By Celemma Lara, Coach, Strategic Consultant, Strategic Connections, Inc
Does it happen to you that when you have to negotiate something that you are interested in acquiring or achieving, you feel apprehensive and uncomfortable?
Don’t worry, it is more common than you might think. Negotiation is often related to certain paradigms, which makes us think that one of the parties has to lose with an inordinate concession. Thus, creating a certain predisposition to defend ourselves, and as a consequence it generates a not so pleasant emotion during the process.
Nothing is further from reality; in a negotiation it is required to give up receiving something in return.
To negotiate is to exchange. For there to be a negotiation it is necessary that both have something of interest to the other, that they want to exchange.
<Negotiating means that you have something that the other wants and the other has something that interests you>. Alejandro Hernandez. Author of the book Negotiating is easy, if you know how.
It is also very common to associate the word negotiate with the art of persuading. The latter consists of convincing the other person through reasons or arguments to think in a certain way or carry out some activity. When we insist on convincing, we create resistance in the other and environments prone to infertile discussions, encouraging confrontation. At some point, the other may perceive that their right to disagree is curtailed, so it is necessary to use persuasive speech in an assertive way.
Persuasion is based on argumentation, and this is effective when it is built with the intention of giving clarity and understanding to the other, at the moment that they may think differently about the value of our proposal.
In negotiation, what is required is a strategic communication which takes place between the persuasive discourse and the negotiating dialogue. Both are valuable and necessary to resolve disagreements; the key is to recognize when to persuade and when to negotiate.
The method we suggest in our negotiation training is to reduce persuasive speech in favor of constructive negotiating dialogue.
The negotiating dialogue is one that, through the necessary knowledge, is capable of analyzing a problem and being able to determine the different interests of the parties involved, in such a way that allows us to bring positions closer together through an exchange.
The purpose is to highlight what brings us closer and not what takes us away, thus obtaining a Win – Win.
