The Negotiation Book: Your Definitive Guide To Successful Negotiating

4.9. 9. CREATIVITY:

Exploring and building on possibilities

Creative solutions not only help resolve deadlock situations but help us to trade off ideas as part of creating more value. By using a creative approach you can link and package variables in different ways and trade on variables in stages. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed so the creative negotiator is comfortable with degrees of ambiguity as the shape of the deal evolves. It provides you with the chance to introduce options and opportunities rather than trying to work through the issues in a disciplined linear fashion.

Many negotiations involve a broad range of variables and the way these are linked together and traded against each other provides for the art of creative deal-making. Even when it appears that there are few variables, let's say price, timing and specification, the creative negotiator will identify other value-adding considerations and turn them into variables ready for negotiation.

Imagine you are buying 50 acres of land from a farmer. The price asked for the land will be important and transparent to both parties. The timing of the availability of the field will allow you to plan out how you intend to make use of the space. Other considerations may include access to the land, fencing and what the land has been used for in the past. However, the creative negotiator will look at an even broader set of variables as they consider the possible tradeoffs. What about options in the future on adjoining ...