The Negotiation Skills Company -- Newsletter June 2003
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The occasional newsletter of
The Negotiation Skills Company, Inc. (TNSC)
Number 26, June 2003
FIGHTING FIRES WITHOUT BURNING BRIDGES(sm)
The occasional newsletter of The Negotiation Skills
Company, Inc. (TNSC)
WHEN I NEGOTIATE, WHERE SHOULD I SIT?
We recently received a question from a visitor to our
website that raised some interesting issues. He said, "I
would love to see an article dedicated to where to sit
during a negotiation. I am familiar with the popular
recommendation to sit side-by-side during a brainstorming
session, but wonder whether that is the most realistic
advice related to how to position yourself during a
meeting."
Here's our response:
Negotiating works best when the parties are comfortable with
the process. Process questions may relate to preparatory
agreements on agenda items, what media will be used for
communication among the parties, or the critical factors of
fair treatment and civilized behavior.
Negotiators need to work in a situation where the different
parties' comfort level supports, rather than interferes with
the collaborative decision-making process. One of the core
approaches used by many negotiators is to separate
personality issues from the negotiators' objectives, the
reasons they are negotiating. This can be accomplished in
several ways:
- Have the parties sit on the same side of the negotiating
table.
- Record all elements of the discussion on a single sheet of
paper, a whiteboard, or some other medium that exists by
itself and doesn't 'belong' to a single party or group of
parties.
- Utilize what some negotiators call the single-text
approach in which all ideas are treated as independent
thoughts with no consideration as to their source. In other
words, using this approach, the aim is to have the
negotiators consider ideas and not who suggested those
ideas. This reflects the underlying philosophy of
brainstorming.
- In some negotiations using a third-party, normally
referred to as a mediator, to shuttle between the
negotiators can mean the medium of communication is neutral
and therefore the messages moving back and forth do not
carry as much emotional baggage as they might when they come
directly from the mouths of face-to-face negotiators.
There is no single perfect approach that applies to all
negotiations. Because we use so many different media to
negotiate: face-to-face conversation, email, phone calls,
faxes, and even written communication sent through the
postal system (which can give negotiators more time to
consider what has been or should be said), the choices
negotiators make to increase the likelihood the process will
yield a durable agreement must respond to each party's
comfort level to be effective.
Given these considerations, negotiators need to make their
process choices as transparently as possible. One simple
example in face-to-face conversation is the issue of
personal space. Many studies have demonstrated that people
from different cultures, even different cities within a
given country, have different personal space requirements.
Thus, when one negotiator needs to be 'up close and
personal' to feel comfortable and another party needs
distance, there should be straightforward communication
about the issue. If either party recognizes that the issue
of personal space could have an impact on their comfort, he
or she should raise the issue and negotiate a mutually
agreeable communication distance in order to increase the
negotiators' comfort level for the negotiations about the
substantive issues.
The decisions negotiators have to make about the physical
layout of the negotiation process include whether they sit
across from or next to each other, around a circular table,
opposite a whiteboard or flipchart, or in easy chairs with
drinks and nibbles on a coffee table each can reach.
Negotiators can agree to stand, to make decisions sitting
side by side while traveling to a meeting, or to work on
some issues face-to-face and others by phone or using email.
However one must be careful: treating the decision where or
how to sit and/or when and how to communicate as a gimmick
to establish who's in charge of the negotiation is not
conducive to initiating a collaborative decision-making
process.
Discussing the communication mechanism alternatives can be
as significant for setting the tone of the negotiation as
any expressions of strong feelings during the process
itself. A clear understanding of how each negotiating party
can contribute to all the parties' comfort with the
decision-making process will go a long way towards
contributing to an agreement each party will willingly
fulfill.
NEWS ABOUT THE NEGOTIATION SKILLS COMPANY, INC.
We now have members of our training team based in India and
the United Kingdom - as well as Victoria Perez, a native of
Colombia who can present TNSC programs in Spanish. Our
website will soon have content in Spanish to supplement all
the material it now contains.
A THOUGHT TO CONSIDER
"Negotiation requires the participants to take risks; but never offer something contrary to your interests."
All the best,
Steve Cohen
tnsc@negotiationskills.com
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