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Instructor Q & A

Background

If you've ever sat across the table from a tough negotiator, you know that preparation is everything. But how do you prepare for the stubborn negotiator, the intimidator or the negotiator who plays to your sympathies?

ESI's resident negotiating guru and instructor Dr. Barry Smith addresses these daunting questions in the ESI course he created and teaches, Negotiation Strategies and Techniques. Recently, Smith discussed the course and the art of negotiating.

1. What can students expect to learn in the Negotiation Strategies and Techniquescourse?

Students say they're more comfortable with negotiating after taking the class. They tell me, "You've taken the mystery out of negotiating." The course focuses on negotiation as a process. Course participants use an observation guide to analyze video tapes of negotiations. This analysis helps them to see these steps as a process that is being executed naturally by themselves and others.

The course teaches students to recognize the steps of the negotiation process and understand their motivational patterns that drive them to engage in some of the steps and not others. Part of the negotiating process is also learning how to facilitate others' motivations. For example, if the other party has come to the negotiation table to form a relationship and I don't value relationship-building at the negotiation table, then it will be difficult for both of us. When the relationship-builder finds the other party unwilling to build a relationship, he or she will never trust the results of the negotiation. So, I'll have to learn how to work at building a relationship with you, if we're going to have a positive outcome.

2. You mention the importance of motivational patterns in negotiations. Can you explain more about motivational values and how they influence an individual's approach to negotiating?

To me it comes down to what's important to you. Is the working relationship important? Is accomplishing the task of an agreement? Is beginning the performance period and beginning to see results important? Obviously, all three are important in the long run, but your individual motivation determines your interest in one or more of these outcomes at the moment of the negotiation. What's important to you determines how you spend your time at the table and it gives you an idea of your existing negotiation strengths.

If you are a "task accomplisher," you're going to be a data collector, and your purpose in interacting with the other party is to collect and analyze information. You will naturally spend more time in the exploratory phase of negotiating, not in chit chat.

If you're more task-oriented, you will, because of your persuasive nature, spend more time in hard-core bargaining. You'll naturally spend more time in the bargaining phase since this is the quickest way to get agreement and thus begin the performance period.

If you're more relationship-oriented, you will value the relationship and believe that if the relationship is sound you can surmount all problems in the performance period. You'll naturally spend more time in the rapport building and tension management phases of negotiating.

3. How do you know if you're facing a top-notch negotiator across the table?

They are confident. They seem prepared. They seem to know what their issues are and articulate them well and are comfortable in stating how they want an issue resolved. They also seem to have a feel for the total process and are aware of the stages of negotiation. They walk you through the stages. They're active in leading their process. They know where you are comfortable and uncomfortable and use this to their advantage at times.

4. What are the common mistakes that beginning negotiators make?

Often less skilled negotiators don't take the time to study their own and the other party's interests and needs. They don't focus on their and other's concerns and don't know what a good resolution of those concerns would be. Good negotiators need to have parameters to work within.

Another common pitfall is that negotiators assume they're the only one who has something to lose. All parties have something to lose and gain. We assume that we're the needy ones. We need to spend some time studying the other party to understand their potential losses and gains.

Often, less skilled negotiators don't listen to the other party. They spend more time persuading and less time listening. Negotiators must feel as though they have been heard and understood.

They don't have a clear road map of the process and are haphazard in their leadership of the negotiation table. They don't fully understand the influence process and how to approach the other party with an effective approach based on what is called pattern deployment.

5. What's the best advice you can give someone who is just beginning to participate in the negotiation process?

Observe as many negotiations as possible. Watch as many people as you can to see as many different ways of doing a negotiation as possible. We're mostly comfortable with our own ways of negotiating. That's why we have good and bad days. If we encounter someone who does not work in the same way as us or does not act with the same motivations, we're not as comfortable and less likely to reach agreement. Clarify your own natural tendencies at the negotiation table and begin to mimic some of the patterns you see in others.

6. What are some steps you can take to steer an adversarial negotiation toward a more positive outcome?

The first step is to recognize that being adversarial is natural for some and not for others. In class, I try to help participants learn how to focus more on each others' interests than their specific positions. As we start to recognize interests we need to try to generate a list of options that might satisfy both parties. This approach is called "principled negotiation" by Fisher and Ury and can be awkward for those negotiators who are naturally adversarial. They keep wondering what you are up to.

For this reason I have developed an alternative method to this. I encourage participants, through an observational method, to realize when the negotiations are becoming ritualistic or adversarial. There is also an emphasis in my approach to help participants realize when others are possibly beginning to consider making concessions. This moment can be discovered through observational methods taught in the course which focus participants on being able to identify an influence attempt. When this moment in the process occurs, I encourage participants to get the ball rolling through a concession-making process that I call reciprocal negotiation. I especially think that a quid pro quo is useful here. Sometimes the other party isn't making concessions because you aren't. Also it is sometimes necessary to show the other party that you, too, can be strong and walk close to a stalemate. The ability to show strong persuasive skills and then show an willingness to make concessions can be valuable in breaking stalemates at the table.

7. Can you remember your first negotiation? Would you do it differently today, knowing what you do now?

I was in the Air Force assisting in the negotiation of the base war plan for an Air Force base. I worked in a logistics/plans office that had responsibility for this plan. Typically I visited with various tenants on the base and and discussed the terms for their involvement if a war occurred. I was negotiating with the head of an organization who outranked me considerably and we were discussing what he, as a tenant, expected to do and what we, as the host organization, wanted his organization to do.omer satisfaction and ultimately enhance shareholder value."

Consciously or not, he knew he could get me off balance during the negotiations by continually pointing out how junior I was and how I could jeopardize my career by not giving in to his approach. I did not realize that part of my difficulty was that I was uncomfortable in bargaining and in using what I now term "power techniques." This colonel happened to be comfortable with bargaining--and I was not at the time--and happened to be a power player--which I was not capable of doing at the time. So here I am in a negotiation with a power player and, frankly, I was not a power player. My inability to find a way to get his attention hurt my success that day.

In the Negotiations course, I help the participants in the see the three collections of techniques (reasoning, power, and rapport) and help them to see which collection(s) they naturally utilize. There are at least 65 persuasive patterns in the three collections that can be used to influence outcomes in the negotiation process.

More About Dr. Barry Smith

Smith is a consultant and ESI instructor with more than 28 years of experience in management, team development and negotiation. Since he began teaching at ESI in 1988, he has focused on demystifying negotiations and leadership. He is the creator of both ESI courses, Negotiation Strategies and Techniques and Project Leadership, Management and Communications.

Prior to teaching at ESI, Smith taught at at Pensacola Junior College, The University of West Florida, American University, The USDA Graduate School and the GSA Procurement Institute. He has taught in several executive and management development programs and is currently active in the Naval Facility Engineering Command Executive Institute. He earned his doctorate in business administration with a specialty in Human Systems from The George Washington University in Washington DC.

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