Your Weekly Walkaway - Team Work Makes The Dream Work
Newsletter Issue No. 6 (21st October 2022)
The Weekly Walkway highlights negotiation in its ‘good’, ‘bad’ and sometimes ‘downright ugly’ forms. What to expect?
Quote of the Week - yup, exactly what it says.
Tactic of the Week - Access Denied.
Thought of the Week - Team work makes the dream work.
Your Week - Determining roles helped me stay relaxed.
Their Week - Trump has offered to negotiate peace in Ukraine…
Remember: You are a negotiator!
You are always managing some form of conflict, a difference in opinion or interest.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Henry Ford - Founder of Ford Motor Company
“Coming together is a beginning; Keeping together is progress; Working together is success.”
TACTIC OF THE WEEK
Access Denied
In our personal lives we all screen calls, delay responses or make excuses for not meeting friends or colleagues. You have been Denying Access all of your lives.
This tactic is often used in negotiation and when well planned can be very effective in changing your counterparts behaviours or positions.
A previous tactic we’ve discussed is ‘Sowing the Seed’, example; dropping a 13% price increase for next years contract renewal months in advance.
It would be appropriate to ensure your whole organisation is prepared to ‘deny access’ to prevent ‘them’ from making contact with your senior managers in a bid to counter your '‘sowing of the seed’.
Examples;
buyers denying access in an attempt to control relationship development activities during negotiations;
sellers denying access in an attempt to push through cost price increases;
internal / external stakeholders denying access in an attempt to control deadlines.
Team work makes the dream work.
How to break denial of access? Keep your communication channels open with those counterparts you have the best relationships with. Find creative ways to break the rules.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Negotiating as a Team.
Team work makes the dream work.
As we have discussed before, control your "Lucy", and you will have control of the negotiation. When your 'Lucy', the chimp in your head (*), perceives conflict she makes you do things and say things you wouldn't normally do. She controls you when under high stress. So, to control ‘her’ and therefore to control the negotiation we advise working in a team.
Why? To share out the responsibilities based on skill and therefore separate the thinking from the talking. This controls your Lucy, your emotion.
So, what is a ‘Negotiating Team’? We’d say it’s a group of people with complementary skills who commit to a common goal, which they are mutually accountable for. The key elements of a successful negotiating team are;
Wise Heads - planning, analysis and - Stakeholder Alignment;
Negotiators - those who will negotiate on behalf of the group;
Implementers - those who will implement and manage the deal.
Complementary skills
The team must have the right 'mix of skills' that are necessary to achieve the goals. Choose your team not on personal fit or seniority but on their ability to achieve the goals. The skill mix can be broken down into three areas;
Technical or functional expertise;
Problem-solving and decision-making;
Interpersonal.
A Common Goal; Commanders Intent
Without a common goal, or commanders intent, your negotiating team will perform as individuals, all pulling in different directions;
With a common goal, when all of the group is pulling in the same direction, they become a powerful, disciplined unit;
The common goal gives ‘The Team’ confidence to fulfil commanders intent, to hold the line, together, however difficult the objective.
Every Team Has Roles
The Speaker – does 80-90% of all the talking. They execute the ART of negotiation. The speaker is a puppet, you take direction from The Manager;
make proposals;
ask questions and;
answer questions, if appropriate.
SKILL = INTERPERSONAL
The Speaker is outwardly calm and is comfortable being uncomfortable, not filling silences with their voice. They do not make decisions, they are disempowered and defer to The Manager. They are masters in the control of both the spoken and unspoken language. They are clear, brief and firm. Speakers make proposals, ask planned questions, give planned answers and do not give unsanctioned information away.
The Manager – Manages the climate, makes introductions, positions the negotiation and manages the agenda. They are ultimately in charge and report to ‘The Commander’, who’s intent the team is tasked with fulfilling.
It is the managers responsibility to manage the art and the science of the negotiation, they lead the team and act as the puppet master, they are in control.
The Manager works between the Analyst and the Speaker to translate The Science into The Art. They separate the brain (the thinking) from the mouth. They manage the climate and relationship, use the agenda to keep discussions on track, propose time outs and are the ultimate decision maker, in the room. They shouldn’t speak that much, they should always allow The Speaker to do their job.
SKILL = PROBLEM SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING
The Analyst – The Brain. They are the science of negotiation, the numbers, the data and management of the value of the deal.
The Analyst creates new proposals for the manager to translate for the speaker and they are the keeper of The Log, the record of offers. They listen and record information, they do not talk. Their responsibility is the data. They work closely with The Manager acting as the brain for the mouth, The Speaker.
SKILL = TECHNICAL
The Listener – The teams eyes and ears. They are the teams "Sherlock Holmes"; the observer and deducer.
The Listener is silent. They get into the head of the counterparty. They concentrate on the behaviours and what ‘it’ all means;
Walkaways, Flinches and The Climate (unity /disunity);
What strategy? Why? What styles?
Language, body and verbal.
SKILL = INTERPERSONAL
Negotiation Teams are disciplined, well oiled machines. They look like they are all joined at the hip. This discipline gives them the perception of POWER.
YOUR WEEK
Determining roles helped me stay relaxed
We lost a client 2yrs ago after fierce negotiations. There was a lot of argument. We were all talking. We had to walkaway. The client recently approached us again. This was a tense negotiation with professionals on the other side with a lot of history. Determining roles helped me stay relaxed, which stopped me from arguing. My team helped me make better proposals, which resulted in a deal and 5% better pricing.
THEIR WEEK
Peter Shinkle: Trump has offered to negotiate peace in Ukraine, but he is no Wendell Willkie
Chicago Tribune - Trump has offered to negotiate peace in Ukraine, but he is no Wendell Willkie
Former President Donald Trump has offered to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine, a bizarre concept that illustrates just how far America has fallen from the days when leaders of both major parties collaborated to support global democracy.
Eighty years ago, in the midst of World War II, American Republican leader Wendell Willkie travelled around the world on a tour that Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt backed in an effort to bolster America’s attack on fascism. Willkie’s trip, which lasted from August to October 1942, was a stunning display of America’s powerful bipartisan defence of democracy.
Like Trump today, Willkie was his party’s most recent unsuccessful presidential nominee — he lost the election of 1940 — and was preparing another run for the presidency. Despite the risks, FDR provided an Army plane and crew for Willkie’s trip, explaining that it would show the world “we have unity and that we are going all out.”
Willkie was part of a Republican alliance with Roosevelt that included former Republican Secretary of State Henry Stimson, who in 1940 became FDR’s secretary of war.
Zoom out
Unity; Discipline; Common Goals; All the ingredients required to achieve your objectives. Hmm.. Trump.. LOL. Divisive; ill-disciplined; Narcissistic, maybe? Would he commit to a common goal? Would you describe him as mutually accountable? Would you include him as part of your negotiation team? Maybe not!
Having someone in your team who is known to sympathise with your counterpart could be a very powerful negotiation tool, as long as ‘the tool’ is in your plan. If not, then it is a recipe for disaster.
There can only be one commander in a negotiation. Where all authority sits. Too many cooks will spoil your broth!
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