Seven Winning Negotiation Strategies For Any Situation
Strategies taken from the book: Never Split the Difference
You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate
Life is negotiation. We may not realize it but we are negotiating all the time, be it with the clients, family, friends, or partner. We, humans, are irrational, emotional, and biased and we let our emotions get the better of us most of the time. There comes this book — Never split the difference, in which Chris Voss — a former FBI hostage negotiator has shared powerful negotiation techniques which can help us get the best deal while preserving our relationships.
In this blog, I will be discussing some of my favorite techniques from the book, on how to become a better negotiator
1. Tactical Empathy —The core of any relation :
The beauty of empathy is that it doesn't demand that you agree with the other party’s ideas.
There isn't anything more frustrating than to get the feeling that you are talking to someone who isn't listening. This frustration makes them less likely to do what you want.
The opposite of what is tactical empathy. Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another person at the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings to increase your influence in the moments to follow.
2. Mirroring — To gain their trust:
Mirroring helps in empathizing and building rapport with the other party which leads to trust and encourages the other party to reveal their strategy.
It is a technique in which we copy each other to comfort each other. We can achieve it through speech patterns, body language, vocabulary, or tone of voice.
The most effective way in which we can achieve mirroring is by just repeating the last three words of what someone has just said. We fear what's different and are drawn to what's similar.
3. Don't feel their pain, Label it — To get them to talk:
Remember you are dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. It can be thought of as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack.
The first step to labeling is detecting the other person’s emotional state. The next step is to label out aloud. But make sure you begin the labels with words such as ‘It sounds like’ , ‘It seems like’, ‘It looks like’, and not use ‘I’ as ‘I’ gets people guard up and they might not want to open up.
4. Pause- Slow it down:
Once you have mirrore a statement or labeled an emotion/fear of your counterpart, let it sink in. Now, wait for your counterpart to fill that silence.
5. Beware ‘Yes’, Master ‘No’ — How to take the negotiation forward:
‘Yes’ is the final goal of negotiation but don't aim for it at the start. Asking for a yes too early in the conversation makes people guarded up and you might seem to be an untrustworthy person. They feel trapped and eventually, it leads to a ‘No’ at the end.
‘No’ starts the negotiation and is not a failure. The speaker feels safe, secure, and in control by saying no, so trigger it. It allows us to explain our side and then we negotiate in their world.
6. Calibrate your questions - A way to win:
Once you have figured out where you want to lead the conversation, you gotta design the questions that will ease the conversation in that direction while letting your counterpart think it is their choice to take you there.
It gives your counterpart a illusion of control, inspire them to reveal useful information and do the job for you.
There are some rules for calibrated questions. Avoid verbs or words like ‘can’,’is’,’are’,’do’,’does’. These sound like close-ended questions which end up with answers with a simple ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Avoid using ‘why’ as well as it sounds harsh. Usually, they are open-ended questions that start with words like ‘what’ or ‘how’.
Furthermore, they can also be used at a time when you are under attack during a negotiation. At that moment, bite your tongue, pause and control your anger and come up with a calibrated question to dodge away from the situation.
7. Trigger a That’s right response - Getting on the same page:
Once you have used tactical empathy, mirroring, and labeling techniques to get them to talk and make them feel understood, your next step is to get them to two magical words — That’s right.
That’s right is better than getting a ‘Yes’.
Use a summary to trigger a that’s right. A summary consists of a label combined with effective paraphrasing of your counterpart’s emotion and words. Getting your counterpart to That’s right means both the parties have understood what you are talking about.
So these are some of the negotiation tactics that we can learn and implement during any negotiation.
Tyrion Lannister found it a difficult negotiation as he didn't know these rules then. But now you know, so go, implement and win the negotiation.
