In This Issue:

Business professionals may increasingly find themselves in positions of leading or participating in team negotiations. You may be called upon to fill various roles during vendor, partner, and customer negotiations which may have financial implications for your company. Skillful negotiating can serve you, as well, when partnering with cross-functional business units and departments.

Tip #1: Leverage Roles & Responsibilities

Effective teams understand the importance of leveraging their negotiating roles and responsibilities to achieve win-win outcomes. Given any of the three negotiation scenarios below, you'll want members of your team to possess these particular skills and expertise:

Scenario 1: Large financial commitment and/or extended terms.
Needed skills & expertise: Knowledge of current business and technology, strong understanding of contractual terms and conditions, in-depth financial knowledge.

Scenario 2: Company could potentially be exposed to financial, public relations, and/or legal risk.
Needed skills & expertise: Strong understanding of contractual terms and conditions, knowledge of risk management, understanding of financial models.

Scenario 3: Intricate negotiating points require on-the-spot discussion or explanation.
Needed skills & expertise: As needed, strong knowledge and experience in operations, customer service, sales, marketing and/or technology.

Financial success can depend upon the lead negotiator's ability to understand the depth of expertise needed to achieve the team's desired outcomes. Knowing when to build upon a person's strength or when to request outside resources can often determine whether or not you achieve a win-win outcome.

Every company has its own business processes and legal requirements for negotiating and approving agreements. Be certain that you understand these intricacies within your place of business.

Tip #2: Build Upon Your Team's Strengths

Many times negotiations teams convene for the sole purpose of closing a single business deal. Individuals may be invited from different functional groups to participate in these negotiations. What results is a mix of individuals who know little about the full range of skills that each person brings to the table. For example, a team member with specialized skills, such as financial know-how, can help prepare the team to expand their vision to include cost-savings opportunities that might otherwise be missed.

The lead, or facilitator, would do well to quickly tap into the team members' body of knowledge. For example, the lead negotiator might consider a 2-hour skills-building meeting expressly for the purpose of identifying gaps between the desired outcome and the existing skill sets, experience, and knowledge that reside within the team.

Although your goal, in this instance, is to leverage (and stretch) your existing resources, you'll know within two hours whether or not you'll need to request additional resources and/or funding for targeted training.

Tip #3: "Flex On Your Feet" During Negotiations

Being able to "flex on your feet" during negotiations means that team members can modify their language and behaviors to take advantage of the information that lies below the surface. It's important for all team members to be able to 1) read non-verbal communications and 2) know when (and how) to modify their own communications style.

Powerful negotiators are foremost excellent listeners who can ascertain non-verbal cues and clues, as even lengthy silences can have hidden meanings.

Additionally, by taking the time to understand different communication styles, you're able to modify your own style in order to deliver your message in a way that others can hear you.

Tip #4: Roleplay Various Negotiations Scenarios

High-level, high-impact, and/or high finance negotiations can be stressful for the lead negotiator and team members. This is particularly true if a) the team has never worked together and/or b) team members have limited negotiating experience.

You should never punt during negotiations, never think that your negotiations plan--no matter how detailed or fine tuned--replaces practice. This would be similar to reading a management book and saying you now know how to be an effective manager.

Applying new knowledge in various situations results in new skill sets. The same applies to negotiations. For example, practicing different financial scenarios, where cost-savings points are introduced into negotiations, can prepare the team to think on its feet.

One way to quickly discover holes in your plan is to have your team roleplay--their own roles, backup positions for fellow team members, as well as their counterpart's role on the opposing team. The outcome from these role-play scenarios is both a stronger plan and a more knowledgeable, confident team. Participants then come to the live negotiations better prepared to deal with a myriad of tactics which could be used by the other party, such as win-lose, Outside-the-Box tactics, or aggressive tactics used to deflect (or hide) their real agenda.

Tip #5: Apply Outside-the-Box Tactics

Outside-the-Box (OTB) negotiating tactics are primarily used to achieve three objectives:

1. Shift energy within the environment and between individuals.
2. Draw or deflect attention to or from yourself and/or team members.
3. Mirror your environment or surroundings to blend in so as to be heard.

However, effective use of OTB tactics require that team members bring both creativity and tactical expertise to negotiations. This means that individual team members will have progressed to the point where they can think on their feet in order to leverage opportunities that come about because of having introduced these tactics.

OTB tactics require negotiating expertise which only comes from "layering" your teams' skill sets. Layering begins by understanding the basics of negotiations, then applying the skills associated with verbal and non-verbal communications. Finally, developing, or bringing in from the outside, specialized skills associated with areas such as finance, legal, risk management, and purchasing.

OTB tactics work best when the team clearly understands what seamless execution looks like. Timing of cues and delivery of OTB tactics can have as much to do with success as the tactic itself.

If your current business needs require more in-depth knowledge in any of these five tactical areas, please check-out my Practical Negotiations(tm) teleclasses at the beginning of this newsletter.

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