I have a bit of a history with "anger problems" but in the last 2 years I've fixed them and gotten into the most prestigious school program in my area.  The last year there has been one isolated incident where I got in a fight, however the principle basically(though she couldn't say it aloud') agreed he deserved it and broke policy to let me off the hook.  So I started taking a prescribed medication with a rare side effect of brashness and impulsive violence.  Long story short, I am now being disallowed to go on a school trip to Germany for the summer.  I have absolutely no power, only my German teacher has power and it's very important.  All the negotiating strategies I know of are based on equals coming to a consensus when each party has something the other wants, I have nothing she wants and she has much I want.  What strategies should I incorporate?

I do research on my clients, get a an ballpark idea of what their income might be and I asset my counter offer from that, from my experience in the industry and what I have gotten paid in the past. However this never makes back and forth discussion of negotiation any easier.

When I don’t hear back from a client for a few days, I feel as if they have movies on to somewhere else.

So I think if I wanted to hear back quicker from the client quicker, I think I have to change something up with the way I negotiate.
Any suggestions?

Still in the early stages and could use some advice. I am able to get people to come to the site and look around -- but getting people to register and leave comments is a bit of a challenge.

Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.

Fundamental Elements of the Negotiation Process

"... negotiations commonly follow a four-step path: preparation, information exchange, explicit bargaining, and commitment. ... Negotiation is, in short, a kind of universal dance with four stages or steps. And it works best when both parties are experienced dancers."

One of the interesting aspects to negotiation theory is that even the fundamental elements of the process are subject to varying opinions. The quotation above breaks the process down into four phases. I prefer three. Let's review the basics before moving on.

Phase I: Pre-bargaining Phase

1. Information: Learn as much as you can about the problem. What information do you need from the other side?

2. Leverage Evaluation: Evaluate your leverage and the other party's leverage at the outset. This is important because there may be a number of things you can do to improve your leverage or diminish the leverage of the other side. What will you do to enhance your leverage?

3. Analysis: What are the issues?

4. Rapport: Establish rapport with your opponent(s). You need to determine early on if your opponents are going to be cooperative; if not, consider employing a mediator as soon as practical.

5. Goals and expectations: Goals are one thing; expectations are something else.

6. Type of negotiation: What type of negotiation do you expect? Will this be highly competitive, cooperative, or something unusual? Will you be negotiating face to face, by fax, through a mediator, or in some other manner?

7. Budget: Every negotiation has its costs. Lawyers will avoid conflicts with their clients by discussing budgets sooner rather than later. Many times there are a number of choices for enhancing leverage. For example, you may enhance your leverage by taking several depositions, by adding parties to a law suit, by serving subpoenas on witnesses, or by hiring experts. Unless your client has unlimited resources, you will have to make some hard choices, which should be designed to give you the "most bang for your buck".

8. Plan: What's your negotiation plan?

Phase II: Bargaining Phase

1. Logistics : When, where, and how will you negotiate? This can be especially important in multi-party cases.

2. Opening offers: What is the best offer you can justify? Should you make it, or wait to let another party go first?

3. Subsequent offers: How should you adjust your negotiating plan when responding to unanticipated moves by your opponent?

4. Tactics : What sort of tactics will you employ? What sort of tactics is your opponent using on you?

5. Concessions: What concessions will you make? How will you make them?

6. Resolution: What is the best way to resolve the problem? Is there an elegant solution? Be on constant lookout for compromise and creative solutions.

Phase III: Closure Phase

1. Logistics : How and when will you close? At mediation or later on? Who will prepare the final agreement?

2. Documentation: Prepare a closing checklist.

3. Emotional closure: It's one thing to end a legal dispute; it's another to address the underlying interests and needs of the parties. If you neglect the latter, the agreement will probably not sustain.

4. Implementation: It's not over until it is over.

Positive affect in negotiation

Even before the negotiation process starts, people in a positive mood have more confidence, and higher tendencies to plan to use a cooperative strategy. During the negotiation, negotiators who are in a positive mood tend to enjoy the interaction more, show less contentious behavior, use less aggressive tactics and more cooperative strategies. This in turn increases the likelihood that parties will reach their instrumental goals, and enhance the ability to find integrative gains. Indeed, compared with negotiators with negative or natural affectivity, negotiators with positive affectivity reached more agreements and tended to honor those agreements more. Those favorable outcomes are due to better decision making processes, such as flexible thinking, creative problem solving, respect for others' perspectives, willingness to take risks and higher confidence. Post negotiation positive affect has beneficial consequences as well. It increases satisfaction with achieved outcome and influences one's desire for future interactions. The PA aroused by reaching an agreement facilitates the dyadic relationship, which result in affective commitment that sets the stage for subsequent interactions.

PA also has its drawbacks: it distorts perception of self performance, such that performance is judged to be relatively better than it actually is. Thus, studies involving self reports on achieved outcomes might be biased.

Negative affect in negotiation

Negative affect has detrimental effects on various stages in the negotiation process. Although various negative emotions affect negotiation outcomes, by far the most researched is anger. Angry negotiators plan to use more competitive strategies and to cooperate less, even before the negotiation starts. These competitive strategies are related to reduced joint outcomes. During negotiations, anger disrupts the process by reducing the level of trust, clouding parties' judgment, narrowing parties' focus of attention and changing their central goal from reaching agreement to retaliating against the other side. Angry negotiators pay less attention to opponent's interests and are less accurate in judging their interests, thus achieve lower joint gains. Moreover, because anger makes negotiators more self-centered in their preferences, it increases the likelihood that they will reject profitable offers. Anger doesn't help in achieving negotiation goals either: it reduces joint gains and does not help to boost personal gains, as angry negotiators don't succeed in claiming more for themselves. Moreover, negative emotions lead to acceptance of settlements that are not in the positive utility function but rather have a negative utility. However, expression of negative emotions during negotiation can sometimes be beneficial: legitimately expressed anger can be an effective way to show one's commitment, sincerity, and needs. Moreover, although NA reduces gains in integrative tasks, it is a better strategy than PA in distributive tasks (such as zero-sum).

Conclusion

Finally, to conclude in the words of Wrigley and Moshe Dayan, a) When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. b) If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies.

Individuals who would benefit from advanced value-focused negotiation skills and those needing to move beyond negotiation basics to the understanding and application of advanced techniques. This seminar supports negotiators who want the winning advantage within the realm of supply.
You Will Learn

    * How to achieve "quantum-leap," value-adding results
    * How to identify and prioritize the key issues
    * How to develop strategic negotiation objectives
    * How to develop and implement a negotiation strategy
    * Advanced negotiation tools and techniques

Course Outline

   1. Understanding the process of negotiation: Understanding the negotiation process; when negotiation is appropriate; and the key influences on whether to competitively bid or negotiate
   2. Current state analysis: Defining the interests of the parties; understanding the importance of relative buyer/supplier position strength; and how to determine a useful negotiation range
   3. Market and Industry analysis: Information sources; comparing supplier financials to identify areas for negotiation; evaluating potential suppliers; and reducing the supplier portfolio to the vital few
   4. Preparation strategies: Developing buyer needs and expectations with a focus on organizational competitive imperatives; when to use a negotiations team; and a useful pre-negotiation checklist
   5. Implementing negotiation strategy: Understanding supplier expectations; incorporating motivational theory; negotiation tactics and techniques; common rules; a follow-up checklist; and defining a "walk-away" point
   6. Situation-specific negotiation strategies: Legal issues; negotiating for economies-of-scale; price and cost analysis; understanding supplier costs; cost modeling; using cost behavior in negotiations; identifying hidden supplier profits; negotiating for supplier contribution to buyer organization strategic objectives
   7. A model for mutually beneficial negotiation

What You Can Expect
In this intensive, week-long executive education program, you will probe the multiple dimensions of high-stakes negotiations, learning how to put the pieces together and complete the best deals for your organization.

Your Course of Study
You will receive solid grounding in the diverse elements of a deal and the process for achieving goals, fostering understanding, creating the right process, and promoting resolution. Learning through hands-on simulations as well as lectures, case studies, and group discussions, you will emerge with new conceptual frameworks and practical skills.

Who Is Right for the Program
Offering a career-defining experience for senior executives facing especially challenging negotiations, this leadership training program is valuable to those realigning corporate strategy, undertaking sizeable deals, settling a major dispute, or juggling multiple constituencies.

My wife Donna wears her heart on her sleeve and oneday when we were looking at a house we went in withthe Estate Agent and as soon as we walked into thelounge she shouted "My gosh Seany, I can't believe thefirst house we have set our eyes on will be the one forus - I love it, I love it - I want it!"

Needless to say the Estate Agent was licking his lips! Thus the other party knew we had limited other optionsand duly when we put in the offers they were all rejectedbecause both the vendor and the Estate Agent knewhow much Donna wanted the property and that we hadno other options. It was only when I called them up and said we were lookingat some other houses and for them "Not to call me again,I will call them if we are interested" that they started tobe reasonable.

To cut a long story short, the vendor saw a property that heloved, a new build which meant he had to move fast becausehe would lose his plot. (Bad choice! Why? Because he hadno other options and he told me so!) So the Estate Agent called me up and said the vendor waswilling to accept the first offer we had ever made becausehe JUST HAD to move in within 28 days or lose the plot hewanted. I offered him my original price minus a further couple of grandbecause I now knew that I had the power.

Guess what?

He accepted.

LEARN THIS LESSON - Make sure you have options when goinginto any negotiation and make sure the other party know that.

TIP # 2HOW TO REJECT A PROPOSAL Someone has made you an offer or put a deal on thetable that you don't like and want to reject. What do you say? Say this... "I'm sorry, you'll have to do better than that" then do notsay a word. Even if it is for 1 minute, 2 minutes, 1 hour! The next person to speak will make a concession. It may feel uncomfortable doing this but it works. If you are on the other end of this and you have made aproposal or offer that has been rejected say: "How much better do we have to do?

LEARN THIS LESSON - Be comfortable with silence!

TIP # 3MAKE SURE YOU NEVER OFFER TO SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE You have a price or offer in mind and so do they. You will most likely come out with a compromise butmake sure that the other party comes out with the suggestion. The party that makes the suggestion loses the powerof the negotiation.

How do you get the other party to make an alternativesuggestion? Say this... "I think we are not a million miles away on this. I am surewe can reach and agree on some middle ground with regardsto this" then be quiet! Never offer to split the difference because they could get youto split the difference again! When they have offered to split the difference you can getthem to split the difference again or you can "reluctantly accept" LEARN THIS LESSON - Do not give away your power

TIP # 4SHOW THEM THAT YOU ARE NOT HAPPY Forget about all of this maloney about having a Poker Facewhen negotiating. Instead, when anyone makes you an offer or a asks youfor a consession that you do not agree with make surethat it is written across your face immediately. If you do not do this they might feel that they have a chanceand will persue it further. This is very important. Body language gives great signals without anything havingto be said!

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED - Show the other party that youare shocked and surprised and it will do your case wonders