Negotiation

Negotiation

Negotiation is a process of conferring, discussing and bargaining with two or more parties with different needs and wants to reach an agreement. Negotiation is at the heart of selling any product or service, clinching orders for purchasing/procurement and resolving conflicts/disagreements among management and union, nations, communities, and individuals.

Successful negotiators are rated as effective by the parties in dispute, have a track record of significant success and have a low incidence of implementation failures. They have markedly different behavior as they avoid the use of „irritators‟, offer fewer counter proposals, avoiding getting in to „defend- attack spiral‟ and avoid dilution of agreement. They often give advance indication of behavior supporting agreement, give reasons before indicating disagreement, resort to testing understanding by summarizing, seek more information and share own feelings to build trust.

Negotiations must be planned meticulously by spending quality time in preparations, exploring a range of options available, focusing on common grounds, freeing issues from sequencing and scheduling, concentrating on long term issues and setting the maximum, the minimum and the target values for issues under negotiations.

In general, the process of negotiations follows three patterns – firstly, giving ones‟ point of view, secondly, giving ones‟ point of view while simultaneously analyzing others‟ objections and own counters and thirdly, finding and enlarging common grounds of agreement. Skilled negotiators adopt the third pattern.

Researchers have identified four styles of negotiations – factual, intuitive, normative and analytical. Individuals should determine own style of negotiations and enhance their negotiation skills.

Negotiating power is individuals‟ ability to influence others‟ decisions and is dependent upon others‟ perception of ones‟ capability. Negotiating power is not a physical force nor does it advocate starting tough and soften up later. Sources of negotiating power are linked to power of skills, knowledge and good relationships. This negotiating power can also flow from seeking good alternatives to negotiations, finding elegant solutions and remaining legitimate and committed.

Bargaining is integral to the process of negotiation and is more pronounced in individual and collective forms of employee relations. In such situations, there are two extreme positions – pure negotiations or joint problem-solving. Several bargaining models are available but the most popular one has four stages viz. initial positioning, testing positions, giving concessions and arriving at the settlement. Bargaining involves skills of analysis, ability to argue effectively, signal cooperation and an eye for details.