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This newsletter covers negotiation skills, a crucial ability for all current and aspiring women leaders. We talk about how your ears are your secret weapon; how to negotiate on your own behalf, using the example of negotiating to secure flexible work arrangements; and excerpt advice from a book by two well-known community sector warriors on negotiating for a common cause.

The next event in the Cairns Australian Women & Leadership Forum is the Negotiate to Succeed! breakfast on Thursday 2nd November. It will run from 8AM-9.30AM with full breakfast catering at Rydges Tradewinds. Seats are filling fast! Call us on 1300 138 037 or download the registration form to reserve your place.

Quick, don't think of a negotiator!

Now, in the resulting mental image, is the negotiator speaking ?

Many people, both male and female, imagine negotiation as a process of speaking to persuade an opponent to give them what they want. They associate speaking with persuasion and listening with being persuaded. However, any negotiation approached on this basis is doomed to failure, because an opponent is (by definition) a person you cannot persuade.

While you may be able to wear your opponent down, bullying them will destroy the possibility of a sustainable working relationship in future. A better approach uses listening the invisible talent to demonstrate your good faith and turn an opponent into a negotiating partner.

This doesn't mean you'll be able to work together hand-in-hand on a joint outcome negotiation typically occurs when two parties have equally valid and unavoidably opposed interests. But you're far more likely to succeed in a negotiation conducted through professional dialogue, and you can achieve that by using strategic listening.

At this point we need to surface two more images of negotiation.

• In Australia , our most common popular-cultural image of negotiation depicts an adversarial negotiation such as industrial negotiations between an employer and a union rep, or an arbitration ordered by a court between two disputing parties. (You can see this model at work in the how-to article by Kirner and Rayner, which comes from their excellent book about skills for community activist women.)
• On the other hand, Americans tend to view negotiation as a process undertaken to achieve a professional or business objective, such as bargaining on a starting salary or making a persuasive sale. (A quick search on Google will turn up hundreds of articles premised on this image of negotiation.)

Some of the suggestions in this article will work better for one situation over the other. Rather than using the word opponent', we'll follow Kirner and Rayner's approach (see below) and call them the other side', which covers all situations. Remember, the basic point is that listening enables you to craft your negotiating style to the demands of the situation at hand. Choose (and develop) a style that works for you!

1) Listen, in order to acknowledge the other side's humanity. It's common knowledge among medical negligence lawyers that a doctor who owns up and apologises after making a mistake is less likely to be sued. When hospitals take their insurers advice and lawyer up instead, families respond in kind. Whenever a crisis situation reaches the negotiating table, you may need to acknowledge the strength of emotion felt on both sides before you can move forward.

However, negotiation is not group therapy you're limited in terms of the admissions you can make, and exchanging grievances is unproductive. The solution is to use active listening listen to and rephrase the position of the other side in language that shows respect for their experience. Be open to being corrected, because everyone responds differently in times of crisis. And only do this if you can be sincere. If you're too close to the situation, don't do it.

2) Use listening to discipline your own emotions or motives your emotions and expectations can create perceptual set', a frame of mind which affects the way you perceive what you hear. Concentrate on listening to hear the whole message not just what the person is saying, but how they're saying it (including body language and word choice) and where they're coming from.

You may discover the other side is more willing to negotiate than you expected; and pauses, glances and word choice can highlight issues of particular importance you can address or touch upon to help your case. Adopting an analytic frame of mind can help you maintain some internal distance from the negotiation, too, which is useful when the other side tries to push emotional buttons (a common sales technique).

3) Listen and consider. Negotiating in good faith means having a reasonable willingness to consider a proposal. If you have prepared for the negotiation, you'll know what you're willing to trade, and on what you're unwilling to compromise leaving you free to consider a proposal and make a counterproposal. As Kirner and Rayner point out below, negotiations are ultimately all about the proposals. Listen to the flow of the negotiation, and if the other side is all argument and no proposal, you can ask them: Do you have a specific proposal? This can be a powerful tool for taking the initiative as the party which means business.

4) Use strategic silence this can be a powerful tool during sales and salary negotiations. It's super-simple you let the other person finish speaking and don't respond. Just stay quiet and see how far they'll go. Aim for a thoughtful silence, rather than a stony one you want to encourage them to speak, not coerce them by creating an awkward void. You'll be surprised how often this technique, tactfully deployed, can result in further information, admissions, or even a better offer all without input from your side. At the same time, recognise this technique may be used against you never fill a silence just to be polite!

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* This is a Wikipedia page which may be edited by community members after we send this message.

FIRST PUBLISHED

Human Resources Magazine (media partner of the national Australian Women & Leadership Forums).

Negotiation is a skill, done best when you are clear about what you are trying to do. It is a tool for getting what you want, without a major confrontation, and without using anybody. Negotiation takes five steps: preparation, discussion, proposing, bargaining, and agreeing. After this comes putting it into effect, which often requires ongoing negotiation. IT does not necessarily mean sitting down, together, at a round table. Often it means engaging with a range of people in private, then moving on when various interests seem to have come to a point. If you want to know more about negotiation, read G.Kennedy, J.Benson and J.McMillan, Managing Negotiations: How to Get a Better Deal. The outline that follows is from their model.

1) Distinguish what you intend to get (if humanly possible) from what you would like to get -- Have up your sleeve something that you know you can, and are willing to, trade relatively easily (a bargaining chip). Be very clear also about what you won't trade. Do this on the basis of the facts. Are you being realistic? Talk it over with your friends and supporters, and someone independent too.

2) Do the same thing for your opponent Do you know who your opponents are, and what their answers to these questions might be? If you do, you will be much better prepared for negotiating. Try to work out what the other side might consider to be a win, and what their expectations are. For both of these first steps, be very clear about what information you need and what information you are willing to disclose (or think might be disclosed whatever you try to do to prevent it). Consider what concessions you might make yourself and what you might want in exchange (trade-offs), in terms of what the cost to you might be, and what the benefit would be to your opponent.

3) Work out as many options as possible You need as many choices as you can find, to satisfy both sides' needs and priorities. This is good for your own flexibility, and helps encourage competitive negotiators to be more co-operative, setting up an expectation that you will agree, in spite of all the problems. But don't be stuck if you new facts come in, or attitudes change, there might be even more options available. Stay flexible.

4) Work out your best alternative to a negotiated agreement Think what the other side's might be. It's a good idea to think about the worst alternative to a negotiated agreement too. (You need to be aware of the potential to end up in a worse position than when you began!)

5) Make sure that you have the authority to negotiate, and know what limits there are You could shoot yourself in the foot, creating major bad feeling, if your negotiations get to the closing stage and you pull out because you have to consult. Successful negotiation depends on the atmosphere and feeling of the time.

6) Decide whether to have a negotiating team Teams are really, really useful. You can divide up and take on different roles. One of you can be leader or spokesperson (it can change from time to time); another can be the observers (watching body language, sensing how well things are going, feeding it back); and someone else can take the notes and be the reporter (very important). You can share perceptions about how things are going. Different people can adopt differing tactics (soft cop/tough cop) or slot in when personality clashes threaten to derail the negotiation. Having a team means that the responsibility is shared along with the blame and the gains.

There are disadvantages. The worst is the need to keep the team together and the extra time it takes to prepare. The more people there are, the more important it is to focus, have a common aim and strategies, and be disciplined. There is nothing more damaging than having a well-intentioned team player break ranks as a crucial point.

One person should be responsible for the team, to ensure that everyone communicates properly and that they all feel part of the shebang.

7) Decide on negotiating styles There are ways and ways of negotiating, and sometimes it helps to know what the other side does. If it's a bullying style, decline to get into the bullying mode. Co-operative negotiating styles are all very well but sometimes they just aren't practicable. If you know the other side has been engaged in negotiations before and they are confrontational or bullying, or threatening, try to head of a repetition of the same tactics at the beginning of your negotiations by not starting in the same way. Refusing to fight back can lead to co-operation. You might have to revert to the gatling guns afterwards, but at least start nice.

8) Pick the arena You need to have a climate of negotiation, not petition or threat. Choose a neutral, comfortable and relaxed environment.

E-mail us your thoughts (newsletter@womensforum.com.au) and we'll include the discussion in the next edition of Women & Leadership News.

BUY THE BOOK

The Women's Power Handbook
By Joan Kirner and Moira Rayner (Viking, 1999)

Negotiate to Succeed! Breakfast
Thursday 2nd November at Rydges Tradewinds

Cairns Second Breakfast Forum
Friday 2nd March 2007 at Rydges Tradewinds

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