BBI3410

LANGUAGE FOR NEGOTATION

WEEK 8
TACTICS AND VALUES

▪ The decisions you take and the way you behave during your
negotiations will be influenced by how much power you think you
have and by the way your own values or ethics influence your
behavior.
▪ cannot expect agreements always to be, balanced and fair, or even
consistent.
▪ However, can work towards getting the best possible deal given
the circumstances you face.
A QUESTION OF CHOICES AND PERSONAL STYLE

▪ To be perceived to be fair in business, you need to offer

choices: choices that are not so one-sided that they quickly
become regarded transparent and unfair
▪ There are few values that affect decision during your
negotiations;
– Personal attributes
– Risky attributes
 A QUESTION OF CHOICES AND PERSONAL STYLE

▪ Your personal values and how they influence your behavior will have a
powerful bearing on where you and the other party gravitate to on the
clock face.
▪ They can, if not managed, directly influence whether you build
relationships or whether you enter into combat each time you seek to
agree terms.
▪ There are two attributes to consider and can influence your negotiations;
i) Personal attributes
ii) Risky attributes
Personal attributes
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
1) Trust
▪ Trust in business has to be earned and is easily broken.
▪ It implies that you are good for your word. If you say something will happen,
it happens, consistently.
▪ You approach the conversation from their perspective, sharing their
concerns and working on the problems that you both identify, together.
2) Respect
▪ Respect comes from being firm, consistent and reliable.
▪ If you are too flexible or concede too easily, the other party will regard you as
being weak.
3) Integrity
▪ comes from consistency.
▪ Maintaining confidentiality and being reliable, in that you follow through
with your commitments
4) Honesty
▪ You never need to lie in negotiation.
▪ You don’t need to tell them what you won’t do. Focus on what you will do.
Think “how” or “on what basis could we, or could they?”
▪ Don’t confuse the process of negotiation with lying and telling the truth. If
you lie in negotiation, you could be taking unnecessary risks, and in some
cases completely compromising relationships, however, don’t expect
everyone to adhere to this discipline.
5) Consideration
▪ understand the needs of the other party. If you don’t understand these
you are not ready to negotiate.
▪ Need to understand the deal the way they do business from inside their
head.
6) Empathy
▪ is about understanding and appreciating the challenges from their
perspective, but never compromising because of such understandings.
7) Responsibility
▪ It is you who will conduct your negotiations and you who will make the
decisions with the authority limits you have been given.
Risky attributes
 RISKY ATTRIBUTES

1) Openness
▪ This can be dangerous in negotiation. Information is power and the more
you share with the other party, the more you will expose yourself.
▪ Be open but stay within the parameters that you set yourself.
2) Compassion
▪ Need to maximize opportunity.
▪ You will do this with those you can work with and rely on, and who remain
highly competitive.
WHAT ARE TACTICS?
When do tactics usually come into play?

▪ Tactics tend to be used more frequently

▪ when one party has more power than the other and tries to take
advantage of it.
▪ when the nature of the negotiation is based on value
distribution and the focus is on taking as much value off the
table as possible.
Dealing with tactics and when to use them
▪ There are dozens of books written on negotiation that present tactics as
the basis of negotiation.
▪ They are given names that serve to explain the approach: “The Russian
front,” “The Trojan horse,”
▪ The most important thing about tactics is to recognize them for what they
are;
▪ They are neither clever nor sophisticated.
▪ They are designed to apply pressure and usually by those who can
because they have enough power, or think they have enough power, to
do so, or those who think they are clever enough to do so without any
consequences.
Dealing with tactics
and when to use them
▪ There are seven categories;
Dealing with tactics
and when to use them
▪ There are seven categories;
Dealing with tactics
and when to use them
▪ There are seven categories;
CONCLUSION
▪ Influential tactics in negotiation have been used for thousands of years as a
means of gaining leverage and advantage.
▪ many tactics are regarded as a fast route to destroying trust.
▪ Key point about tactics;
▪ Recognize tactics being used and qualify them by challenging their
consequences.
▪ The type of the tactics you use should be limited to how much trust and
dependency you require in the relationship once the deal is done.
▪ The risk/benefit of employing tactics is something you must judge
based on your own circumstances, objectives, motivation, and values.
▪ More than one tactic at a time will often be combined to increase
pressure as others will seek to manipulate your actions.