Greetings Negotiators!

I’ve been away from the daily discipline of blogging but never has a day gone by that I wasn’t taking Negotiating to the edge and beyond.  As a 4th of July gift to you all I will return to a most basic concept and break it down with some interesting nuances.

Recently I was asked to Negotiate for a client that was in a unique position to help someone she has “other” business dealings with.  Their business dealings has my client indebted to the other party, so my client asked me to fashion a negotiation that would allow her “help” to translate into the resolution of the debt.  The challenge with a request like this is that we each have our own belief about what is really resourceful for another and what is not.  If you are an avid reader of my blog then I’m sure you know what I’m going to say next.

First, calibrate your belief about the other party.  You believe they really need something you have.  Don’t take your own belief as the be-all and end-all analysis, ASK RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS INSTEAD.

So I agreed to enter into this negotiation on my client’s behalf.  Of course the other party had no idea I was negotiating because all I did was call and ask resourceful questions. Interestingly enough I mentioned the very helpful resource over and over again in my conversation without “framing” it (I didn’t explain my client’s intentions for the resource) and the other party just didn’t bite.  They didn’t seem interested, didn’t respond positively, etc.

No Problem! One of the most important rules of a Negotiation is Never Rush a Negotiation. A negotiation is not unlike a garden. Even though my client and I see the potential for Negotiated Transaction until the other party can see it, the vision is nearly useless.  So, plant a seed.

The trick to planting a seed is giving it the time to grow.  The resource you need to make that trick work is patience and faith in the process.

I’ll probably post the results of my plant-and-wait method in the near future.  What seeds have you planted lately?

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!