Negotiating Partnerships: Increase profits and reduce risks

Five different types of behaviour

Human beings were made to survive in a tough world. Aggressiveness has been a precondition for survival, and nature has made a selection in which the strongest survived. Combative behaviour as the natural and only appropriate mode has been left to us as a legacy for generations. Only too rarely has it been queried.

As discussed earlier in this chapter, the different methods of negotiation can be categorized under the headings combat, concession, stalling, compromise, and co-operation.

Combat may arise in many ways. There is the combat in which the negotiator clearly shows his intentions through an aggressive type of communication, threats, and lack of interest in listening to the other party. There is the combat ...