Negotiation Skills - Your Objectives

Step 2. Identifying Negotiation Objectives

The first step in planning any form of negotiation is to identify all your objectives. What do you want to get out of the negotiation? Only when you know that can you begin to formulate a game plan that will enable you to achieve these goals.

There is rarely just one objective to a negotiation. Before entering a negotiation, make a list of your objectives, then put them in your order of priority and identify those that you can live without. When it comes to compromise, you will be aware of which objectives to yield first. Here is an example:

Assigning different priorities

Divide your priorities into three groups:

• Those that are your ideal
• Those that represent a realistic target
• Those that are the minimum you must fulfil to feel that the negotiation has not been a failure

Assign each a value. Prioritising in this way ensures that you do not end up compromising on the wrong issue.

A useful distinction that can help in assigning values to different objectives is that between “want” and “needs”. On the one hand, you may decide that you would like to replace your basic telephone with a sophisticated new telephone with lots of automatic functions. On the other hand, when your computer hard drive breaks down irretrievably, you need that replaced as soon as possible to be able to function properly in the office. So while you want a new phone, you do not need one. What you need is a computer hard drive. Understanding the subtlety of this difference is vital to recognising your opponent’s wants and needs around the negotiation table.

Preparing Yourself

Preparing yourself for serious negotiation involves thorough research. You will need to seek out useful information to support your objectives - once you have identified them - and find information that will help you to undermine the other party’s case.

Allow for preparation time before you start negotiating is vital, as is the constructive use of that time.
Allow yourself enough time to complete your research satisfactorily. You need time to find statistics and case studies to support your arguments and consideration of the personalities with whom you will be negotiating. Absorb the information, and use it tactically. For example, if you plan to use complex statistics, prepare an explanation to show how they support your case, rather than undermine the other party by exposing their ignorance of your material.

Important points to remember

• It is worth developing lines of access to information, since they may be useful in future, if not now
• Incorrect information is worse than no information at all
• Too many statistics may only confuse the issue
• Company’s annual accounts can be a mine of useful information
• Your approach should bear in mind what information is available to the other party

Having compiled plenty of data, begin to develop a logical argument. You will need to follow through your logic in one of two basic ways:

Deductively - a conclusion follows from a set of premises. For example, “I am a shareholder in Technology Universal. They will pay a dividend this quarter of 0.7 pence per share. Therefore I shall receive a dividend of 0.7 pence per share this quarter”.

Inductively - a conclusion is drawn from examples based on experiences. For example, “Every time someone in Technology Universal has become a vice-president, they receive a pay rise. I am being made vice-president, therefore I will receive a pay rise” .

If the expected pay rise fails to follow promotion on just one occasion, it undermines the logic.

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