Knowing how to communicate can be a skill to acquire, and an art to master; our way and manners of delivering our point of view makes an impact on the person we are negotiating with, and help resolve conflicts and achieve results.
There are key disciplines to negotiation and there are challenges as well. The most fundamental part is how can it be fruitful, making both individuals content and reaching a decision calmly without any agitation. Negotiation can be a necessity for those who want to have a better communication, whether with family, friends, politicians and even with kids.
Negotiation is the means for discussions that two parties have in order to reach a solution or solve a certain conflict between them. It should make both individuals satisfied with the decision taken. Negotiators must always retain manners and patience. In order to keep away complicated or conflicted relationships, it should also be built on longterm solutions that will equally benefit both parties. (Anonymous 2016)
There are some challenges that people need to overcome in order to conduct a fruitful negotiation. It is mostly our anxiety that may be the reason for our bursts, which is a result of a raising conflict or the fact that our information is not delivered as quiet as we expect it to be.
In her article “Emotion and the Art of Negotiation” Alison Wood Brooks (2015) remarks the affects of our anxiety in the process of negotiation “Anxiety is a state of distress in reaction to threatening stimuli, particularly novel situations that have the potential for undesirable outcomes. In contrast to anger, which motivates people to escalate conflict (the “fight” part of the fight-or-flight response), anxiety trips the “flight” switch and makes people want to exit the scene.” (Brooks,2015)
In other words, sometimes the expectations a person has may not go according to plan, frustration is a quitting motivator, which is often the reason for our quitting. Unlike anger which sometimes carries a force that may drive us to develop a conflict with a dislikable behaviour.
In a word, the solution to this can be relied on patience and persistence going hand in hand.
One major issue most negotiators don’t realize is that it is not a matter of one winner, analyzed by Margaret Neale an award winning researcher and professor. That we have a tendency of viewing negotiation as a battle, this is due to our persistence on imposing our rules and commands. The professor reflects on lessons based on personal experience and emphasizes that one of the mistakes is the focus on winning and getting what you want rather than problem solving. Explaining further, before we initiate a negotiation we need to change our perception of things and consider the needs of others, it is the ultimate guarantee for any healthy partnership, which leads to finding comfort and support in the others, this enhances the manner of communication. Once an individual understands that their commands are put into consideration, they are more likely to stop insisting that things should be done their way. The main target should be focused on problem solving and not on winning the battle. (Neale.M. 2016)
Planing your negotiation is a fundamental element for the negotiation process, persuading someone is not always easy, and can happen gradually, so we are required to brainstorm our thoughts and plan ahead. In addition, emotions are always involved and sometimes they have an impact on the way we think, it sometimes makes us stray away from what we want to communicate. In this dynamic process Meina Liu and Sabine Chai in their article “Planning and Preparation for Effective Negotiation” explain how sometimes our emotions may clash with our goals in the negotiation. Therefore we are obligated to put emotions into consideration when planing ahead, effective planing is beneficial when we want to control agitation towards the unexpected outcome. (Liu.M & Chai.S, 2014)
Negotiation requires good listening, being a good listener is one of the main traits for a good negotiator. However it is not a matter of just listening to the other person or imposing your point of view, it should not feel like a race or a competition to state your facts of your opinions directly without giving the other person a chance to express their opinion. Slowing down is the best way to analyze your thoughts and giving space to the person you’re communicating to, this has to do with controlling our defensive attitude towards what we may not want to hear in order to communicate what we want to say. The affects of listening could immediately ease off the tension, once both individuals feel they have been giving the space to talk, it will surely create harmony in the relationship. (Carlson.R,1997)
On a social level, both negotiators will be critical of each others behaviour and ethics becomes an extremely valuable manner of communication. Our behaviour could determine the course of the negotiation and it is simply by restricting ourselves not to be mislead by interpretations. “Negotiator must skillfully translate what is being said into what the speaker intends to say.” (Zohar.I, 2015).
It is a psychological fact that in any negotiation, people have the urge to prove themselves right. While communicating people spend a great deal of time exerting effort to point out how much they are right.
“A wonderful heartfelt strategy for becoming more peaceful and loving is to practice allowing others the joy of being right - give them the glory” (Carlson. R,1997)
This is a key fact for enhancing negotiation, being less defensive about a personal point of view will ease the tension off. Our attitude towards what we don’t want to hear should be more calm, to allow the other person to accept our arguments as well. Although it is not an easy task to stop ourselves from this defensive mode, it surely comes by practice.
An example of how world leaders view the importance of negotiation in critical times such as during the cold war, is when President Kennedy argued that it is negotiation, not confrontation, was the best course of action, and that it shouldn’t not be viewed as weakness or submission, rather it is a sincere effort to reach resolutions and maybe even save lives. (Zohar.I, 2015)
Negotiation expertise is considered a strategic advantage that leaders of organizations, states and governments should make use of when searching for resolutions and mitigating crisis.
In conclusion, when dealing with any situation that involves conflicting parties, one has to put in mind that for any issue to be resolved many elements come to play. Not just one’s own interests needs to be met, rather it’s adopting the mind set of win-win encounters, and aiming for the greater good is more likely to bring the honest parties together under one umbrella. Many conflicts have resulted from lack of deep understanding of the other and avoiding sincere negotiations. Of course, it is very difficult to have the world adopt such idealism in the art of negotiations. People acquire such skills for negotiation through trials and errors that therefore enables them on the long run to conduct a fruitful negotiation with the means of participating as one to find a solution together.
List of References:
Anonymous (2016) https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/managing-relationships/negotiating
Brooks.A.W, (2015), Emotion and the Art of Negotiation, Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/12/emotion-and-the-art-of-negotiation Accessed : November 26 2018.
Carlson.R (1997) Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff, New York, HYPERION.
Liu.M & Chai.S (2014),Planning and Preparation for Effective Negotiation, World Scientific Book Chapters: NEGOTIATION EXCELLENCE Successful Deal Making, chapter 1, pages 1-22,World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.. https://ideas.repec.org/h/wsi/wschap/9789814556958_0001.html Accessed: November 11 2018
Neale.M (2016), Negotiation expert: Lessons from my horse [Video],TEDxStanford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTTtn0i_ZyA Accessed: November 28 2018
Zohar.I, (2015) The Art of Negotiation: Leadership Skills Required for Negotiation in Time of Crisis, Elsevier Ltd, Research series, 540 – 548,
www.sciencedirect.com accessed: 22 November 2018
