The 6 differences you didn’t know between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation that likely cost your organization money. Preparation

A moment to reflect by Karolina Adams: https://karolinaadams.com/

In the first two blogs, we covered the characteristics of nEGOtiation and the definition and role of mindfulness. It’s now time to explore the first difference between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation: PREPARATION

NEGOtiators think they don’t have to prepare because they already know how to negotiate or they think they know what the other party wants. For our ego, the feeling of unpreparedness doesn’t exist. Our ego is using the little voice in our head to communicate with us. It tells us that we don’t have time to prepare, that our schedule is full, that we are running from a meeting to another.   When someone points it out, we’re quick to say that we will figure it out during the negotiation itself. In sports, art, business, and other fields, competency never shows up without preparation or practice.

Benjamin Franklin once said: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

The second difference in preparation between nEGOtiators and mindful negotiators is that nEGOtiators don’t spend a second thinking about the other side: It’s all about them.

NEGOtiators understand their own needs, define their own objectives (often these objectives are unrealistic), and occasionally set their own limits (their own or their organization’s). They focus on their side of the story and prepare to persuade the other party that they should agree with your position. They are preparing to win with the intent of having the other side lose. Some people are even crafting their proposal during their preparation, before meeting the other side. How do you react when the other side makes a proposal during the first meeting without asking you any questions about your priorities, constraints, or pain points?

Imagine that your counterpart is also a nEGOtiator and does the same thing during their preparation. Both of you will come at the meeting trying to persuade the other side, claiming that you want to create a partnership. There is nothing about partnership when both parties are focused on themselves and want to win. That’s one of the reasons why nEGOtiations don’t go as planned and take longer than expected.

YOU CAN’T CREATE VALUE FOR BOTH PARTIES IF IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU.

NEGOtiation is about winning, is about leveraging your power against the other side, it’s about you being right and them being wrong. This is what politics nEGOtiation is: winning at the price of others.

Mindful negotiation is about creating value for both sides. Your job as mindful negotiators is to find a mutually agreeable deal where each party gets what they really want. You can’t achieve this objective if you don’t spend any time about the other side (constraints, pain points, real needs) during your preparation.

The third difference between nEGOtiators and mindful negotiators during the preparation is the ability to be aware of emotions during the preparation and plan to handle the ones that can show up during the meeting or the negotiation.

NEGOtiators prepare from a rational point of view but are unaware that the way they feel in the moment influences how they set their objective and how far they can go. NEGOtiators often negotiate with themselves as they are planning to have a difficult conversation with the other party. They are worried about damaging the relationship, or they are afraid of losing the business.

For example, your company has decided to raise prices by 5%, and you are already thinking about how the other party might negatively react to this announcement.  As a nEGOtiator, your ego tells you that you will be fine. You set your intent at 5% and hope for the best.

As you deliver that price increase, you are stressed, your ego unconsciously uses soft words to soften the blow to the other person. You focus on not damaging the relationship. The other side perceives your lack of confidence and pushes back on that 5%. After some back and forth, you end up with a 2.5% price increase.

If the 5% was really what the company needed, it was the minimum acceptable, the limit, not the intent or the starting position. Starting the negotiation at your limit is very challenging, and it is unlikely that the other party will agree with it.

NEGOtiators set their objective, limit, maybe their strategy and persuasion talking points, but don’t prepare to handle their emotions once in the meeting.

We have covered in the first two blogs how most of the time, nEGOtiations are ego-driven, meaning that certain emotions will come up (yours and theirs), for example:

You are planning to have a difficult conversation with the other party, and you are concerned about damaging the relationship.

            You feel like you have no power and you are stressed.

            You are afraid of losing the business.

            The other side is not giving you what you want, even after you bullied them.

            The other side is using threats to get what they want.

            You are preparing to accept a bad deal and worried about your manager’s reaction.  

Mindful negotiators are aware of their emotions during preparation and leverage the fact that it is a safe place to plan how to experience emotions that can come up during the meetings. This way we are not at the mercy of our ego’s instinctual emotional reactivity. One of the best ways is to imagine “what if” scenarios and plan your reaction:

            What if the other side is bullying me? How would I react?

            What if the other side is not flexible? What would be my emotion at that time?

From a coaching perspective, the ability to plan emotions in advance is a big step in personal growth

Next Tuesday, we will discover the 2nd difference between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation.