Five enduring principles to unlock difficult negotiations

A colleague recently asked me to support him in a difficult partner negotiation. The discussion was about trade margins and he was apprehensive. He turned out to be right. For quickly after kicking off, the parties focused on that single issue. They stubbornly pushed the same arguments back and forth until no compromise was possible. Ultimately, they broke up without agreement.

It did not have to be this way. Some negotiators tend to focus exclusively on one single issue that directly preoccupies them. They also think they have a choice between two main strategies: negotiating in a tough, demanding manner or in a friendly, accommodating manner. They treat the negotiation as a competition or a zero-sum game where one party’s gain is the other party’s loss. With this limited frame of mind margins for maneuvering are narrow and outcomes usually predictable.

There is however a third way in which to treat the negotiation process simultaneously as a competition and a collaboration. Collaboration allows for the creation of value through identifying and trading across different issues. This way of “expanding the pie” allows a more satisfying distribution between the parties. When negotiations deliberately expand to include multiple issues, they allow for integration of more sources of value. This facilitates tradeoffs, swaps and creative deal making.  

So how can we create the context for such successful integrative negotiations to happen? 

Here are five enduring principles that I have found useful over the years. They have been mostly described in the much acclaimed Getting to Yes, by Fisher, Ury, and Patton.

1. Focus on interests, not positions. It is much useful if negotiators look beyond their differences to identify their respective underlying interests, and real hidden motivations. By doing so they will also identify additional issues and integrate them in the process, thereby making agreement more likely. You can understand the other party’s perspective as if you were seeing it through their own eyes by asking lots of open-ended questions, actively listening and showing patience and even acceptance for the legitimacy of their views. If you can postpone the expression of your position until you have thoroughly understood the other party’s, you might be surprised to see that you are slowly starting to integrate what you learned in your own stance. As a result of this iterative process emotions go out of the discussion, differences are reduced, and those differences which remain are of rational and understandable sort. Multiple issues that parties care about can then become clear. 
2. Capitalize on your differences. Negotiators can often perceive differences between parties as an impediment to reaching an agreement. In reality, more often than not they are opportunities to create value and do useful tradeoffs: one party can gain more of what they want by giving away something they care less about. Negotiators can capitalize on any kind of differences they perceive. For example, differences in forecasting, preferences for fixed versus variable pay offs, to name a few.
3.  Establish a set of objective criteria for evaluating solutions. While parties will not want to divulge their bottom lines or reservation points, if they build sufficient trust between each other, they can start to signal their zone of possible agreement across the multiple issues. They will also start disclosing what data and facts they are using and comparing them with the other party. This helps establish common ground on which to start building. 
4. Creating multiple options for resolution. As a result of practicing the above principles, parties can start identifying multiple issues of interest that they can integrate in the discussion. They start them shaping their proposals. Spending a lot of time brainstorming ideas, combining them and checking them against the objective acceptance criteria of both parties can be a useful way of generating acceptable possibilities.
5. Negotiating multiple issues simultaneously. By negotiating one issue at a time negotiator would prevent themselves from capitalizing on their differences with trade across issues. A better approach is therefore to agree that “nothing is settled until everything is settled” and create a mindset that encourages all parties to trade off.

These enduring negotiating principles have time and again allowed seemingly deadlocked situations to expand and produce rich and creative agreements. The pre-requisite is to think equally in terms of competition and collaboration. This may not prevent discussions from being difficult nor for parties to hold out on their positions or withhold concessions until the last minutes. However, this would certainly create this extra bit of value you need to satisfy everyone around the table and clinch that much needed deal.