Are you a good negotiator? If you are like many businesspeople, you probably feel this is one area you could improve. This compelling book provides the tools and techniques to develop your negotiating skills.

Breakthrough Business Negotiation: A Toolbox for Managers

Michael Watkins uses seven principles in conducting negotiations:

1. Negotiations have structure.

Even though you may think you are negotiating very different situations throughout your life, in essence they can be broken down into recognizable patterns.

2. Structure shapes strategy.

Depending on the pattern of the negotiation, different strategies are used to arrive at a deal favorable to your agenda.

3. The structure of negotiations can be shaped.

By using specific tactics in bringing players to the negotiation table, altering the agenda or positioning prior to the negotiation, adept efforts to shape the structure have a powerful impact on outcomes.

4. Process control is a source of power.

It is easy to get caught up in the content of the negotiation and lose the opportunity to influence the outcome through controlling the process.

5. The flow of negotiation can be channeled.

Understanding the ebb and flow of a negotiation can provide invaluable leverage in timing an action-forcing event, proposing a new formula for agreement, or developing an attractive vision of a desirable future.

6. Effective negotiators organize to learn.

It is critical to learn during the negotiation process as well as to learn from both successful and failed negotiations. Knowledge about how to negotiate effectively is a precious resource.

7. Great negotiators are leaders.

The actions of individual negotiators can make all the difference in the outcomes of complex negotiations. The best negotiators lead from the middle, shaping the perceptions of those they represent as well as their counterparts across the table.

Every negotiator has four core tasks: diagnosing the situation, shaping the structure, managing the process, and assessing the results.

Diagnosing the situation

In diagnosing the situation, it is imperative to understand the players, both overt and covert. Create a map that highlights all stakeholders, their positions, their power and interests. Questions to consider:

· Are the right parties at the table? Are there too many or too few?

· What are the rules of the game? Include social convention and codes of conduct.

· Could other parties get involved and change the game?

· Are you negotiating the right agenda of substantive issues?

· What is the history of the negotiation to date, including relationships and conflicts?

Explore interests, not positions; seek out shared interests; propose mutually beneficial trades; and secure areas of insecurity particularly when the parties don’t trust each other. When exploring interests also attend to the personal interests of the parties involved.

Shaping the structure

This involves using techniques such as setting an agenda, framing and reframing, controlling information, forcing action or buying time, developing a sequence of events or even changing the game, to arrive at a favorable outcome.

Managing the process

To effectively manage the negotiation process, three different perspectives are required: macro, micro, and the mental process. The macro perspective involves the predictable steps a negotiation will go through: the diagnostic phase, the formula phase and the detailed bargaining phase. The micro perspective attends to the interactions between the negotiators and parties at the table, including the degree of rapport, emerging conflicts, “tipping points” where small actions will produce large results, vicious and virtuous cycles, and the sequence of negotiations. The final perspective is the mental processes that each party is engaging to navigate through the negotiation, such as mental models, motivations, aspirations and emotions.

Assessing the results

During the course of a negotiation it is important to step back periodically to evaluate how you are doing. Questions to consider:

• Do you have a clear view of the situation?

• Are you creating value as well as claiming it?

• Are you accumulating negotiating capital?

• Are you crafting sustainable agreements?

• Are you upholding your ethical standards?

• Are you learning?

The breakthrough toolbox

Watkins also provides tools and techniques for managing various situations in the course of conducting a negotiation, including overcoming power imbalances, building coalitions, managing conflict, leading negotiations, and negotiating crises. Breakthrough Negotiations provides a comprehensive look at how to negotiate effectively to arrive at a favorable outcome for your business. Providing practical principles and tactics, this book is a must-have addition to your business library.

		Jim Cullen is president of DMI Networks. DMI Networks specializes in technology contract reviews and negotiation for software, hardware, telecommunications, processing and services.