The 6 differences you didn’t know between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation that likely cost your organization money.YOUR PROPOSAL IS REJECTED, THEN WHAT?

Trying to see things your way by Karolina Adams: https://karolinaadams.com/

This is the sixth part of 8, until September 21st, when my book Mindful nEGOtiation is officially released.

We are exploring the 6 differences you didn’t know between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation that is likely costing your organization money. So far, we have covered the first 3 differences between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation: Preparation; in the meeting, it’s all about you, and your proposal is a win for you and a lose for them.

Today we will spend some time exploring the 4th difference between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation: Your proposal is rejected, then what?

You will be surprised to read how often I’ve heard in my career, from my direct reports and nEGOtiators that they had the perfect proposal for the other side. Still, it was rejected before they were even finished delivering it.

If you have a team reporting to you and hear this exact phrase, you may want to ask them how they know that. Likely they won’t know. As we covered in the previous blog of this series, nEGOtiators don’t think about the other side. They are not curious and make assumptions. Their justification for being such a perfect proposal assumes that the other side will use the same logic with the same lenses as they do, which is unlikely.

The biggest question becomes: what do I do next? The biggest fear of nEGOtiators is being rejected. Our ego works very hard to have us be accepted. The same emotional response is triggered when someone rejects our proposal.

When this happens, our ego is very slick and quickly turns toward persuasion. When their proposal is rejected, nEGOtiators believe that they didn’t do a good job persuading in the first place. So they go back to their big muscle, persuasion, and repeat their proposal, including the supposedly added value for the other side. They use different wording and logic to make their arguments more compelling.

I often see people repeating themselves three or four times. It is improbable that if our counterparts didn’t accept our proposal, they would change their minds if we repeated ourselves four or five times. As we covered in the previous blog, the reason for that is straightforward: nEGOtiators make one-sided proposals. If the proposal didn’t deliver value in the first place, we would be hard-pressed to convince them with ongoing persuasion.

 When a nEGOtiator nEGOtiate with another nEGOtiator, both are under their ego’s control. When we are under our ego's control, we don’t want to be told what to do. When we are emotional, the stress hormone cortisol creates a tunnel vision that makes us unable to see any other point of view outside our own. The more the other side tries to persuade us, the more we dig our heels in, and the less likely we can consider someone else’s point of view.

If persuasion didn’t work the first time, it is improbable to work with someone emotional, aggressive, or angry the third or the fourth time.

OK then, so when our proposal is rejected, what do we do?

To access the correct answer requires being in the moment and being mindful. Being rejected is painful for our ego, and in this case, having our ego in pain will not help us move forward. It requires us to pause and change our energy. Having our proposal rejected is not fun, but it’s not the end of the world.

If there is nothing for the other side in our proposal, no wonder it’s being rejected.

THE PRIMARY REASON WHY THE OTHER SIDE REJECTED OUR PROPOSAL IS THAT WE MISSED SOMETHING ABOUT THEM.

That’s right! If there is no value for them, there is no reason to accept it. If there is nothing for them, they would likely lose face internally. NEGOtiators prepare without thinking about the other side. They meet with the other side and do all the talking; it’s all about them. Then they deliver a proposal without the other person in mind.

Mindful negotiators understand that if the other side rejects their proposal, it’s not personal. It is primarily related to the fact that they weren’t successful at surfacing their pain points and drivers. Or if they did, they didn’t incorporate them into their proposal.

We can be mindful negotiators and still be unsure about what the other side really needs versus what they want. So, this is when mindful negotiators need to go back and ask questions to the other party about their world, what they are trying to accomplish, improve, or minimize. They need to test their assumptions and be curious about the real motivations.

It might not be easy to gather that information as the other party might not be forthcoming with it. We need to make sure that we really understand what success looks like for them, what keeps them awake at night, that type of thing.

If you have a team reporting to you, it is imperative to precisely understand what makes your proposal unacceptable for the other party. You don’t want to design a second proposal that will miss the mark.

Only then, mindful negotiators use creative thinking to find a solution. The negotiation exists because there is a need for at least one party to change something in the equation: either better pricing, business needs, or scope of work have changed, strategic priorities are different, etc.

It is a very different energy when mindful negotiators literally sit on the same side of the table with their counterparts and bring creativity and flexibility in a way to create value for both sides. Being creative requires time and the ability to be flexible with the approach to get to the agreement.

This is where nEGOtiators struggle. First of all, they are still using ineffective persuasion late in the negotiation process as their only strategy. They perceive flexibility in their approach as a failure to be recognized as a good negotiator. NEGOtiators, at times, confuse strategy with the objective. For example, someone in procurement set his goal to get more money from his vendor while in reality, it’s likely a means to achieve something else: increase profitability or cash flow, etc.

There you have it. The only way to move forward and be efficient is to understand precisely why the other party rejected your proposal. Otherwise, it’s a game of persuasion and negative emotions with potentially aggressive tactics like threats or asking your boss to be at the negotiation table.

Next Friday, we will discover the 5th difference between nEGOtiation and mindful negotiation: Going straight to your limit under pressure.