Transcript
Transcript: Unlocking Negotiation Success: Preparing for Negotiations
[00:00:00 Title appears on screen, followed by Glen Whyte seated on a stool in a large, open office space.]
[00:00:07 Text on screen: Glen Whyte, Professor, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, University of Toronto.]
Glen Whyte: One of the most common mistakes people make in negotiation is either not to prepare or to under prepare. And um, that's an interesting mistake, because it's pretty obvious to everybody that when you're involved in an important negotiation, it would be a good thing to be well prepared. It's not that complicated. You need to think about a number of things in advance, and no guarantee you'd be able to answer these questions. But if you can't answer these questions, then you'll know what to ask the other side. There'll be some blanks to be filled, and you can fill them in when you meet your counterpart. But effective planning preparation basically means you think about a number of things, not only from your perspective, but also from the perspective of your counterpart.
So things like, what are the issues? An issue is simply an item that's on the table that's up for resolution. You need to think about what are your, what are your counterpart's issues. It can be quite helpful for people in advance of talking about the substance, they get together, and they have a discussion about the issues so that everybody knows what the focus will be for the, upcoming, the discussion. And at a minimum, that type of preparation helps inoculate you against some of these 11th hour, you think your work is done, and then they say, well, what about that? And you can say, well, hey, that's not on our list of the issues. If you don't have that list of issues agreed on in advance, you can't actually do that. So beyond the issues, who are the stakeholders?
These are parties that, at a minimum, have some power to affect the success or failure of whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. You better engage them in the process. And if not power, who's got legitimacy with respect to the issues? Who's got urgency in terms of these, resolution of these issues? What are the alternatives to a negotiated solution? Thinking about, what happens if you don't do the deal? You can't intelligently negotiate unless you think about the consequences of being unsuccessful with respect to the negotiation. What happens if you end up with an impasse? How attractive or unattractive is that? And not only you need, you need to think about this from your perspective. What about your counterpart's perspective? How attractive or unattractive are the options associated with, the failure to reach an agreement?
What are your interests? Not only what are your interests, what are your counterpart's interests? Interests are what actually matter to people. Interests are different from positions. A position is a publicly stated demand. Interest motivates position. Interests explain why people ask for what they're asking for. The positions people take may be fundamentally irreconcilable, but if you understand the interest motive in the positions, you just might be able to craft a solution. So it's a major error in negotiations, I would suggest, to confuse someone's position with their interests.
But there's all sorts of intangibles at play, in negotiations. Setting targets, thinking about opening offers, and of course, thinking about the arguments you will make at the table. Negotiation consists of more than just bids and offers. You need to have a justification to support and explain whatever it is you are asking for. This is all in the realm of planning and prep. When you do this, it doesn't guarantee success, but it sure makes success a lot more likely.
[00:03:37 The CSPS logo appears on screen. Text appears on screen: canada.ca/school. The government of Canada logo appears on screen.]
