Let’s magnify the various moves Bill and Jen made in their salary negotiation that my colleague explored in previous blogs Part I and Part II. They reached a deal, but was it to their mutual satisfaction? We’ll categorize the moves as Tactics, Blunders and Best Negotiating Practices (BNPs). Do you agree?

1. Negotiating Tactics – moves made for short term advantage that risk losing credibility or trust;
2. Negotiating Blunders – moves or approaches that fail to achieve their objective or any other positive outcome; and
3. Best Negotiating Practices (BNP) – skills, strategies and behaviors that are designed to create and capture value in negotiations.

• responding to her offer in a way that makes it difficult to explore Mattie's interests,
• negotiating against himself without waiting for a counteroffer when faced with Mattie’s various BATNAs/bluffs, and
• declaring multiple times that this is his final offer.

• an assertive but defensible opening offer,
• legitimacy,
• persuasive analogies,
• a strong BATNA, and
• a tapered concession pattern.

Mattie has almost no power in this negotiation, but she leverages something much more potent – her skill as a negotiator – her true grit.

It's no accident that we teach a full workshop on Managing Emotions as You Negotiate. Emotions are the #1 obstacle to a mutually beneficial negotiation. And when tensions flare between co-workers, the impact can reach far beyond the current negotiation, leaving you to solve an emotional puzzle. At some point you have to manage the emotional climate to return to a productive relationship.

The first step to managing emotions is to identify them.

See if your plan matches Lex's strategy.

We return to the tense interaction between co-workers, often referred to as internal negotiations. The situation embroiling Lex and Jess was set out last week. Lex decided to make a few concrete changes for the next meeting with Jess. Lex realized that he needed to understand better what he was feeling when Jess takes over and treats Lex as a subordinate rather than an equal team member. And Lex needed to understand more about why Jess does this.

• what he knows about Jess, 
• what he sees: facial expressions, gestures, and posture, and
• what he hears: tone of voice and emotional words.

1. First, without being placating, Lex can seek Jess’s advice where appropriate to show that he recognizes him as the more experienced team member.
2. When Lex disagrees with something Jess has said, Lex will restate Jess’s idea and ask questions about it rather than disagree with it. Questions, or probes, will lead to new insights.
3. And third, Lex can suggest how Jess must feel about some things to see if he can learn more about Jess’s emotions. For example, “you must be proud of that success…or nervous about losing that client… or feeling overwhelmed with so many projects," etc. Jess will likely appreciate the empathy, or will correct it, either way building a bond with Lex.

Sometimes just asking can save you hundreds of dollars, or hours of negotiating. And unlike Robert Pattinson, you don't have to be acting as a Quidditch team captain, a vampire, or a young billionaire to have the confidence to pull it off.

The idea made the news last week when Robert Pattinson, multimillionaire actor known for his roles in the Harry Potter series, the Twilight series and the just-released Cosmopolis film, explained the way he negotiates on Jimmy Kimmel Live:

Pattinson confirmed that he is a habitual negotiator who "buys everything on Craigslist." His most recent bargain was for a 2001 Silverado listed for around $2500. He recounted bonding with the seller over gas prices, then simply asking for $300 off the price. The seller agreed, he said and didn't really understand the concept of negotiating. "The guy's comeback was "what about $50 bucks more?"

Pattinson's "just ask" strategy was news because we don't imagine a multimillionaire celebrity haggling over $300. But it is not news for procurement professionals in big business across industries, who rely on asking for a greater discount, a changed term, extended service, faster delivery, etc. They "just keep asking," regardless of whether there is anything to justify the ask, not because they are obnoxious or uninformed, but because this tactic works. If a sharp company sales rep appropriately pushes back, an experienced procurement professional might say with light laughter, "Well, I had to ask!"

Remember that if you are "just asking" and can justify your Ask, it's strategic. But if you are "just asking" for no other reason than that it might work, you are using a tactic, which unlike strategies, are non-collaborative moves to gain short term advantage. Like any negotiating tactic, if you overuse then or use them in the wrong situations, expect to erode trust and your own credibility. 

"Just asking" in the right situations, however, does in fact work most of the time. Recently, when billed $2700 for the treatment of an infected blister, of which my insurance paid only $1800, I called the private clinic's billing department. I started with a joke ("you know I didn't have heart surgery, right?") and then simply asked: "I was hoping you could help me out." They cut my bill in half.

An easy, efficient way to practice "just asking" is when you are shopping. A client told me that they had gotten $300 off the mattress they wanted simply by walking around the desired mattress for awhile, chin in hand, saying nothing.

Thoughtful silence is a kind of probe that can work miracles, especially in flea markets and antique stores. The key is to show genuine interest. Don't point out all the problems with the merchandise (i.e., it looks damaged, it's too big, etc.) hoping the seller will see it as less valuable. Sellers, like most negotiators, would prefer a positive interaction with someone likeable who respects their business and merchandise. Complimenting the piece, and the seller's taste or selection, helps a seller invest in you as a customer and try to find a way to get you to buy that piece.

Tips when asking -- or probing -- for a quick and simple bargain:

• As in more involved negotiations, build a little rapport with the seller first. Make small talk -- about the shop, the merchandise, the weather.
• Treat the seller with the utmost respect -- don't badmouth the store, the business or the merchandise. Often in antique stores the seller chose everything in the place.
• Show genuine interest in what you're considering. If you can, know something about it. If not, ask "dumb" questions about it to show your interest and let the seller talk about it.
• Don't try to get to the seller's "bottom" price in smaller negotiations. If you can get $300 off in a few minutes or with one question, you're getting great value for the time you've invested.
• Keep it light. Ask "is there any flexibility on that?" Or "Can you help me out on this?" Or just look at the object quietly, with appreciation.
• And remember, "just asking" is applicable to a lot more than price, in selling, buying and everyday negotiations that help you get what you want. Just ask!

What if you find yourself in a negotiation you're not prepared for?

At one of our workshops recently, a petroleum landman, who negotiates mineral and land rights, asked this question. Earlier that week he had received a phone call from a corporate executive with whom he eventually hoped to negotiate land leases.

He had begun his research, and knew some things about the land value, the corporate owner, and the executive. But when this executive called him out of the blue and started shooting out ideas, making offers, and using terms he didn't understand, the landman stumbled. He said that by the end of the call he had a sour taste in his mouth. The class came up with 5 powerful steps to turn lemon into lemonade.

Our client had found himself, unprepared, in the middle of a negotiation that he hadn't meant to start yet. He didn't know whether it was more important to try to capitalize on the moment, the enthusiasm, and the momentum, or whether to stall. He also wondered if the executive had purposely tried to catch him unprepared in order to gain an advantage. 

What would a master negotiator do?

There are certainly times and places for informal, impromptu bargaining. Much negotiation is accomplished at cocktail parties or business meals that are ostensibly social occasions, and in all bargaining learning to improvise is a key part of your skill-set as a negotiator.  

But improvised negotiations are an oxymoron, because they are the purposeful result of much planning. Improvised negotiations are for negotiators whose interests, positions, goals, and arguments are so familiar to them that they can talk about them spontaneously. In web designer blog "A List Apart" awhile ago, we ran across "Improvising in the Boardroom," which describes the advantages of improvising a presentation to a client if you really know your subject. "What you really bring to bear in the moment is not a rehearsed plan, but the sum total of your cumulative knowledge and experience to that point."

So when you find yourself in a negotiation or an exchange you're not prepared for, as in our landman's situation, or even something smaller in scale in the elevator or at a cocktail party, don't try to think on your feet.

Five steps you should take:

1) Stay calm. Thinking is short-circuited by anxiety. Deep breathing convinces your body and brain that it is calm and protects your cognitive ability.

2) Compliment the other party on his or her obvious expertise, and use this conversation as a chance to show respect and begin developing rapport.

3) Ask "dumb" questions (this is when "dumb is smart"). Say "clearly, you know a lot about this -- explain x to me." Change the nature of the phone call from a bargaining session to an information exchange, and take notes on answers that are useful to your process. Let them know you're taking notes, and repeat things back to them to slow the process down.

4) Buy yourself time. After a brief exchange that provides you information and builds rapport, get off the phone. Say "look, it's really great talking to you, you have some great ideas and I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot from you. I was about to head into another meeting when you called -- can I call you back?" Then do not pass go, do not collect $200, but go directly to your other meeting with yourself -- where you get back to preparing for the negotiation.

5) Prepare. Even if you have only five minutes, prepare the essentials.  Write down what you know about your and the other party's interests, likely opening offers and bottom lines, BATNAs and valuable concessions. Writing down the essentials forces you to think through your position and whether you are ready to bargain.

There are many places in the world where consumers haggle and would never pay asking price – like the souks of Marrakech and the Beijing Silk Street Market. But nowadays even the US retail stores are fertile haggling territory. Know how to extend your holiday haggling into the January 2014 retail sales bonanza.

Haggling is a cousin to serious negotiations. Haggling is the back and forth that is used to get a quick deal from someone you aren't likely to deal with again, like in the souks and flea markets. A 2009 Consumer  Reports survey found that only 28% of Americans say they haggle often. But by 2011, talk of negotiating price tags at retail stores became a common sport of savvy consumers who read Kiplinger advice columns. And now it’s so common that one click on wikihow teaches us how to do it.

As reported in the New York Times, what’s more interesting in this last holiday season is that retailers are both training their floor sales managers to haggle, and inviting the public to do so. This may be an attempt to turn the tide from consumers who use brick and mortar stores for looking, only to return home and search the Web for the best price on the same item. The retail stores are fighting back. One has trained its managers not only to meet competitors’ prices, but given them authority to beat them. And they’re not just focused on price, but are creative in offering you add ons (that may or may not meet your needs).

As consumers, our job is to answer this call to action. You don’t need to be someone who negotiates deals at your day job; you just need to follow a few simple guidelines -- the fundamentals all master negotiators hone:

• Prepare: get information so that you know why they should lower their price for you or what else they can offer you (or you them). It’s never been easier to do research on the price and quality of what you want before entering a store, or just use your smart device while browsing.
   
• Plan your positions: Determine your opening request (what would be the most awesome deal, but one that you can defend), and know at what point you will walk away. Write those two positions down to prevent yourself from asking for less, or settling for less.
   
• Have a planB, whether it’s foregoing the purchase, waiting for a big sales day, or going elsewhere. Having a back-up plan (referred to by business negotiators as a Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, or BATNA) will give you the confidence to ask for what you want, and to engage in a conversation about the possibilities.
   
• Do engage! Friendliness wins every time, not arrogance. Every master negotiator knows that people give the best deals to people they like. But don’t waste the retail staff’s time on lots of small talk about the weather and yourself; use sincere curiosity to ask themquestions about the company, the job, their long day, the product or service, the other customers, the market this year. Show an interest in them and they will show an interest in you.
   
• Don’t make assumptions that prices and terms are set in stone. At a clearance sale at a high-end retailer the other day, I asked for help with the down coats (facing our first cold winter in years). I fretted over the high price which showed a markdown of only 20%. I then asked the sales person if she could try the coat on so I could see how it looked on someone else. I added in some flattery when I saw the coat on her, and only then asked if a further reduction was coming. She whispered that that there will be a pre-sale in 3 days with another 40% off, where shoppers can purchase then and pick the item up a few days later once the actual sale begins. Knowing I would risk losing the perfect down coat, I asked if I could do a pre-pre-sale – getting the extra 40% off now, but willing to wait to pick up the coat with all the other shoppers in a week. I’ve been nice and warm ever since!
   
• Be creative: offer them something (like cash, buying in bulk, taking the odd size off their hands, a comliment to their manager). This is where your creativity can pay off, as you give something of value that costs you little or nothing but that they value, in exchange for something you want. What value can you find, beyond the price and the profit margin, to bring into the negotiation? Would using cash save them money? Will it go on sale soon anyway? Do they work on commission and would rather you buy from the now than from their colleague on another day? Would a referral, or a positive “Yelp” review be valuable PR?
   
• Above all, respect your counterpart as a person making a living. Haggling over a retail price, if you engage in it, is a game which involves a short-term relationship. Insulting your counterpart or being a jerk will ruin the game and most likely, your chances of a good deal.  

Want more advice? Here's 10 Tricks for Haggling Over Price at Any Store.

One more reason to haggle in this January's retail sales?

Negotiation takes practice. The more you practice, the better you become at building rapport, asking for what you want, seeing possibilities, asking questions, and leveraging your willingness to walk away. The more you do it, the better negotiator you will become.

Have fun haggling in and out of your vacation paradise!

By the time you are 90, my dad tells me, you are finally ready to listen, even if your hearing isn’t as good as it used to be. But that’s ok, because listening isn’t about hearing, it‘s about understanding. Negotiating in the workplace, however, requires us to have this skill well before we retire. The good news – better listening can be learned.

Recently, my 90-year old father asked me to buy Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for my 19 year-old nephew on his birthday. Now, as gifts go, my nephew was probably not overly excited, but I understand that my dad wanted to convey some important life lessons to his millennial grandson. I was happy to oblige, because that book holds pearls of wisdom that I often emphasize when I teach our Watershed negotiation curriculum, not the least of which is how well we listen to each other to understand, versus simply listening to respond.

Listening is a critical skill for negotiating at work for 2 reasons: Comprehension and Concession.

#1.  Listening = Comprehension

If you don’t know why your colleague wants what they want, you can’t effectively solve the problem. Instead, you find yourself in a time consuming and dysfunctional trail of mutual positioning. Listening opens the door to real understanding of your colleagues’ needs.

Real understanding does not mean sympathy (feeling sorry for someone) or giving in because of some sympathy you may feel. Real understanding results from what Covey calls “empathic listening” -- listening that “gets inside another person's frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.”  Yet this is not how most of us listen!

Example: For the last few weeks, one of the two supervisors you manage has been arriving 5 to 10 minutes late to your weekly morning meeting with them and their direct reports. You prepare to talk to him armed with reasons why this is unacceptable (disruptive, team morale, productivity). The conversation is not likely to go well because you are preparing to position yourself - not to understand.

If you instead engage in empathic listening – state the problem and how it feels to you, and ask what’s going on -- you might discover that this supervisor has purchased his first house further out from work, and has been struggling to figure out an effective commuting pattern. Now you can discuss solutions that consider the problem from both points of view:

• Can the meeting be moved to mid-morning?
• Can we let the team know what the problem is and expect it to resolve itself in a few weeks?
• Does anyone else at the company commute from the same area that may have some ideas?
• How about shifting his hours to start earlier one day a week when the meeting is held?
• Or maybe if traffic is a problem for anyone on the team, can they call into the meeting, rather than attend in person?

#2.    Listening = Concession

One of the greatest needs people have is to be heard. Sometimes no movement can happen until people feel heard. Authentic listening will always be perceived as goodwill – a concession, which often results in a concession back to you, a get to your give. At a minimum, your colleague will show some form of appreciation. In addition, without listening, we can easily give away unnecessary concessions, or reject something that ultimately benefits us.

Example: Your boss asks you to finish a project 1 month earlier than planned. You are ready to argue that this is not fair to you and your team after all the work and successes you’ve achieved.  If you instead listen to understand rather than jump to respond, you would discover that finishing early means that your project will be on the upcoming quarterly Senior Management Staff Meeting agenda, giving the best chance for you to gain the needed headcount and budget increases the project deserves. And the exposure to your leadership role will help your career. Yet only minutes ago, you were ready to argue against your boss’s request.

Do you consider yourself a “good listener”? Most of us are told at some point (in our personal and professional lives) that we are not listening!  Empathic listening is easier said than done – but it is a “learned skill”.  You can teach an old dog new tricks.
 

Use these tips to improve your negotiations with more empathic listening:

Don’t get bored; get curious - sincerely curious
Ask big open-ended questions like

• Why, Why Not;
• What if, How about, What else could we do;
• What harm would come from;
• How could we change, avoid, resolve.
• And always test your assumptions by asking about them.

In addition to asking questions, you can also show your curiosity by encouraging your colleague:

• Tell me more
• I am intrigued by your idea
• My team (or boss) will want to understand that better
• What other thoughts were considered before coming up with that idea/solution

Remember: People love to talk, and are known to feel so good afterwards if you let them talk, that they give more than they get; but it won’t help if you don’t listen.

Passion for a position does not require an argument in return
Colleagues get passionate about an idea, especially if it is theirs. They become invested in an effort, an outcome, or even just the hope of avoiding a major problem.  And if someone senses resistance, emotions surface and can sabotage agreement or blind you both to a perfectly good solution.  This is especially true in the workplace when one’s professional status is at stake.

Be prepared to manage your own emotions – and to help your colleagues manage theirs. Managing emotions doesn't mean squelching them. Instead, BEFORE you oppose a co-worker’s position, acknowledge – with sincerity --

• Their conviction or even heartfelt belief;
• The work they put in already; and
• Their reputation or stature.

Don’t feel compelled to argue or persuade, or even negotiate, until you have allowed them to speak their piece- and be sure you listen. This may be your opportunity to make listening your only concession!

Make it personal
Even when dealing only with facts and data, getting personal is one of the most valuable ways to ensure you are communicating effectively. Just ask Alan Alda, the renowned TV actor of MASH fame. Alda joined Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism faculty in its Center for Communicating Science to study the challenges scientists face in effective communication. In his new book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? he reminds us that speaker and listener are persons. In a June interview with Newsweek on his book tour, Alda reinforced this concept:

“If we aren’t concerned with observing or imagining what a person is thinking or feeling when we are trying to communicate with them, then we are leaving them out….. the person doing the speaking needs to pay attention to the audience, whether that’s one person or many.”

Alda notes that scientists who take a more logical, fact based approach to communicating are prizing accuracy over actual understanding. Making the experience personal – empathizing with our listener -- is crucial to ensure that our points will resonate with our audience.  Alda’s book speaks mostly to the scientific community – helping them cross the divide between a scientist’s knowledge and the audience’s understanding of that knowledge.

But the general problem of effective communication is bi-directional of course, and nowhere is that more evident than in our current political landscape, where polarization is becoming the norm. Rob Willer, a social psychologist at Stanford University, has been studying political polarization in the U.S. for the last few years and gave a TED talk on the subject.  In an interview in the Stanford News, he concludes that politicians “must take the time to really listen to one another, to understand one another’s values and to think creatively about why someone with different political and moral commitments from their own should nonetheless come to agree with them. Empathy and respect will be critical if we are going to sew our country back together.”

Politics aside, Willer’s comments effectively sum up how we all can be more successful in any negotiation – a win-win negotiation results when your proposed solution makes it clear that you see the situation or problem from your counterpart’s viewpoint.

Now back to my dad and my nephew – and that well-meaning, if not much loved, birthday gift.  My father and my nephew have different life perspectives and views of the world, but they do listen to each other – for the most part. Having spent decades with my dad, I realize that he is not always the best listener himself. But I know he is genuinely curious about his grandson’s views. That is always the best place to start when you need to negotiate solutions, across conference tables or kitchen tables.  And full disclaimer, I did buy a cool pair of sports headphones for my nephew, on my dad’s behalf – to make it a bit more personal!