Planning & Preparationfor Effective Negotiation

Planning & Preparationfor Effective Negotiation

1. NEGOTIATION ANALYSIS: Know the situation, Yourself and Your Opponent

   • Analysis of the negotiation context: opportunities and constraints. Aspects to assess:
     • Historical, political, legal & cultural context
       • "values and assumptions" business taking place in different countries
     • Purpose of the negotiation: dealmaking or dispute resolution?
       • "exchage resources or make a deal" distributive bargaining strategies, integrative bargaining or resolve a dispute
     • Nature of the conflict: ideologies involved?
       • analysis of the relationship between business interests and ideologies. open dialogue recognizing and appreciating each other's values and beliefs
     • Temporality of negotiation: one-shot or long-term?
       • impact of their relational history or impact of their future relationships
     • External constraints
       • TIME: IS TIME AN ISSUE? Constraints should turn into opportunities: gain concessions
       • PLACE: Where does the negotiation take place? on one's own territory the other party might feel uncertainty & with less power; the outside party may be better prepared, more alert and flexible of "walking away"
       • COMMUNICATION CHANNELS Telephone, videoconference, email, intant messages Face-to-face negotiations are often necessary when the two parties have not established prior relationships

2. ANALYZING THE NEGOTIATION STRUCTURE

   • Identify the negotiation parties: who are the involved parties? are there influential parties?
   • Define the issues: focus on more than one issue leads to a more cooperative and integrative negotiation when parties' needs and corncerrns can be met
   • Understanding underlying interests: what one wants? why one wants those things? Identify issues and interests
   • Consider Alternatives. Target/ aspiration point... resistance or reservation point. Their best BATNAs
   • Create a scoring system and sort out preferences. Assign an overall numerical value to any contract and preferred those with higher score
   • Determine the target/aspiration and reservation resistence points. The best deal they can possible get.
   • Your own negotiation style. Self-assessment" attitude toward risks, preferred approach to conflict. How much risk are parties willing to take?
   • Relationship with the other party. A pre-existing relationship is very helpful for an effective negotiation.