Friday, March 5, 2010

Negotiation - the lost art

I've been reminded of a lecture I attended at the Author's Globe because of a negotiation that I am currently involved with .  At the lecture, one of the exercises was to try to divide 7 marbles between two people. As expected most people tried to get 3 or 4 of the marbles, but there were a few participants that wanted all 7 of the marbles - and were being very vocal and proud about it.

The persons I am negotiating with is like that. They are pricing themselves out of the market, they want every benefit and they do not want to negotiate on anything. I have tried to create a win-win situation, but that means that we need to agree to divide the marbles. I understand that it may be a tactic on their part, but the offer is so out of the market and their attitude so final that I have started to wonder if what they want is for me to leave the negotiating table.

If we do not resolve the issues we will loose the 7 marbles and we will pay extra penalties, both parties will have to put extra marbles out of our pockets. Resolving the issue will create the most economic benefit to both parties, so I don't understand the hold out.

This also creates a bully-type situation, where if you concede too much (say less than 3 marbles) you are never going to be able to negotiate anything with them again - you would become a pushover. In this case unless somebody talks some sense to the other side we may have to end up leaving the negotiation table.