Get What You Deserve?

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“You don’t get what you deserve - you get what you negotiate.” -Chester L. Karass (Part I of P.R.O.F.I.L.E.)

Whether you’re negotiating a peace settlement in a war-torn country or a peace settlement in an argument-ravaged relationship, strong preparation is the key to success.

1. P = Purpose
Knowing why you are engaged in a negotiation may seem obvious in some situations (to buy a lamp, to stop a fight, etc.), but more complex negotiations generally have more complex purposes.

Ask yourself:
-Why am I negotiating?
-What are the potential benefits?
-What do I ultimately hope to achieve?

2. R = Result/Relationship Balance
A “transaction” is high result/low relationship - we get what we want, and the other person is incidental to the exchange. Buying a used car is generally a “transaction”.

“Relationship-builders” are meetings, calls, and exchanges of value where developing the relationship between the two parties is far more important than the actual angible “result” outcome. Early meetings in any project are usually “relationship-builders” - what gets done is far less important than connections being made.

A true “Deal” is where there is a high emphasis on both getting what you want and enhancing your relationship for the future - this “win/win” thinking takes more time and effort, but is essential in any sort of long-term agreement. Successful political (and marital!) egotiations are always predicated on achieving this balance.

Give yourself the following test:
If you had 20 points to distribute between creating the Result you want and enhancing the Relationship, how would you do it?

Example:
Result/Relationship Balance

15/5 - Transaction
5/15 - Relationship builder
10/10 - Deal

3. O = Outcomes and Options
When it comes to negotiation, having a clear outcome, goal, or target in mind has been shown to be one of the primary determinants in how things come out.

Ask yourself the following questions:
-What specifically do I want?
-What specifically do I think they want?
-What are some plausible options that will get us both what we want?

Today’s Experiment:
1. Identify at least three upcoming or ongoing negotiations in
your life - one personal, one professional, and one internal
(you may need to get creative with this one).

Examples:
Personal -
“My husband wants to spend our tax refund on a big screen TV; I want to take a family holiday to Hawaii; our accountant wants us to put it into a real-estate trust.”

Professional -
“I want to negotiate a raise at work.”

Internal -
“Part of me wants to eat unlimited amounts of chocolate; part of me wants to look great naked!”

2. Apply the purpose, relationship, outcome and option questions to each of the three negotiations. If you’re using this to prepare for a particularly important negotiation, take some extra time to answer the questions AS IF you were the other person in the negotiation. You will be pleasantly surprised at the insights you gain from this process.

In the 1990’s, Michael Neill used to run courses in Europe and South America in ‘The Secrets of Emotional Negotiation’. One model he developed for those courses was specifically designed to maximize the effectiveness of your preparation - to ensure you put together only the most useful information and insights for creating the results you truly desire.

Michael called the model “The Negotiation P.R.O.F.I.L.E.(tm), and it has proved itself incredibly useful over the years not only to his students but in my own negotiations in business and in life.

Four years ago, Michael wrote an article about the first three steps in the P.R.O.F.I.L.E. process which has been circulating around the internet under the title ‘How to Negotiate Like a P.R.O.’.

Today’s tip is an adapted and slightly expanded version of that original. Tomorrow I will share the second half of the model publicly for the first time.