Getting More

 

 

p.24

Knowing the rules of negotiation doesn't mean that you can negotiate well - any more than you can beat a world-class tennis player because you have read forty-two books on tennis.

 

Great negotiators are made, not born. Excellence comes from focus and practice. I have taught people who were initially terrible at negotiation, but they soared in a single semester. In other words, creating a List is not enough. You have to implement it, over and over, and learn from your mistakes. It is not hard to learn.

 

p.98

You should always try to set the standards before the negotiation starts. People see the value of a general rule at the start of the process. If you don't do that and try to set standards later when it clearly benefits you, others will think you are being manipulate and taking advantage of the situation.

 

p.99

In negotiating, start with the easy things. It gives both parties of accomplishment. An easy thing is "When is the next meeting?" Even if the first five items are merely logistical, they are not trivial. Accomplishing anything makes the parties feel much better about the meeting and become much more collaborative.

 

p.103~104

In corporate or relationship settings, you have to be careful about the way you name bad behavior. Tact is often required. One example is someone trying to take credit for your idea. You bring up a great idea in a meeting, only to have someone paraphrase it as their own later in the meeting. This is a perfect occasion to name bad behavior - without making yourself the issue.

 

First, compliment them. "That's excellent!" you should say, without sarcasm. "When I brought this idea up a few minutes ago, I was hoping someone else would endorse it. Glad to see we agree!" Or, if you want to be even tougher (without making yourself the issue), you might say something like, "Terrific! When I brought up the idea a few minutes ago, I didn't know anyone else was working on it." Then review what your group has done with the idea and ask sweetly, "So what have you all been doing with the idea?"

They may waffle their way out of it that time. But they will never do it again.

p.104

Not getting upset when the other person violates their own standards is key. It takes a change in attitude to get it right. For example, every time someone tries to cheat me, I tell my team not to get upset. "Look at it this way," I say. "We just made money!" We name the bad behavior and get a chit. I am happy when others try to cheat. Now, I have them pegged as cheaters. And I can use it forever.

 

When people don't return phone calls or emails, try not to get upset. Just keep a list of the dates and times of your calls. When you get enough of a record, email them, saying, "Gee, we called you fourteen times in the past two weeks; we were hoping to reach you. Is there something else we can do?" Now you've got a record you can use with third parties. But you probably won't use it often; they almost always call back.

 

Moira McCullough got to her beach house one rainy summer weekend only to find the landlord there with some of his friends. "The landlord had assumed that we wouldn't be out for the weekend," she said.

 

Many people would be angry at the landlord. This would have gotten her nowhere. The landlord would have become defensive and Moira would have had to sue the landlord to enforce the lease. Instead, she was cool as a cucumber. "I asked him if we had paid for use of the house for the entire summer, seven days a week, for sixteen weeks," she said.

 

He admitted he had acted improperly. Still matter-of-fact, Moira asked him for concessions. She got two more weeks in September at no charge. "People too often lose focus on their goals," said Moira, later a telecommunications manager in London and New York and now a stay-at-home mom for her kids, ages seven, ten, and eleven.

 

Train yourself to do this. You will get more this way. You will meet your goals more often.

 

p.105

When you do something wrong, do others try to exact too big a penalty from you? You can use framing here, too. Essentially, they have behaved badly in "overcharging" you for your bad behavior. In such situations, you can ask, "So how much do you want to hurt me for this?" It gives people a sense of perspective.

 

p.106

"She began blaming the advertising agency for making a mistake," James said. "She started to get very heated about it. I kept my cool. I kept bringing her back to the same standards issues: her authority, customer satisfaction, honoring its policies. I asked if money is more important than customer satisfaction and honoring its policies."

 

Finally she started screaming at James and his fiancee, "Okay, that's right, making money is most important to me!" James took a step back and waited. Suddenly people in the crowded store stopped and looked at the owner, surprised looks on their faces. A few seconds, seeming like an eternity, passed. James was already thinking about the letter he would write to corporate headquaters about this franchisee. He knew she knew that.

 

"I camly started to restate her words to the rest of the now-quite store," James said. "The owner stopped me, apologized, and said I was right. She said customers are in fact more important and the store would stand behind its advertising." He asked his fiancee to give the owner the chosen frames and the coupon. "They gave us the completed glasses in thirty minutes," he said.

 

p.110

Shawn Rodriguez was told that "federal regulation" required his lower-interest loans to be paid off first. This turned out to be incorrect. But Shawn's conversation with the loan rep did not have to be hostile. All Shawn needed to do was to get her name and ask for whatever backup she had. Once he checked it out and found out the claim wasn't true, he was able to get something for it.

 

"I didn't assume a war," said Shawn, now an associate in the law firm of Gibson, Dumn & Crutcher. "To be contentious would have been counterproductive. I just fixed the problem, got the credit, and met my goals."

 

 

p.110~111

Competitive negotiation is exactly the same. Don't get distracted by, well, distractions: winning, losing, what happened yesterday, unfair play, a referee's call, what might happen tomorrow, the next period, a penalty, the emotion of the moment.

 

Instead, execute and focus: what are my goals, what standards should I use, what are their needs, can I invoke any common enemies, can I form a vision of a relationship, who is their decision-maker, etc.

 

Before you negotiate, to be sure, you will strategize and prepare. Then you will focus and execute your strategy, dispassionately. If you see a problem, you'll take a break, reexamine your strategy, make any needed changes. Then you will go back into the negotiation and execute again. This is a powerful process. It works for the best sports teams and the best negotiators.

 

It's also important to consider this method with hard bargainers, because the world is a place where many people cheat. People who cheat are hard bargainers - they make it hard to get fair processes and results. So your attitude in approaching hard bargainers is important. Don't let him get to you so you become eomtional and make a mistake; focuse on your goals. By going through the dispassionate process just described, you are much better able to deal with hard bargainers.

 

In competitive life, there are two kinds of people: those who are qualified, and those who try to steal from those who are qualified. What this really means is that many, if not most, hard bargainers act the way they do because they lack the skill to meet their goals fair and square. So they have to lie, cheat, and steal.

 

The key is to not get upset or take it personally. Less skilled people have to eat, too. Indeed, in tough economic times, studies show, the number of people who cheat goes up.

 

So just figure out your goals, use negotiation tools, meet your goals, and move on. They are who they are. Lower your expectation of other parties' truthworthiness. That way, you will never be disappointed. And you will often be pleasantly surpriesed.

 

p.114

"Trading items of unequal value" tells you what you have to do. First you have to find the pictures in their heads. Then you have to find the pictures in yours. You find out which ones don't cost one side much but are valuable to the other side. Then you trade them.

 

The pictures in their heads don't have to be in the deal itself. They can be from anywhere. In fact, the more you look at the whole world as your potential resource base, the easier it will be to find something the other side wants.

 

The CEO of a major company in Philadelphia once said that the most important thing he ever did for his most important business client in a twenty-year business relationship was to pick up the client CEO's mother-in-law at the Philadelphia airport one Saturday night. His action had nothing to do with any deal. But it affected every deal forever after.