Discuss your answers to the following questions.

1. Have you ever been involved in formal or informal negotiations? What was it like?

2. Do you like negotiating? Why / why not? Can you do it?

3. Do we negotiate only in business or in private life as well?

II. Background Reading

Read the following text. Focus on the meaning of the boldfaced words. Determine whether what you anticipated coincides with the text.

Negotiations

1. One of the most important skills anyone can hold in daily life is the ability to negotiate. We are negotiating all the time, whether we realize it or not. We enter into negotiations in order to start or continue a relationship and resolve an issue. Any time you are in a position where you feel you have to persuade someone of your position, you are negotiating. In general terms, a negotiation is a resolution of conflict. It is also one of the most common approaches used to make decisions and manage disputes.

2. The negotiation itself is a careful exploration of your position and the other person’s position, with the goal of finding a mutually acceptable compromise that gives you both as much of what you want as possible. People’s positions are rarely as fundamentally opposed as they may initially appear – the other person may have very different goals from the ones you expect!

3. Negotiation is an important tool for sales, but it is also a skill that we all use every day in business and in personal life. If people negotiate with each other, they talk in order to reach an agreement which is to their mutual advantage. For example: customer – supplier negotiations; merger or takeover negotiations; wage negotiations; trade negotiations. Negotiations also take place to settle disputes (decide arguments) such as: contract disputes, labour disputes, and trade disputes.

4. Some people are naturally stronger negotiators; they use it to better effect and are capable of getting their needs met more easily than others. Without the ability to negotiate, people break off relationships, quit jobs, or deliberately avoid conflict and uncomfortable situations. But negotiation is a skill that can be developed and cultivated with a little practice and effort. Highly effective negotiators are not born, they are made.

5. When you are involved in a negotiation, you are usually discussing something with a person with whom you don’t fully agree or that person is trying to sell you something… In an ideal situation, you will find that the other person wants what you are prepared to trade, and that you are prepared to give what the other person wants.

6. If this is not the case and one person must give way, then it is fair for this person to try to negotiate some form of compensation for doing so – the scale of this compensation will often depend on many factors. Ultimately, both sides should feel comfortable with the final solution if the agreement is to be considered win-win.
7. The interdependence of the two parties can be either win-lose or win-win in nature, and the type of negotiation that is appropriate will vary accordingly. The negotiators will either attempt to force the other side to comply with their demands, to modify the opposing position and move toward compromise, or to invent a solution that meets the objectives of all sides. The nature of their interdependence will have a major impact on the nature of their relationship, the way negotiations are conducted, and the outcomes of these negotiations.

8. There has been a lot of research into the art of negotiation. Most researchers agree that good negotiators try to create a harmonious atmosphere at the start of a negotiation. They make an effort to establish a good rapport with the other party, so that there will be a willingness on both sides to make concessions if this should prove necessary.

9. Good negotiators generally wish to reach an agreement which meets the interests of both sides. They therefore tend to take a long-term view, ensuring that the agreement will improve their relationship with the other party. On the other hand, a poor negotiator tends to look for immediate gains, forgetting that the real benefits of a deal may come much later.

10. Skilful negotiators are flexible. They do not “lock themselves” into a position so that they will lose face if they have to compromise. They have a range of objectives, thus allowing themselves to make concessions.

11. Successful negotiators do not want a negotiation to break down. If problems arise, they suggest ways of resolving them. The best negotiators are persuasive, articulate people, who select a few key arguments and repeat them. This suggests that tenacity is an important quality.

12. Finally, it is essential to be a good listener and to check frequently that everything has been understood by both parties.