Eating Healthy for Life

There is 1 central idea, one important factor that is critical to comprehend.

If you have this right, you will be compensated with profitable, gratifying and long lasting business relationships in which price is not the only element. If you fail to get this right, you will battle with sub optimal relationships and you will most likely end up haggling about price in probably all of your negotiations.

The key element is understanding the interests of the other side in your negotiations; this is an important element taught in negotiation training.

Generally we have a good understanding of our own objectives, needs and desires. When we negotiate with others, we usually set about attempting to convince them to see the world the way that we do. We think to ourselves that because it makes sense to us, surely it must make sense to our counterparts. The problem with this stance is that it completely ignores the objectives, needs and desires of our counterparts.

What will it achieve trying to persuade someone to do something that they don't trust would be in line with their objectives, viewpoints and wishes?

You will never persuade anybody to agree with you by disagreeing with them, quite the contrary will happen. Because you tell someone that they are wrong and you are the one that is right, you will compel them to defend their stance rather than agreeing with you. Nobody likes to be wrong and if you express to them that they are incorrect it will become very important for them to defend their stance because their personal integrity is at risk.

Not often will you achieve consensus with anyone after you have told them that they are wrong, you have also managed to paint yourself into a corner. If it was key for you to reach consensus and you do not manage to win the argument, then you will have to compromise your own integrity by departing from your 'correct' stance to adopt the argument of your counterpart.

If you want to reach agreement the easy way rather than have your negotiations escalate into a positional argument, here's my suggestion:

Start by asking some questions, the best of which you can ask will be questions designed to uncover the interests behind the positions that your counterparts have assumed in the negotiation. Open questions are the best kind of questions to reveal the interest or motivators that reinforce your counterpart's positions.

A good question to can use and simultaneously endorsing your negotiation skills: Why are you negotiating with me / my organisation?

This is quite possibly the best question to ask at the beginning of a negotiation. Follow this question by asking the other side to elaborate on and to rank the reasons offered in response to your questions. Then you will have a prioritised list of their most important interests.

Sample Interests:
- Individual: Security, Acknowledgment and Control
- Organisation: Profit, Risk Avoidance and Strategic Fit (Some important elements you would have learned in purchasing training)

Once you have an understanding of your counterparts' key interests it is a good idea to reveal your own interests. Once all the parties to the negotiation have disclosed their interests it will be much easier to identify the areas of common ground and then it is useful to present your argument in the context of how it would meet their interests. This way, you will not have to persuade your counterpart that your argument is correct; you will only have to demonstrate that your suggested course of action would satisfy their interests.