Negotiating with difficult people – Part I

Understand the environment

What kind of situation are you dealing with? Does it promote collaborative behavior or adversarial conduct? It is not always that the other side is poor negotiators. Other factors could influence their stance.

In general, long-term relationships, voluntary relationships, private informal setting, emotionally detached from the deal and absence of irritants will increase trust and build a cooperative environment. The one-off relationships, obligatory relationship, formal public setting, emotional attachment, irritants will foster adversarial behavior.

Assess the environment and choose to set environment conducive to collaborative negotiation.

Uncover the motives

We have all met them: negotiators who seem to prefer competition to collaboration, stalling over problem-solving and tough talk over active listening. An influencer in a customer organization always complains about you to the senior management. We tend to write him off as demanding or irrational. Yet, few people are genuinely unreasonable. Instead, each of them has motives, priorities, and constraints that others may have trouble identifying. Before you walk away from the table—or, even worse, make a concession that you know will not be reciprocated—explore the possible motivations behind the influencer’s obstinacy.

Based upon discussions with one of my clients, below are three types of hard bargainers I have addressed.

1. The inadvertent negotiator.

Seasoned negotiators understand that preconceived notions can impair our most important decisions without our awareness. Besides, emotions affect our choices—for example, carrying over from one event to affect a separate negotiation. To create lasting agreements, we must recognize our own biases and be alert for biases in our counterparts.

Suppose that an ad agency is doing an excellent job for its client, yet a manager in the client’s organization continues putting its work down in front of senior management.

The manager in this situation may be motivated to show how well she is managing an otherwise not so good vendor. Why? Maybe she believes it will improve her chances of a salary increase or a prom0tion.  She is making the mistake of taking a win-lose approach.  Instead of devising proposals that further enhance the Ad agency’s effectiveness; she is assuming that the vendor’s interests are incompatible with those of hers.

In most negotiations, more creative outcomes are within reach. How can you help a counterpart be less biased?

First, give the other party plenty of time to negotiate. When facing time pressure, we tend to rely on flawed snap judgments. Temporarily adjourn from a heated discussion. This relieves tensions and gives parties time to think more rationally.

Second, initiate a constructive dialog by suggesting possible tradeoffs that would allow each party to get what it wants.

Third, avoid inducing harsh statements from your counterpart, lest she feels backed into a corner.

The ad agency’s representative might model good negotiating behavior with a statement such as “I’m confident there’s a modus operandi that meets our shared interest in performing well while also allowing you to gain positive visibility with the senior management.  If you have time to meet again for lunch tomorrow, I’ll be ready with a few ideas.”

The break allows the client manager to brainstorm options, such as naming her on the title page of ad reports and therefore sharing the credit for an excellent performance. She should be open to treating the request as a negotiation rather than a unilateral decision.

2. The averse negotiator.

Sometimes a negotiator’s stance may be due to constraints of which you are unaware. Take the case of a potential customer who responds with a deeply discounted draft agreement. Pure persuasion and haggling are unlikely to get you very far. After a short discussion, you might find yourself walking away from the deal or, if you are desperate for business, accepting a lousy agreement. Instead, inquire the interests behind your counterpart’s position.  “I think it’s great that you want to use our analytical services to gain insight into your operations because we know it will help you improve business performance.  Please help us understand the basis for asking for such a deep discount. If we know the reason, maybe we can find a solution that could work for both of us.”

She should then be willing to share constraints behind her demands. Suppose she says, “We did not budget for your services in the current fiscal year. I need to stay within the budget.”

“We can work out a pricing solution which could solve your current budget problem,” you assure her. “Is there any other issue that may prevent you from using our services?”

Your responsiveness could increase your appeal as a long-term business partner in addition to opening up a real negotiation.

There could be hidden constraints your counterpart could be facing. Ask the right questions to uncover them. By asking questions designed to investigate the range of your counterpart’s interests, you can determine if you can meet them.

3. The intentionally difficult negotiator.

At times, you will encounter adversarial negotiators.  They enjoy squabble and thrive in a competitive negotiation environment. Skilled negotiators promote collaborative behavior. However, this does not mean that all adversarial negotiators are poor negotiators.

If modeling good negotiating behavior does not work, here are a few other recommendations in dealing with difficult negotiators.

First, explicitly tell them the issues on which you are not willing to or able to negotiate. Unless it is transparent, the apparent inflexibility will exasperate the other party. One way to handle this is to proactively signal to the other party specific areas where you could be flexible and are willing to negotiate.

Second, include other members of your organization in the negotiation and encourage your counterpart to bring members of her organization as well.

Finally, summarize each negotiation session and send the memo to interested parties—a tactic that will put your partner on notice that others are watching her actions and statements.

There are other tactics in my book, “The world is a bazaar – Life is a negotiation.”