{"id":173,"date":"2013-10-04T16:22:25","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T21:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2013-10-04T19:30:38","modified_gmt":"2013-10-05T00:30:38","slug":"how-to-negotiate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"How to Negotiate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If the current shutdown kerfuffle has highlighted anything for me, it’s the regrettable fact that Americans, on the whole, don’t know how to negotiate (also that a large part of our government is unclear on the actual definitions of the terms, “hostage” and “terrorist”).\u00a0 So, purely as a public service, and not at all to show people how smart I am and they aren’t, here is my free class on how to negotiate.<\/p>\n

Before you Start: <\/strong>Be prepared.\u00a0 You can not walk into a negotiation without knowing three things:\u00a0 What you want.\u00a0 What the other side wants.\u00a0 What you are willing to settle for.<\/p>\n

Let’s say you have a cheap supply of bananas, and your neighbor has a cheap supply of cherries.\u00a0 Now, what you want in this situation is to trade bananas for cherries; surprisingly enough, that’s also what your neighbor wants.\u00a0 Of course, what you really want is to trade bananas for cherries at a rate that gives you an advantage (say 30 cherries per banana).\u00a0 Your neighbor would like the same deal, in reverse (straight up 1:1 trade).\u00a0 So let’s say that you’re willing to settle for a direct trade by weight (about 10 cherries\/banana).<\/p>\n

At the Beginning:\u00a0 <\/strong>Ask for slightly more than you want.\u00a0 If the negotiation goes correctly, you won’t get it.\u00a0 You won’t get what you want, either, but, if you play it right, you’ll get more than you’re willing to settle for.\u00a0 I don’t know who, but someone once said that in the ideal negotiation, both sides walk away feeling like they’ve played the other for\u00a0a sap.\u00a0 That’s what you’re aiming for.<\/p>\n

Give the other guy a chance to make the first offer.\u00a0 Opening offers set the boundaries of the negotiation, and knowing what he’s asking for gives you an idea of his limits.\u00a0 If he is reticent, go ahead and give your own opening offer.\u00a0 The advantage afforded by the knowledge he can glean from your opener is short-lived at best.<\/p>\n

Trading Horses:\u00a0 <\/strong>Be civil.\u00a0 Counter to the beliefs of a variety of sociopathic self-help gurus, a negotiation is not a war.\u00a0 It’s not any kind of contest at all.\u00a0 A negotiation is an attempt to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.\u00a0 You don’t have to win, you just have to avoid losing.<\/p>\n

Be prepared to walk away.\u00a0 That bottom limit for which you’re willing to settle?\u00a0 That should be firm.\u00a0 If the other guy isn’t willing to reach that.\u00a0 You should calmly stand up, shake his hand, and thank him for his time while regretfully informing him that you can’t make a deal.\u00a0 If you’re not prepared to walk away, you may as well not bother negotiating, because you will lose.<\/p>\n

Be rational.\u00a0 Don’t get angry; don’t get sad.\u00a0 Don’t let his anger or tears affect your decision.\u00a0 Remember, the soul of a negotiation is “I want A for B, but I’m willing to settle for C.”<\/p>\n

Disregard irrelevancies.\u00a0 The only thing that is important in a negotiation is the item of negotiation.\u00a0 His lovely wife, ailing mother, and five beautiful children are not your problem.\u00a0 Negotiation is a business matter, and allowing irrelevant concerns to enter into it clouds the water and makes rational bargaining impossible.<\/p>\n

Closing the Deal:\u00a0 <\/strong>When you have both reached a mutual agreement, understand that, no matter how it may look to you, you both got something out of the deal.\u00a0 Even if he doesn’t know that you pay less for a pound of bananas than he does for a pound of cherries, you don’t know that he has a sweetheart deal trading apples for those bananas at a rate that more than makes up for his apparent loss.<\/p>\n

Basically, don’t second-guess yourself or the other guy.\u00a0 Both of you have hidden motives and knowledge, but as long as neither is dissatisfied with the final deal, then it’s a good deal.\u00a0 If you later re-examine the deal and think you let it go too easily, remember that the deal fulfilled your requirements at the time it was made, and mark the issues you discovered after the fact as a learning experience.<\/p>\n

And always remember:\u00a0 Negotiation is how civil people resolve a<\/strong> conflict.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the current shutdown kerfuffle has highlighted anything for me, it’s the regrettable fact that Americans, on the whole, don’t know how to negotiate (also that a large part of our government is unclear on the actual definitions of the terms, “hostage” and “terrorist”).\u00a0 So, purely as a public service, and not at all to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.casualnotice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}