Practical Negotiating: Tools, Tactics & Techniques

Choosing the Best Overall Approach

In addition to your negotiating style, there is also the issue of choosing the best approach, or the overall behavior that you select in the negotiation.

Later, we explore specific tactics that support your overall approach. The model in Figure 7.1^[1] illustrates how to analyze a negotiation situation based on the importance of (1) the issue and (2) the relationship.

Figure 7.1. Importance of Issue versus Relationship

To help interpret the model in Figure 7.1, assume that in a given negotiation, the issue is important, yet the relationship is not of high importance. The appropriate stance in that case is “take it or leave it.” An example of this might be purchasing a car where the relationship with the salesperson or even the dealership is not important. You might take a hard line on price to see how far you can push. In similar fashion, if the relationship is important, yet the issue is not, then it is appropriate to accommodate. In a divorce settlement, the issue of where the parties meet may not be important to your side, so, to ensure an amicable process, the other side is accommodated and they select the meeting place. The shaded box of Figure 7.1 (Collaboration—Win-Win Negotiation) represents the area where both issues and relationships are important. The other aspect that I like is the avoidance of the topic when neither the issue nor ...