
Believe in win-win, mutual gain. Win-win is an attitude, not an outcome.
By Marianne Eby
Creativity is essential to reaching mutually beneficial solutions in negotiations. Most people are actually more comfortable arguing or convincing others to accept their ideas than they are using creativity to generate win-win solutions. Creativity requires the ability to take risks, be open to ideas, defer criticisms, and empathize. Are you scared to be creative?
Researcher George Land conducted a study that showed we start as extremely creative individuals and lose most of it. Land distributed a creativity test (the same one used by NASA to select innovative engineers and scientists) to 1,600 5-year-olds, and re-tested the same children at age 10, and again at age 15. He also gave the same test to 280,000 adults. The results below demonstrate that the majority of people become less creative as they mature.
Age (years) |
Highly Creative |
---|---|
5 | 98% |
10 | 30% |
15 | 12% |
Adults | 2% |
Some blame our educational systems for derailing our abilities to: take risks, be open to new ideas, generate loose connections, and empathize. Steve Jobs, reflecting on his first three years as a student of Monta Loma Elementary, commented:
“I was kind of bored for the first few years, so I occupied myself by getting into trouble…I encountered authority of a different kind than I ever encountered before and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.”
Quoted from Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs (a great read on creativity and negotiations). Indeed a number of educational systems focus on one correct answer, which actively discourages imagining different results. Regardless of the cause, we can overcome this challenge and reengage with our inner child’s imagination.
One way to keep the creativity alive in your negotiations is to focus on defining each party's interests, and then listing all possible options that meet those interests without any criticism regarding resources, feasibility, etc. This part of a negotiation should be like the brainstorming you did as a 5-year old, where you were encouraged to imagine that anything was possible. Harnessing this unencumbered imagination during a negotiation requires people to recognize that every idea is a valid option so that the third zany idea eventually leads to the brilliant seventh idea that is mutually beneficial.
A client related an example of this type of brainstorming. Samantha’s communications team was meeting with their IT colleagues to determine how to support a client's new website. Some of the IT team’s participants started to suggest ideas about changing the existing website design, and a communications team member commented that it would be too burdensome for the client. The group started arguing about the resources it would take to support different designs. Samantha called a halt, and suggested they brainstorm ideas based on the client’s requirements, and leave the ‘resources’ issue until later.
“Stopping the flow of criticism allowed people to put themselves in the position of the client, ask better questions, and envision innovative solutions. It helped the team realize that the website could be designed to meet the client’s needs without changing most of the interface. This was something nobody had anticipated when the meeting started and totally changed the game.”
The next time you see others being critical of ideas during a brainstorming session, convince the group to focus on the interests and then use it as a way to build creativity within the group. This will lead to the best ideas surfacing during a discussion. Here are some tips on brainstorming from Mind Tools.
By Marianne Eby
Do you ever feel like your negotiating counterparts are wearing the same Halloween masks that show up trick-or-treating at your door? Are the mad rush of negotiations in your business to spend year-end budgets and internally as you plan for the next fiscal year really any different than what goes on among the children’s back-room deals over their stashes of candy? Here are 6 tricks (or tips) to unmask the hardball negotiator.
Tomorrow night Halloween in the US evokes images of costumed children asking to trade a trick for a treat – the trick is they are masked as real and fantasy characters and in exchange they want lots of candy – a trade at the heart of every negotiation. With a strong commercial foothold in the US and Canada, this strange bargaining called Halloween has spread in recent decades to parts of Europe and Asia, and is also popular in Latin America.
Halloween celebrations permeate the US culture. More than $7 billion was spent on Halloween last year and about 74% of adults celebrate this holiday, defined by costumes, masks, and out of bounds behavior. Businesses and professionals often consider how to participate in the late October frenzy, since employees and customers experience and relish Halloween as a community celebration. In offices and schools and neighborhoods, in big and small businesses, in penthouses and party rooms, in C-suites and hotel suites, Halloween fun and zany antics are planned, encouraged, enjoyed.
For most businesses, there's also a scene behind Halloween. Often, late October marks the beginning of the end of the annual business cycle. Wrap-up issues are on the table, and plans are being made for the upcoming year. And if your house is like mine on Halloween night, the real bargaining goes on after the candy is collected, when the kids spread out their winnings and begin to trade. That's when we see the real masked characters using the best and worst of negotiating behaviors to get what they want!
Even if the Halloween fete and the year closing create a tension of opposing demands, deals will get closed. For example, while we are spending $1.2 billion annually on Halloween costumes, $85.5 billion is also being spent on computers. Corporate negotiators are working computer deals, equipment leases, supply contracts, phone usage and supplier agreements that keep businesses running, while $21.5 billion in candy passes from hand to mouth. Company representatives in all corners of the world commute their own shares of the $85 billion computer spending, or source and set prices for personnel who can create and support the internet architecture that will permit a share of the $255.5 billion in annual on-line sales. (Data source)
Negotiating is never frivolous and is not always sweet. The scary part is when our negotiating counterparts come to the bargaining table wearing their Halloween masks. We find ourselves faced with people dressed up as superheroes, who want to play “hardball.”
Hardball negotiators use tactics to distract, manipulate, or trick us into moving off our position. They believe that they can win more by playing hardball than by collaborating to create value. The hardball negotiator wears masks – meaning they don’t share their interests – why they want what they want, and don’t care about our interests – why we want what we want.
We want to make a deal, and our hardball counterparts seem only to be willing to make their deal. We are looking for flexibility, and our counterparts seem determined, inflexible, even intimidating. Whether we are are sales or procurement or management, trying to meet quotas, move excess inventory, or gain savings from volume and vendor choice, hardball counterparts are entrenched in their position and tactics.
In the spirit of this Halloween season, consider these responses to the hardball negotiator:
As we begin closing our current year and preparing for the upcoming year, our negotiating teams can benefit from reviewing the collaborations and hardball negotiations we’ve encountered, just as we review our numbers. Remember to assess strategies to disarm the masked negotiator, since collaborative negotiations create bigger wins for all of us.
By Marianne Eby
I admit to not knowing much about football despite my son's love of the game. To me it looks more like a bunch of athletes who get paid a lot of money to ram into each other until one team trounces the other. Let's face it - I’m a negotiator who believes in win-win more than win-lose. So it’s no surprise that I was paying more attention to the NFL Super Bowl XLVIII advertisements on Sunday than to the game. And what did this super negotiator see? The deal of the century!
And I’m not talking about one of the many deals in the $10B enterprise that is the National Football League (NFL). I'm talking about the now famous Cheerios commercial. Sunday’s NFL Super Bowl XLVIII Cheerios commercial taught in 30 seconds (and paid $4M for the privilege of doing so) what every good negotiator knows - trades come in all breeds.
Here’s how Forbes describes that commercial, a father at the breakfast table with his little girl, Gracie, using the addition of one Cheerios at a time to demonstrate that there is going to be a new family member (and thus one more Cheerio added to the pile):
“The Epiphany: After the baby brother announcement, the subtle pregnant pause. Gracie’s actor qualities rise to impressive levels to tug at your heart at this point. The frown-pause moment is followed by the epiphany, “and a dog”. Translated: ‘If he’s sweet talking me like this, he must want my approval. That must mean I have some bargaining power – (and what do I have to lose, the little guy his coming anyway). I can use this event to broker and barter a deal. If I have to put up with a babbling infant that cuts into my time and resources, I can now use my unprecedented leverage get what I want in return.’ ”
Opportunities to trade come in all sizes and shapes and sometimes out of the blue, so seize them when you can and everybody wins! The little girl seizes the moment and in her own way (by adding a Cheerios to the family pile of course) makes it clear that family tranquility has a price – a puppy she can call her own. Caught off guard, the dad declares “Deal.”
And Cheerios gave a final negotiation lesson before its 30 seconds of air time was up – the camera turns to the pregnant mom, whose priceless facial expression makes it clear that dad forgot to check with his stakeholders before closing the deal.
The NFL is full of high stakes deal-making in the mega-millions, but this deal has lessons for players, owners and viewers alike. Think about what the other side will ask for before you start negotiating, seize opportunities to get what you want, and always know your stakeholders’ interests before you close the deal.
By Marianne Eby
Two female power stories caught my woman negotiator’s eye this last month: The #LikeAGirl campaign gone viral after the US NFL's Super Bowl XLVIV, and Jessica Bennett’s Time Magazine article How Not to Be ‘Manterrupted’. It's a one-two punch and we negotiators can learn a lot from both.
It’s difficult NOT to jump on the bandwagon of a popular Twitter hashtag when it really speaks to you. I watch the Super Bowl every year, and always find new insights, although not about football. See my 2014 blog on Super Bowl XLVIII Cheerios commercial of a young daughter’s negotiation with her dad that put most negotiators to shame. Academics and practitioners alike know children are the best negotiators – ask for what they want, persistent questioners, super curious, unafraid of “No”, and armed with an infinite supply of creative solutions.
2015’s Super Bowl inspired the "girl" negotiator in me with Always #LikeAGirl campaign, turning on its head the centuries old negative connotation that goes with doing anything “like a girl.” (i.e., you throw like a girl...and a hundred others.)
Some of my favorite 2015 hashtags trending for #LikeAGirl
Hunt Taliban from the Air #LikeAGirl
Neuroscientist and Gene Therapist Jodi Mcbride: Perform neurosurgery #LikeAGirl
and of course
Watershed’s Negotiate #LikeAGirl
At Watershed, we train and coach amazing women negotiators at corporations around the world. We remind them that there are instincts and skills many women naturally possess that are the foundation for masterful negotiating – skills that we all (men and women) need to achieve Win-Win in our negotiations. We remind them to Negotiate #LikeAGirl:
Personal Story
About 10 years into my legal career, I interviewed for my dream job outside of law, and knew immediately after the interview that I didn’t get the job because I added not one stimulating insight to the conversation. I had some great ideas, but just couldn’t get them in without interrupting the very talkative Vice President who interviewed me. I was shocked when I got offered the job the next day. Months later while on the job, the EVP was singing my praises to the VP, and I overheard that VP tell his boss – “I was so impressed with our conversation when she interviewed that I knew she was perfect for the job!”
I had clearly honed listening to a whole new level. But regardless of my unfortunate (or fortunate) excessive listening, active listening is a skill that can and should be developed by everyone. For better or worse, women negotiators may have the upper hand if like me, they can make people feel heard (a concession received in itself) just by listening.
To use and not be used by these natural female tendencies, women negotiators should take heed:
Each gender has it’s inherent strengths and often those strengths can lead to weaknesses, like my allowing that VP to talk my entire interview. Or as Jessica Bennett, award winning writer, editor and producer illustrates -- allowing ourselves and our female colleagues to be "manterrupted” or have our ideas “bro-propriated.” We’ve all been interrupted at meetings and had others take credit for the ideas we pose – men and women alike – but ask your mothers, sisters, female bosses, wives and girl friends if they think it happens a lot more to them than the men in your life think it happens to them.
Bennett refers to the recent New York Times op-ed by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Wharton business school professor Adam Grant:
“When a woman speaks in a professional setting, she walks a tightrope. Either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive. When a man says virtually the same thing, heads nod in appreciation of his fine idea.”
Bennett and her friends call this Manterrupting. Bennett proposes some great strategies, such as a imposing a general rule of no interruptions at meetings. She also proposes more targeted advice:
Each gender has strengths and weaknesses. But Negotiating is not male or female – it’s a conversation looking for creative ideas to expand value and lead to sustainable agreements. These conversations benefit from empathy, intuition, cooperation, listening, giving due credit for ideas, and not interrupting each other. So to all women and men negotiators, I say Negotiate #LikeAGirl!
By Thomas Wood
In our negotiation workshops, some of our favorite examples of effective negotiating strategies come from kids. They always get a laugh of recognition, because even our most experienced negotiators know that they can be outmaneuvered by a 4-year old.
There are countless parenting blogs and books devoted to negotiating with your kids, or avoiding negotiation with your kids -- all designed to help you handle the little wizards without losing your shirt. One blog, "Like A Dad," reviews a few common kid tactics as a way of helping parents recognize and prepare for them. But as negotiators, we need to ask -- what tactics can we learn from them?
Kids with caring parents do have a number of advantages over adult negotiators -- they won't do damage to their reputation if they are unprofessional, whiny, or outrageous in their demands. But here are five effective negotiation strategies kids use that we should too -- followed by a few we should leave to the less mature./learning-center-item/listen-loudly.html
Top Five Negotiating Strategies From Kids:
Childish Tactics to Avoid:
When I first became a parent, a final lesson from my mother: "Thomas, as a parent your goal is talk to your kids so they will listen. And listen to your kids so they will talk.
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