As the director of the Influence
and Negotiation Strategies Executive Program at Stanford Graduate School of
Business, Margaret Neale is an expert in negotiation and deal-making. In her talk titled Negotiation:
Getting What You Want, Neale explains how changing the way we view
negotiations can help us get better results.
Instead of looking at a negotiation as an adversarial or argumentative
process, Neale encourages her viewers to look at negotiations as a collaborative
process. When it comes to planning for a
negotiation, Neale splits the process into four phases. The first one is to asses the situation, or
weight the benefits against the cost of negotiating. Second, Neale explains how we should prepare
for the negotiation by clearly defining our positions and interests, and the
positions and interests of the other party.
Following this step, she explains how it is important to ask questions
and share unique information during a negotiation, and to look at the differences
we might have as opportunities to create solutions. The last piece of the negotiation Neale
discusses is the bundling of alternative proposals. By doing this, the negotiators are creating
an opportunity to trade among the issues and to propose solutions and
alternatives in packages, instead of negotiating issue by issue.
Personally, the most significant
part of Margaret Neale’s talk is her take on women and negotiation. This information will surely help me when
working in the entertainment industry. Neale
explains how women tend to be uncomfortable with asking for more during a
negotiation and how this affects our performance in these situations. I saw real value in the last section of her
talk, where students and colleagues pitch in on how Neale’s research and
knowledge on the subject of negotiation has helped them in their personal and
professional lives. They stress the
importance of using objective criteria and educating oneself before going in to
any negotiation. They also explain the
power of saying “no” in a negotiation, and how it can help you avoid a “bad
deal.” Neale’s talk is inspiring,
educational, and helps the viewer understand that negotiations or social
situations in general, are an opportunity to create value so that all parties
can get what they want.
William Ury is one of the authors
of the textbook “Getting to Yes” which we used during this course. He is a bestselling author and motivational
speaker that inspires and educates
people to get to YES in all areas of their lives. In his TED talk titled The Walk from
“no” to “yes,” Ury explains the importance of separating the people
from the problem in a refreshing and interesting way. Ury lets his listeners know how, even though
negotiations start as difficult situations, stepping back and looking at every
situation with fresh eyes will help us come up with solutions. When dealing with our differences as humans,
the secret to keeping peace is simple according to Ury, it is us, the surrounding factors to all
conflicts. Using what he calls the
“third side,” Ury urges us to see conflicts and negotiations from the outside
so we can see what really is at stake and how any solution can help with the
issue. The “third side” is a place of
perspective and unbiased, clear, and objective view, it is the base of
separating the people from the problem.
During his talk, Ury uses his
experience visiting different cultures around the world to explain the
importance of the “third side” of a negotiation. He talks about how South African tribes hide
their weapons and talk until they have found a solution to their dispute and
how this is really the key to peace.
According to Ury, all conflicts can be transformed by us taking the
third side. This allows us to walk on
other people’s shoes and see the problem for what it is, instead of attacking
whoever is against us. This way of
gaining perspective will help me by seeing situations objectively and without
any emotion clouding our judgment.
Erica Ariel Fox is a New
York Time Bestselling author and negotiation lecturer at Harvard Law
School. She has developed many
strategies to help people during negotiations and even wrote her Bestselling
book Winning from Within: a
Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living, and Lasting Change on this
subject. During a 2013 Professional Businesswomen
of California (PBWC) talk, Fox explains how negotiations are not
necessarily going to be set in a formal environment. In simple words, Fox defines a negotiation as
“every time I am trying to influence you, or you are trying to influence me.” Even though Fox believes there are many great
tools available for people to learn about negotiation, she believes there is a
part that is still missing from this method of learning, which is why she
developed the “winning from within” method.
With this method, the negotiator figures out what, inside of them, stops
them from saying or doing what they know could get them the results they
desire. Fox admits that people normally
know what they should do, but don’t necessarily do it, due to what Fox calls the
“performance gap.” This “gap” is the
difference between what we know we should do, and what we actually do. Our goal should always be to thing
proactively about what to do, instead of having to look back and wishing we
would have done thing differently, states Fox.
Having noticed I have a
performance gap sometimes after a discussion or negotiation, I will take Fox’s
advice on stepping back and thinking about what it is that is going on around
me. Fox advices to negotiate with
oneself first, before talking to anyone or trying to negotiate with other
parties. The key is to be aware and to
not get in my own way when it comes to working on negotiations.
