www.fastcompany.com: Most of us, regardless of what type of negotiation we are in, have the same assumption about how it should go: We want to maximize what we get while minimizing what the other person gets. But that’s all wrong, says Art Markman, psychology professor and Fast Company contributor.
5 comments:
I frequently come across similar articles which purport to share negotiating tactics for getting a better salary, or otherwise increasing what you get from a negotiation. They generally involve such admittedly helpful tactics as beginning by asking the other person what they think is a fair term or things along the lines of "if they don't laugh at your first number, it wasn't high enough." While these tactical, small scale tricks can certainly be helpful, most of these articles fail to present a broader strategy or point of view from which to approach the negotiation in the first place. They assume an adversarial, zero sum game in which one person wins, and one person loses, or at least the idea of "in a good deal, both parties come away slightly disappointed." This article presents a point of approach that is fundamentally different from those assumptions, and which is a nice and potentially helpful perspective even if you don't agree.
This article caught my eye from the title because I am interested in bettering my skills at negotiation and I was not disappointed while reading instead I was very intrigued. I found it very interesting the different categories that relationships were broken into and how we use negotiation in the more familiar categories without even realizing it. The tips that were given in the article concerning negotiating with neighbors were very eye opening and helpful to me. I learned so much from this article one of them being that being a good negotiator allows room for that relationship to grow and become better. I also found it helpful to know that you don't have to hide what you're bringing to the table when negotiating with a good "neighbor". The statement that resonated with me the most in this article is "A lot of times, the real negotiation isn’t the thing you are talking about, it’s about the bigger goal, which can be easy to lose sight of."
4. I am so glad this article exists. I have trained a few stage managers while I was in high school and I always struggled with how to approach training them on conflict management. I treat conflict like a negotiation. Most of the time when someone is causing problems, it is not because they are a bad person or anything, but likely something else is going on either in their personal lives or their personality simply clashes with another. Making conflict resolution into a problem which you tackle together is the best way to get someone to trust you to help them the next time something comes up. I agree that most of the time we treat negotiations like a tug of war and end up damaging our interpersonal relationships as a result. In theater these kinds of interactions can damage a production as a whole. A lighting design will not be as strong, if in order to buy a certain extra special template, the scenic designer has to cut piece that contributes to an audience’s understanding of the director’s concept. Each and every design culminates into one strong concept and argument and taking someone from someone else to improve your personal design will make the show has a whole weaker.
This article has some really interesting points about negotiation. I thought the idea about how we treat people in job negotiations was fascinating. Even though they are not our “neighbors”, or people we have personal relationships with, if you take the job, you will have those types of relations. Valuing this relationship, and quite frankly all relationships, going into the interview, instead of only caring about it after can make it easier to join the company. Also, as the article says, it will make the company more likely to hire you again. I enjoyed the idea of expanding the pie, instead of trying to take more of it or win. Showing your cards allows you to get more out of the situation because your negotiation partner knows what you need, which allows them to help you. Negotiation is more about compromise and working together than the overall outcome. I love the idea that we should be thinking about people and relationships, instead of getting more.
What first struck me was the headline of the article. I was interested in what was gong to be said and right under he headline he goes out and says Approaching negotiation like a tug of war damages your future relationships, I think this was interesting because how far should you go negotiating so you don’t do thing like ruin a relationship. Separating people into three categories makes a lot of sense. Getting something I want from my family is very different than a stranger. Negotiating can be a very hard skill to learn as you don’t want to ask for too much but you do want to end up with what you want. Based off this article I realized that an efficient way to negotiate would be for both parties to really work together. Finding the balance so you don’t upset the relationship can be very hard but this article gave some really great tips on how both sides can achieve there goal.
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