Win/Win Negotiating
Participants in negotiation training seminars often ask me, “can you really negotiate hard and still have a win-win?” The answer is, absolutely. The reason for this is that there are really two very distinct components to the win-win equation. One component is what we call the automatic win-win.
Let's say, for example, that I am trying to sell you some sophisticated engineering software. The software costs $1,500 per user, and since you have 10 users, the total cost would be $15,000. We negotiate long and hard over the price of the software and ultimately reach an agreement at $1,200 per user.
Is this outcome a win-win? Well, my definition of the win-win is that the deal makes me better off than I would have been had I walked away without an agreement. Nobody will agree to something that makes them worse off than they would of been if they hadn't reached an agreement. Therefore, in this case, $1,200 had to have been better than a deadlock for both the buyer and the seller. It is automatically a win-win. And this is true for every agreement reached between two parties no matter how difficult or intense the negotiation was. If it wasn't a win-win, they would've walked away.
But there is another critically important side to win-win, people's feelings. Even if technically the negotiation's outcome is a win-win because it makes us better off than walking away, if we feel bad about it, it won't seem like a win-win. So the astute negotiator pays attention to the other side's feelings to make sure that they perceive the whole undertaking to have been a win-win experience.
The most important part of the feeling equation is to make sure that the other person feels like they got just about the best deal possible. Obviously, you would never jump up and say, “boy did I get a great deal. You sure left a lot of money on the table.” But be sure that you don't do anything or say anything that might lead them to suspect that they really didn't get that good a deal. Also make sure that you develop a good relationship so that they feel good about you as a person. And finally, do business and negotiate in a way that is credible, trustworthy and ethical.
If you make it your business to see to it that the other party feels good about the final outcome, you, and the way you did business, then you will always have a full-fledged win-win outcome.
© Michael Schatzki - 2005. All rights reserved
Michael Schatzki is a master negotiator who, for over 20 years, has provided negotiation training and coaching for thousands of people in the U.S. and globally.
