Having spent the past few years teaching organisations around the world how to negotiate effectively, a common question I get asked is whether our gender makes a difference to our ability to negotiate. My starting point is always, without fail, that it should not make any difference. Both men and women are able to be amazing negotiators.
However, that doesn't mean that there aren't assumptions and stereotypes that limit how we might approach negotiating a deal. In this series of articles, it is my job to tackle these issues head on and show you how you can be a negotiation superhero.
First, I am going to explore five common mistakes made by negotiators. If you recognise yourself in any of the following examples, it might be time to re-think your negotiation strategies.
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Mistake 1: Negotiation is all about winning
It isn't. Not outwardly anyway. At the end of the negotiation you want the other party to feel like they have "won". Because if they feel like they have lost, the negotiation ends and they will be the client or customer who keeps coming back, asking for more, making late payment, not prioritising your requests or just being generally unco-operative. Nobody likes to feel like a fool. So at the end of the negotiation, make sure you behave with grace and professionalism. Make them feel like they have won, even if you know that you have secured the deal of a lifetime.
Mistake 2: Avoiding negotiation is a clever strategy
I know, let's just skip that negotiation part! No one really likes doing it, so let's just cut to the chase and save time. We all know it's just a game, right? Wrong.
A common mistake is to try and bypass the negotiation entirely, believing that both you and the other party will be grateful that they have avoided all that unnecessary awkwardness. The problem with this strategy is that despite the old saying, people do look a gift horse in the mouth. If something is too easy, people start to wonder why that was the case and what might be wrong with the deal they have just (so easily) agreed to.
Mistake 3: Sticking to your tried and trusted negotiation style
I routinely see clients who pride themselves on being "the bad cop" or "the collaborator" when it comes to negotiation. The problem is that they use that same style every single time they negotiate, regardless of the situation.
Not all negotiations are the same. Some require a more direct and unemotional response, whereas others require more creative thinking. Some will have one variable, others will have hundreds. If you adopt your standard collaborative' approach in a hard-bargaining scenario, you will be taken advantage of. Similarly, if you approach a win/win negotiation with a tough and aggressive style, you are unlikely to get the result you want. To be the best negotiator you can be, get comfortable with flexing your style.
Mistake 4: Always trying to be fair
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that you should actively be seeking deals that are unfair to the other party. What I am suggesting is that you shouldn't always assume that your definition of fairness matches theirs. I routinely hear people delivering proposals to the other side and then following up their suggestion with "I think that's a fair proposal, don't you?"
Each party approaches a negotiation with their own interpretation as to what makes an agreement fair. Put simply, what is fair to a buyer is probably not fair from the perspective of the seller, and vice versa.
So don't be surprised if their response to your very "fair" suggestion is a flat refusal.
Mistake 5: It's all about you
When we approach a negotiation, we often spend most of our time thinking of all the reasons why the outcome is important to us. We get bogged down in thinking about deadlines, expectations, demands, targets, pressure from competitors, ambition or whatever it might be that matters to us. We often allow this to cloud our thinking and in doing so we ramp up the pressure on ourselves to do well. This often results in anxiety, fear and nervousness clouding our judgement, planning and performance.
Smart negotiators realise that the best way to diffuse the pressure of our own expectations is to simply acknowledge these pressures and then put them to one side. The real set of pressures and priorities that we should be thinking about exist in the head of our counterparty. Even if they do come across as powerful and intimidating, they too will have deadlines, expectations from colleagues and demands from their boss.
The more you research your counterparty and understand things from their perspective, the more you can start to use their pressures to your advantage. It also goes a long way to boosting your own confidence if you know that the balance of power might just be a bit more even than you had previously thought.
