Negotiation Skills at Work

Many negotiations at work are decided before anyone sits down. The person who arrives knowing what they need, what they will do if talks fail and what the other side is up against has far more room to move than the person who arrives with a number and a hope. The same holds for a deadline, a supplier contract or a budget. This chapter gives you a preparation routine you can use for any negotiation. You will separate the position you plan to state from the interests behind it. You will set a walk-away point and test your best alternative to a deal. Then you will research the other party's priorities, pressures and decision process, so the conversation starts from facts rather than guesses.

Positions are what you ask for

A position is the specific thing you plan to ask for: a date, a price, a headcount, a yes or no. An interest is the reason you want it, such as protecting quality, keeping a client, reducing risk or saving your team from burnout. Roger Fisher and William Ury made this distinction central in Getting to Yes, the 1981 book from the Harvard Negotiation Project. Their point was simple. Two people can hold opposing positions while their underlying interests are shared, or at least compatible. Positions are useful as opening statements, but they are brittle. If you only know your position, any change to it feels like losing. If you know your interests, you can recognise a different proposal that serves them just as well.

Dig beneath your own request

Inês, a project lead in Lisbon, needs another team to deliver a data feed by the end of March. Her position is "31 March, no later." When she asks herself why, three interests appear. Her client demo is on 10 April. She needs a week of testing before the demo. And she wants her team to stop working weekends to cover late inputs. Once Inês sees this, the March date becomes one way to meet her needs, not the only way. A partial feed by mid-March with the rest by 2 April might work. So might the other team sending a sample file early so her testers can start. She now has options to explore instead of a single line to defend.

• Write down your position in one sentence.
• Ask "why does this matter?" at least three times and note each answer.
• Rank the interests you uncover by how much they matter to you.
• List two or three other outcomes that would satisfy your top interests.

Think about their interests too

Run the same exercise for the other side, even if you have to guess at first. The team supplying Inês's feed may be protecting its own release, short of an engineer or wary of promising a date it has missed before. Mark these as assumptions to test, not facts. Preparation is about having better questions ready, not about deciding what the other person thinks.

Know when you will say no

Your walk-away point is the least favourable deal you would still accept. Anything worse and you leave the table. Setting it before you meet protects you from agreeing to something in the moment that you would regret by the evening, when the pressure has gone and the costs are clear. A walk-away point should not be plucked from the air. It comes from comparing any deal on offer with what you would do if there were no deal at all. Fisher and Ury called that fallback your BATNA, short for best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If a proposal is worse than your BATNA, you should decline it, however polite or persistent the other side is.

Test your best alternative honestly

Wanjiru manages operations for a logistics firm in Nairobi. Her courier contract is up for renewal and the supplier wants a price increase of 12 per cent. Before the meeting she lists her real alternatives. She could move to a second courier that has quoted 8 per cent more but has weaker tracking. She could split volume between two providers. Or she could bring some deliveries in house, which would take months to set up. After checking each one, she judges the second courier to be her BATNA. That tells her the incumbent is worth something above that quote, because switching costs time and service quality, but not unlimited extra. She sets her walk-away point at a 9 per cent increase with better reporting included, and a target well below it.

Improve your alternative before you meet

Your BATNA is not fixed. You can strengthen it by getting a second quote, lining up another internal sponsor or preparing a scaled-down version of your project. A stronger alternative lets you negotiate calmly, because walking away is a real option rather than a bluff. Keep your walk-away point private, and write it down so you can check it when emotions run high. Revisit it if new facts emerge, but never lower it simply because the meeting feels tense.

Research their priorities and pressures

Good preparation includes the people across the table. You want to know what they are trying to achieve, what pressures they face and what limits they cannot change. A constraint is a limit the other side must work within, such as a fixed budget cycle, a policy, a capacity shortage or a boss who has already promised something. Karthik, a procurement analyst in Chennai, is preparing to negotiate software licences with a vendor. He reads the vendor's recent public results and notices they are pushing multi-year deals. He learns that their quarter ends in three weeks. He also asks a peer at another firm what terms they secured. None of this tells him the vendor's walk-away point, but it tells him where they may have flexibility and what they might value.

Map who decides and how

Many negotiations stall because the person in the room cannot say yes. Find out who approves the agreement, what they need to see and how long approval takes. Julien, a marketing manager in Montreal, wants a larger events budget from finance. He learns that finance must justify every increase to the leadership team using cost per qualified lead. He rebuilds his request around that measure, because it is the language his counterpart has to use upstairs. Wider market research matters just as much. Look for what similar agreements usually include: typical price ranges, contract lengths, service levels and payment terms. Industry reports, published price lists, professional networks and colleagues who have done similar deals are all useful sources. Market norms give you a fair reference point and make your proposals easier to defend. They also help you spot an offer that is unusually generous or unusually harsh.

• What does the other side say its goals are this year?
• What deadlines, budgets or rules limit what they can offer?
• Who signs off, and what evidence will they need?
• What has happened in past negotiations with them?
• What is the market norm for this kind of agreement?

Turn research into a one-page plan

Bring your findings together on a single page. Include your interests in order, your target, your walk-away point and BATNA, their likely interests and constraints, and the questions you still need answered. Mark which entries are facts and which are assumptions. A page like this keeps you focused during the conversation and makes it easy to notice when new information should change your plan. Research also has limits. Use public information and your own working relationships, and never seek confidential details through improper channels. Being well prepared should make you more trusted, not less.

Checkpoint: renewing a key contract

What good looks like

You know the interests behind your position, so you can recognise other proposals that serve them. You test your best alternative honestly, strengthen it where you can and set a private walk-away point from it. You research the other side's goals, constraints and decision process, then put it all on one page with the questions you still need to ask.