The Negotiation Book: Your Definitive Guide To Successful Negotiating

1.2. SO WHAT IS NEGOTIATION?

Negotiation is a word, a process and an art. It evokes complex feelings for anyone faced with the prospect of having to negotiate an agreement. However, it is fundamental to how business gets done and takes place millions of times a day around the world. If you can take control of yourself, your values and prejudices, your need for fairness and your ego, you may start to realise the best possible outcomes in your negotiations. The biggest challenge here is not in educating you in how to be a better negotiator but motivating you to change the way you think about negotiations and yourself. Of the many thousands of negotiation workshops I have provided at The Gap Partnership, the greatest change I see clients make, as they develop their ability to negotiate, is that of self-awareness. Learning about negotiation is an exercise in self-awareness because understanding yourself and what effect a negotiation can have on you, enables you to accommodate the pressures, dilemmas and stresses that go with it. Self-awareness helps us to recognise why we do the things we do and the effect this has on our results. This in itself can be very motivating. It also helps us adapt our approach and our behaviour to suit each negotiation rather than trying to make one approach fit every situation, simply because it suits our personal style.

1.2.1. Why get motivated?

So many aspects of our lives are influenced by agreements with others, both personally and professionally. ...