Types of Negotiations in Different Organisations

Negotiation Type	Topic of Negotiation	Parties Involved
Day to day Management, internal issues and working relationships between groups of employees.	Arranging pay working conditions, jobs, output and job responsibilities.	Management, subordinates staff, colleagues, trade unions legal advisors
Commercial issues, financial issues with external organisations	Contracts, products, quality, quantity, deliveries and price of products	Managers, suppliers, customers, Government, trade unions, legal advisors
Formal legal issues, disputes on precedents.	Local Government issues, planning laws, local taxes	Local government laws. Regulators, tax collectors.

Assessing the Opposition

It is to your advantage to know as much as you can about the opposition before you start negotiation. Assess if they have a strong logical case, their starting points, are they a strong team with a strong experienced leader, look at all aspects of their case, its strengths and weaknesses, do a SWOT analysis of their overall position. Your aim is to expose their major weaknesses in the case or to undermine the strength of their case.

To find out about the opposition you should ask yourself the following questions.

1 Are the opposition experienced negotiators, do they hold different opinions on the issues?

2 Do they have enough knowledge, facts and information necessary to achieve their aims?

3 Do they have the power and authority to achieve their aims? Are they under pressure?

4 Be careful, the opposition could have a hidden agenda, keep testing your assessment.

5 What do you think the opposition has high, middle or low objectives and priorities?

6 Carefully analyse all formal written information about your opposition.

Cultural differences exist between races, age groups, and sexes, and you should be able to use these to your advantage. If your opponent is a middle aged Russian for example, you can imply that they lack experience of commercial markets. If your opposition is a well educated-Western but young person, you can imply that her/she lacks the relevant work experience. Be careful.

Negotiating with a single or many parties involves mapping out ways of finding common ground for agreement or compromise. After you are clear about your objectives and analysed the oppositions’ strengths and weaknesses, you should formulate your negotiation strategy. A strategy is the overall policy plan designed to achieve a number of specific goals. It should not be confused with ‘tactics’ which are the detailed methods used to carry out the strategy.

Tips for negotiations

1 Use informal social occasions to acquire any relevant information about the opposition.

2 Always keep your strategy simple, flexible, hide frustrations, never walk out of negotiations.

3 Draw your team of negotiators and allocate responsibilities to your team of negotiators.

4 Just like any football team needs a goalkeeper, your negotiation team needs different people to play different classic roles: Leader, Good Guy, Bad Guy, Hard Liner, and Sweeper.

5 After selecting the negotiating, rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse roles until you drop dead.

6 Consider your appearance in advance, first impressions are very important. Power dressing can be positive for negotiations but power dressing can also be negative for negotiations. If in doubt, dress conservatively and wear comfortable clothes.

7 Practice being silent around the negotiation table but listen carefully to everything said.

8 Set an agenda and prioritise issues for discussion; it will influence the rest of the meeting.

9 Arrive a little early for meetings so that you will look efficient and business-like.

10 Create a positive atmosphere by ensuring the venue is suitable for both teams.

11 Keep a wall-clock and do not negotiate for more than two hours without a break.