https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0FApT99RbefQmhaenNrcDJHYU0/edit
From competition to collaboration
If you’ve faced some of the same challenges that plague sports negotiations, these
four tips can help you strive for greater collaboration and trust:
1. Manage your agent. In a chapter in the book Negotiating on Behalf of Others
(Sage, 1999), Brian S. Mandell argues that athletes who negotiate through
agents need to take a number of steps to guard against agent incompetence and
conflicts of interest. This advice applies to all negotiators who allow others to
speak for them. First, give your agent clear instructions regarding your long term goals and your range of interests. Second, limit your agent’s authority to
make commitments on your behalf. Third, make sure that your agent consults
with you throughout the negotiation process. Fourth, try to align your agent’s
compensation with your interests by structuring a payment scheme that rewards
him for creating value at the table. Finally, verify your agent’s statements by
reaching out to your negotiating counterpart. Even if you’re not sitting at the
table, you still have a right to speak with the other side. Here’s one more tip:
if your agent won’t follow these instructions, find a new agent or consider
representing yourself.
2. Insist on expanding the pie. Whether you’re negotiating on your own or
through an agent, you are likely to periodically encounter negotiators who persist
in haggling over a single issue—typically price. How can you convince someone
to discuss ways to create more value for both parties? First, reduce some of the
external pressures on your negotiation. If you’re facing a tight deadline, try to
extend it. If you’re being closely monitored by an audience, such as members of
your organization or the media, work on making your negotiations more private.
At the table, discuss the benefits of viewing each other as collaborators rather
than as rivals.
3. Analyze the market. Examining each other’s constraints and broader market
forces can help negotiators move from a NOPA to a ZOPA. In 2005, the NHL
enacted a collective-bargaining agreement that levied an overall salary cap tied
to league revenues. As a consequence, players and their agents have had to lower
their expectations of what some NHL teams can afford to pay. Similarly, business
negotiators need to consider the larger economic forces in which they are working.
In the midst of a recession, it might be unrealistic for you to expect customers to
accept a significant price increase as part of your contract renegotiations, even if
they did last year.
4. Create better alternatives. Occasionally, it may seem as if everything is riding
on the outcome of a particular deal. But that kind of pressure can sabotage even
the best negotiators. When preparing for a negotiation that seems like a once-ina-lifetime opportunity, make a list of all the other options you might explore if
you don’t succeed. By improving your sense of psychological power, you set
yourself up to perform at your best
From competition to collaboration
If you’ve faced some of the same challenges that plague sports negotiations, these
four tips can help you strive for greater collaboration and trust:
1. Manage your agent. In a chapter in the book Negotiating on Behalf of Others
(Sage, 1999), Brian S. Mandell argues that athletes who negotiate through
agents need to take a number of steps to guard against agent incompetence and
conflicts of interest. This advice applies to all negotiators who allow others to
speak for them. First, give your agent clear instructions regarding your long term goals and your range of interests. Second, limit your agent’s authority to
make commitments on your behalf. Third, make sure that your agent consults
with you throughout the negotiation process. Fourth, try to align your agent’s
compensation with your interests by structuring a payment scheme that rewards
him for creating value at the table. Finally, verify your agent’s statements by
reaching out to your negotiating counterpart. Even if you’re not sitting at the
table, you still have a right to speak with the other side. Here’s one more tip:
if your agent won’t follow these instructions, find a new agent or consider
representing yourself.
2. Insist on expanding the pie. Whether you’re negotiating on your own or
through an agent, you are likely to periodically encounter negotiators who persist
in haggling over a single issue—typically price. How can you convince someone
to discuss ways to create more value for both parties? First, reduce some of the
external pressures on your negotiation. If you’re facing a tight deadline, try to
extend it. If you’re being closely monitored by an audience, such as members of
your organization or the media, work on making your negotiations more private.
At the table, discuss the benefits of viewing each other as collaborators rather
than as rivals.
3. Analyze the market. Examining each other’s constraints and broader market
forces can help negotiators move from a NOPA to a ZOPA. In 2005, the NHL
enacted a collective-bargaining agreement that levied an overall salary cap tied
to league revenues. As a consequence, players and their agents have had to lower
their expectations of what some NHL teams can afford to pay. Similarly, business
negotiators need to consider the larger economic forces in which they are working.
In the midst of a recession, it might be unrealistic for you to expect customers to
accept a significant price increase as part of your contract renegotiations, even if
they did last year.
4. Create better alternatives. Occasionally, it may seem as if everything is riding
on the outcome of a particular deal. But that kind of pressure can sabotage even
the best negotiators. When preparing for a negotiation that seems like a once-ina-lifetime opportunity, make a list of all the other options you might explore if
you don’t succeed. By improving your sense of psychological power, you set
yourself up to perform at your best
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