Collaborate (I Win - You Win)

Most people confuse "Win/Win" or the collaboration style with the compromising style. This is most definitely not the case. "Win/Win" is about making sure both parties have their needs or goals met, while creating as much mutual value as time and resources allow. "Win/Win" negotiators usually evolve through the other profiles, growing into collaborative negotiators. This means collaborative profile negotiators can revert to one or two of the other styles when pushed or when the situation calls for it. Collaborative profile negotiators are adamant that their needs must be met - and they acknowledge that the other party has needs that must be met too. Tragically, too many account managers are overly accommodating and compromising. Resulting in competitive style buyers claiming more than their fair share. When these same competitive style buyers come up against skilled collaborative style negotiators, the competitive styles blunt coercion methods don't get rewarded with concessions. Too many buyers are stretched and under tremendous time pressure, so temptation to compromise rather than invest time in collaborating wins out.

Often referred to as 'expanding the pie', collaborative negotiators are willing to invest more time and energy in finding innovative solutions, feeling secure in the fact that there will be more value to share out later on. The mantra of collaborative negotiators is: 'it's not enough that I win, I will not be happy until you have won too.'

When to use?

Under most circumstances collaboration is the primary style you should use for most goals in business to business negotiations.

As mentioned briefly in the Compete section: if a relationship is important to you, and if your market reputation is important, if the other side needs to perform and not just exchange a standard product for cash, high risk (e.g. new market or new product or both), if there is a large amount of money at stake, then you are best advised to think about all the ways in which you can build a more trusting collaborative working relationship.

If you need to understand the feelings and deeper interests or motivations of all negotiators, then collaboration is your best path.

What's the Danger?

Be careful not to collaborate with competitive style negotiators – unless they agree to and live up to your agreed (written or unwritten) rules of collaboration. Die hard competitive negotiators can be treated in transactional trading manner - e.g. "I'll only give you this if you give me that".

When we share information we need to make sure that we share information at the same level of detail. Too much and we could be exploited - too little and the other side can lock up like a clam.

Collaboration requires more time and needs to be at the right level. So if you're a vendor and your buyer doesn't have the authority or knowledge or won't invest the time, save your effort. Best to talk with them about your style of negotiation or build a relationship at another level of their organization. Same advice goes for buyers in reverse.

Self Defense

So when might you need to defend yourself against a Collaborative negotiator? If you have decided that it's not in your interest to use a collaborative style with a negotiator, then decide on your alternative style and flesh out what behaviour translates into. So a commodity supplier who suffers a great deal of competition in their market place will try to get their foot in your door. A wise procurement manager will be careful to not investing too much time, or give any time - unless there is value. Your time is short, so be careful who you collaborate with.

Remember

Before you negotiate, stop and ask yourself:

· What is my preferred style of negotiation? The Negotiation Experts will release our on-line graphical Negotiation Style Profile in 2010. In the interim. In the meantime, the generalist TKI profile is a reasonable conflict profile. Once you know your style, you've taken the first step to gaining flexibility in your negotiations. There is much you can do as a member of a negotiation team, if you know your fellow team members' profiles.

· Which of these 5 styles best describes your business client or vendor negotiation relationship? You may find it useful to allocate a percentage score to each style, and then ask yourself whether you're happy with the current styles balance. If not happy, then make a plan to migrate to your preferred styles.

Don't blindly apply 1 negotiation style to your negotiation. Work through your list of goals in your concession strategy, and decide which issues are best to: collaborate, compete, compromise, avoid, accommodate.

Finally - there's very seldom an escape from having to use a competitive style. At some point, you're going to need to do some claiming or sharing out the value you've created. So think carefully about which point in the negotiation you need to switch to competing. So if the other side compete too early, be prepared to pause the negotiation and have words ready to revert to another style.

Assignments

1. What negotiation styles do you know?

2. What negotiation style will you use if need to act or get results quickly?

3. What are the main features of competitive style negotiators?

4. What is the opposite of competing?

5. What's the danger in accommodate style?

6. What kind people use “Avoid” style of negotiations?

7. What to do when you're dragged into a negotiation unprepared?

8. What is the difference between “compromise” and “negotiation”?

9. Explain the figure below.

Fig. 7.4 Negotiation Peculiarities

10. Summarize the text.

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Win-Win Negotiations

By Horacio Falcao [55]

Professor Horacio Falcao suggests a win-win approach to negotiation should be based on a risk/reward standpoint. The salient question is: ‘What is the reward of moving fast in trusting (the other party) and what is the risk?’ If the deal is small, you can afford to move faster on trust and reap the rewards quicker if you are right. Conversely, you may want to be more cautious when the stakes are higher, because excess trust may just leave you with a problem. Falcao advocates starting from a place of ‘zero trust’. “The beauty of win-win is that you don't need trust to begin with, what is actually needed early on is interdependence”. This can be established early in the negotiation because as two people come together to negotiate, there's at least an implicit understanding that they need one another to be better off or at least will be better off by working together. Counter-intuitively, trust is not needed to establish interdependence or to negotiate to a win-win outcome. The key word here is needed it helps if you can build trust, but you can survive without it. This is fortunate because most people do not negotiate with people they already trust, and consequently they would never be able to move forward with a win-win approach. The idea of a win-win can be very appealing but needs skill to achieve. Win-win is a positive negotiating stance focused on constantly trying to build value by making positive moves in the negotiation that can also benefit the other side; but only if they ‘work with you’.

Win-Win -v- Win-Lose

A win-win approach can deliver higher value at lower risk than a win-lose scenario. A win-lose approach focuses on obtaining power over the opposing party. Both parties treat the other as an enemy and try to use power to bully other side into a losing position. This is not so bad if you ‘win’ but at least 50% of all parties in a disputed negotiation lose. Sometimes everyone loses. A win-win approach focuses on good communication to develop more value, and hence the interests of both parties can be satisfied. Value negotiations focus on creating value and away from power. Focusing on gaining power will not guarantee value whereas creating value will.

Summary

The reticence towards win-win on the part of many naive negotiators can be attributed to pre-conceived notions about ‘good guys’ being soft and not winning! Consequently, they consider win-win as a soft option which is a big misconception ... The whole purpose of negotiating is to ‘win’ as much as possible with the minimum risk. Done properly a win-win approach can create a much larger ‘win’ for a much smaller risk and allow the other party to win as well reducing the possibility they become an intractable enemy. It really does not matter how much they ‘win’ what matters is that you win what you need for a successful outcome. Life is all about choices and choosing a negotiating style is no different. As Falcao says in his book, ‘Most people will attribute win-win and win-lose as if the situation was already predefined... I strongly believe that win-win and win-lose is a choice you have on how to address the situation and that making a choice actually empowers us.’

Assignments

1. What is this paper about?

2. Are Win-Win Negotiations strongly interconnected?

3. Thought about the difference between “Win-Win Negotiations” and “Business Negotiation”?

4. Make up your own conclusion to this paper.

5. Do you share Professor’s point of view? Why?

6. Explain Professor’s expression: ‘the beauty of win-win is that you don't need trust to begin with, what is actually needed early on is interdependence’. Do you agree?

7. Which approach can deliver higher value?

8. What does the term ‘win-win negotiations’ mean?

Fig. 7.5 Win-Win Negtiations

9. What does the term ‘win-lose negotiations’ mean?

10. Summarize the text.

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