The Negotiators Secrets

In the last few days I’ve been doing some significant Negotiating to My Family’s Own Best Good. My wife and I have been working to create (currently a surprise to the public) something new in our life. When we’ve completed the manifestation we’ll be glad to share our success (including photos). Because I’ve been Negotiating for my own personal best good, certain things have been brought home to me that I might overlook as a professional negotiator for other people and businesses.

One of the challenges that arises when you are negotiating purely for yourself or your loved ones is a connection the negotiator experiences that might be akin to being the chess piece that you are about to move (if that makes any sense). My wife of course has been participating in this process fully as well with her own understanding of negotiating (that reminds me of yet another aspect of Negotiations that I’d like to speak about.)

When we play chess and we decide to sacrifice the knight in order to expose the queen - we just do it because it is how we will win the game. However, when we are the king or queen and that knight that was just sacrificed is the family dog - your emotional connection to the negotiation in this chess metaphor can be like a giant tree fallen in the road before you, blocking the fruition of your intended negotiations.

What pollutes our Negotiating Excellence? The last time you thought you might negotiate then you found yourself backpedaling - what caused the backpedaling? What feeling do you experience when you step up to Negotiate and then suddenly it seems that negotiating at all was foolish? I don’t know what your answer is (though you are encouraged to share them with me via the comments section), but mine is fear. When I was a young man one of my favorite movies (I’m dating myself here!) was Dune. There is a scene in the movie where the “smart” guy speaks the following affirmation:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Fear is the Negotiation killer as well.  What happens to me when fear enters the equation is that I often forget what to say or do next.  How do I bring myself back?  What do I do to climb out of the dark hole of embarassment, guilt, shame and any of the other triggers of fear?  Well - if my fear hasn’t completely paralyzed me then I remind myself of Why any of us Negotiate at all, ever.  We have something to offer!  So, whatever you have to offer is truly the focus of a Negotiation for you, Negotiator!  You may ask 500 resourceful questions of the Negotiating Complement and his or her Targeted Resources, but if you cannot tie what they have to what you have then there is no Negotiation.

June is going to be the busiest month of my life in a long time.  I will do my best to post here daily.  I’m going to be working on more things to offer so as to become a greater resource for each of you.  Currently I offer a free Apprenticeship to those who want to really step-up their Negotiating Excellence!  If you are interested in receiving my Newsletter and/or joining my Free Apprenticeship Program then find the links to the right of this post and sign up today!

What have you done to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?  What would it feel like to get whatever you wanted every time you opened your mouth?  Sign up today and find out!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

On occassion after a long work day my wife and I will gather around the world’s largest dlp big screen TV in the world and watch a pay-per-view movie if we can find one we both agree on. Last night we happened upon M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water. My pet peeve in movies is gross commercialism. I have seen great movies that had obvious product placement - I can live with that. What I mean is a 2 hour commercial that has a story as a backdrop and a plot as an excuse to be called a movie. Last night I hit the movie lottery.

Even before the first scene of the movie opened I was elated. It was a story of how once man had been inspired by other human-like beings that lived in the sea and then man decided to own everything and his method for doing that (to this day) was war. The rest of the movie was one man’s (played by Paul Giamatti) struggle to reverse engineer a chance for that connection and inspiration to occur again. This may sound very “woo-woo” so just for a reference point - I’d rather drive around in a parking lot in circles until I run out of gas than go see a chick-flick.

At the end of the movie (this is not a spoiler) he had to develop a result that required about 20 people to co-operate based on an outcome that wasn’t clear to anyone, even himself. He faced the toughest negotiation that anyone can ever face: a mutable negotiation through time (see #11). I won’t tell you if he achieved his goal or not, though I will tell you what he did in order to attempt to achieve it. He asked resourceful questions. Just a reminder - the opposite of asking resourceful questions is assuming you know.

Yesterday I went with one of my clients to negotiate a lease. My client had a close personal tie to the property she was intending to acquire a lease on. She was very excited she had this extra card to play in the negotiation. We met the agent and began to inspect the property. The agent began her litany of information about the property. Because of the close personal tie - my client already knew most of what could be said about the property. The agent was about to reveal some information that related to the close personal tie and my client blurted out who they were and that she knew them - 2 minutes into the evaluation of the property. The agent didn’t finish her sentence and for the next 30 minutes of the walk-through she didn’t give any new information.

After the initial negotiation my client was very frustrated. She said (paraphrase) “I played that close-personal tie card and the woman was like ‘That’s nice’. I told my client that I wouldn’t have played that card unless there was a pay-off for doing so. My client’s situation for use of the property wasn’t ideal. Some agents might have dismissed her specific needs just on the surface of those needs. Tony Allesandro who is the author of The Platinum Rule breaks people down in to four categories. My client is definitely a relater. Her need to be part of something motivated her to play the close personal tie card immediately upon entering the negotiation. She assumed that she knew playing this card would be powerful, perhaps because if someone had played it with her she would have liked it. And that is the moral of The Platinum Rule - Only about 1 out of 4 people are like you (since there are 4 categories according to The Platinum Rule). If you treat people like you wanted to be treated (the golden rule) then 3/4ths of the time you’ll be missing your mark.

Have you ever played a card in any communicating situation and were disappointed it had no impact whatsoever? If you’d like to share a story or ask a question please feel free to use the comment section beneath this post or you can just email me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

If you would like to receive my free Negotiator’s Primer then go ahead and sign up for my newsletter and mailings at the right side of this page. If you really want some extra negotiating power feel free to click on the link to become (currently free)a Negotiator’s Apprentice by clicking on the link above my picture.

What would happen if whenever you opened your mouth people gave you exactly what you wanted? Are you ready to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!