves while listening to others.
2. Be open and flexible. This will also allow the person you are negotiating with to be open and flexible. Negotiation is a form of communication. Without trust, communication is not successful.
3. Ask questions that will uncover the needs or interests of the other party.
4. Try to offer more than one solution to the problem. There could be more than one solution to the problem at hand. Moreover, if the person you are negotiating with knows that she has more than one option, she will not feel as if she is being forced into an agreement. Then she will be willing to listen to you and compromise.
5. Separate people from the problem. You may not like the person you are negotiating with. But that person is not the reason you are negotiating. You are negotiating in order to solve a problem (which is usually of great importance to you). So concentrate on the problem.
6. It’s not enough to know what you want out of negotiation. You also need to anticipate what the other party wants. The smart negotiator also tries to anticipate what the other party thinks he or she wants.
7. If you have created the grounds well, be willing to say "no" to the person you are negotiating with if his demands are unacceptable. A bad agreement is much worse than no agreement.
8. See to it that the other party wins, especially if it does not compromise your position. A happy opponent will not mind making you happy in return! Instead of "If you will do this, then I will do that" we should ensure that what each party has to bring to the negotiated deal creates more value than the sum of the parts that each contributes. Negotiation should bring about added value.
9. Be patient. Negotiating what you want may take more time than you think.
10. Know what a win is. What is your best-case scenario? What is your worst-case scenario? The area in between is called settlement range. If you can reach an agreement within your settlement range, that’s a win! Stop when you will, not when you ‘defeat’ the other party.
11. Know your best alternative to a negotiated alternative (BATNA).
12. Know the other party’s BATNA.
BATNA stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. The acronym was derived after research on negotiation conducted by the Harvard Negotiation Project.