Have you ever faced a negotiator who presents with ‘limited authority’ to make a deal? Think of the company rep who’s fully authorised to refuse every option you might offer, but has no power to approve even your reasonable counter-offers. Of course, sometimes the ‘limited authority’ claim is entirely genuine. Not every negotiator you face […]
Dirty negotiation tricks – we don’t recommend you use them but it is important to be able to deal with them, and protect yourself, when you’re up against them. In our last post, we covered the good cop / bad cop approach. Now let’s explore the age-old ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ tactic. The final offer… You may have […]
When it comes to negotiation approaches, it’s no surprise that some negotiators use dirty tricks. Many of the participants in our workshops and programs are keen to learn how to counter these tricks – ethically – when they come up against them. Want to outsmart dirty negotiation tricks like the good cop/bad cop strategy? Explore […]
It may seem hard to believe, but the way you phrase your requests can be a game-changer in negotiation. And there’s a huge amount of research to back this up: people, it seems, respond differently to messages simply based on how they’re framed (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). For example, a 2011 study by Grant and […]
In our last post, we explored how to make negotiation offers that result in higher value outcomes. But we didn’t discuss the vexed, long-debated question of who should make the first offer in a negotiation. Let’s explore it. Drop anchor Question: Did Gandhi die before or after 140 years old? If you said ‘before’, you’re […]
Mind over matter. We’ve all heard it before, and you know it’s true. The mind is a powerful tool. So powerful in fact, that you should harness it in your salary negotiations. Here are two (counter-intuitive) strategies to help you foster the right kind of negotiation mindset. Strategy 1: Deal with ALL terms at once […]
While some people think of negotiation as an aggressive, fight-to-the-death battle from which only one winner can emerge, there’s an ever-growing body of research showing that collaboration – not competition – leads to better, win-win outcomes for everyone. But how do you get your counterpart to collaborate with you? Let’s say you’re negotiating your next […]
The power to persuade is useful in plenty of situations. Sales presentations, supplier transactions, team meetings… just to name a few. And there’s one context in which your persuasive power can have an especially large impact for you personally: your next salary negotiation. The good news is that the ability to influence others isn’t inborn. […]
A few months ago I wrote a post about how we are hardwired to be right. In a negotiation, this can lead us to become positional and prevent us from seeing value creating options which would alleviate our problems. It turns out that there’s another problem with needing to be right – it reduces our […]
Wouldn’t it be great if we could improve the way someone is feeling toward us before a negotiation, without them even knowing that we’re doing anything? It turns out that there is something we can do, and it could be as simple as offering a cup of tea. It may sound like an old fashioned way of solving […]