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When you think negotiation, you many times think of the courtroom or even the Middle East crisis. The thing is, your daily life involves a bit of negotiation. As a post-grad wanderer you are stuck negotiating for jobs, fruit, friends, relationships, and your own sanity. You spent all this time getting to know yourself, so be a bit selfish. Compromise doesn’t mean that you don’t get what you want, just that everyone involved gets something. You might think that it’s a matter of dividing up a pie when in fact you are each looking at different pies altogether. Take a moment, a breather, and remember that you and the bed, the day’s outfit, or the traffic will figure something out. Maybe what isn’t working is actually providing you with an opportunity, you just have to look at it from the un-tucked shirt’s point of view.
There are a few other things to keep in mind when negotiating. This is a bit of a review and summary of a book I recently enjoyed.
Getting to YES!
A book I read recently, below is a bit of a summary. A great read considering our culture is one filled with negotiation every day.
“Yes,” is an answer you can get to while still achieving mutually acceptable agreements. A negotiation is the reaching of agreement through discussion and compromise.
In the position of a negotiator, lack of information and ideas are your worst enemy. The terms on which your agreement might be made should be dependent on the fullest deck of cards you can think of. Use aspects of time, capital, and other non-monetary resources to your advantage.
Maximize utility (mutually successful negotiation) between the two of you by recognizing basic human needs: economic well-being, a sense of belonging, recognition, and control over one’s life. You will be most successful if you are able to fill their shoes and during negotiation help them fill yours. Asking “Why?” and “Why not?” can be good general aids in gathering this type of information.
Separate position from principle. Allow many different options to shine so the parties involved work side-by-side more than against each other. The encouragement of criticism is one more step into a pile of information. The goal being to eventually separate the people from the problem.
Decide in detail on a best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA).
Prepare, in the way that you know yourself, everything for each side you will be negotiating with. As useful as looking for objective reality can be, it is ultimately the reality as each side sees it that constitutes the problem in negotiation and opens the way to a solution.
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