The Negotiators Secrets

In some sports a false start is enough to disqualify a contender. The same is true in the human discourse often referred to as Negotiation. One error the ill-trained Negotiator makes before she ever gets to the Negotiating Table is to attempt to second guess or assume things about the yet undelved world of the Negotiating Complement’s side of the Negotiating Table. This bad habit is often the result of attempting to prepare for every variation of the anticipated negotiation. Such obsessive preparation is often the result of a Negotiator who is worried about what other people think and intends to “look good” at the Negotiating Table.

Knowledge is Power to the Negotiator on a scale like no other profession. Your words equal an increase in profit, position, opportunity, alliances, options and every other word that represents Resource. If you never learn anything else about Negotiating then please please hear this: A Negotiator’s duty is to inspire the Negotiating Complement’s information to flow and flow and flow. Get your Negotiating Complement talking by any means necessary. The metaphor that helps me remember what I’m doing in this part of a Negotiation is to think of myself as a Safe Cracker. My function is to get the Negotiating Complement to reveal his entire combination so that when I begin spinning the tumblers - the question of accessing all his resources is only a mater of how long I wish to draw the Negotiation out, nothing else.

I wish to qualify the point earlier about any means necessary. I don’t intend to arm any of you with ugly negotiating tools. The only time that I pull out my lumber-jack Negotiating tools is when the context is instantaneous and the rules of the game are already dirty and unforgiving - like catching the car thief hot-wiring your car or the guy that cuts in front of you at the movie theater. Hostile Negotiations are an essential element in the vast array of tools and resources needed by The Excellent Negotiator! that we will cover another day.

The opposite of an assumption in a Negotiation is Asking a Resourceful Question.  If you find yourself thinking in terms of an assumption or if the next thing out of your mouth is derived from an assumption - STOP!  Take a little more time and Ask a Resourceful Quesiton.

In my youth - I remember learning one thing and the excitement and the power of knowing one thing - like how to change the oil in my car was so great that it helped me halucinate the following logic: I know one thing and I learned that thing.  Therefore - I can learn anything and the knowing of all things is simply a mater of learning it.  Therefore I know all things though a few of those things are as yet unlearned.  (which gets shortened to) I know all things.

Today I am 43 years and 1 day old.  I’ve learned enough to know I hardly know anything at all.  In my Negotiations I amp up my own ignorance.  I want my Negotiating Complement to feel the great rush of vast knowledge and shine his rays upon my dull self…so I can then open up his safe and take what I wish.  By the way - each model of car requires you to learn how to change the oil all over again and oh my god that’s such a great way to spend my time.

If you have a story about someone who Negotiates through Assumption (including yourself) or have a question about how to deal with assumptions, asking resourceful quesitons or anything else I may have covered, please feel free to leave a comment or write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

If you are interested in hearing more about Negotiations and would like to receive my Newsletter please fill out the form under my picture to the right.  If you wish an even deeper grasp of Negotiations you might wish to sign up for my currently Free Apprenticeship Program.

What would happen if every time you opened your mouth you got exactly what you wanted?  Have you Negotiated to your Own Best Good Today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

One of my most active clients has requested Negotiation Training for the specific use of courting his future-life-mate-to-be. Of course I start out by illiciting the ideal picture of my client. I then illicit the current “real” picture based on results and self-defined criteria of the client himself. One of the hardest things for any client to hear is what they are doing that sabotages their intentions. Usually a process that sabotages an intention is the result of a very passionately held belief that may have once served you but is currently a limiting belief.

His situation is that he’s had several unfulfilled relationships in the last 8 or 9 years. He really wants to step-up the quality of his mate-choice process and discover someone that is willing to commit for the long haul. As we began our training for this aspect of his life - I do what I always do - ask resourceful questions. When someone asks you a resourceful question, what they are really doing is examining your life. A resourceful question is almost always a question that you ask someone else that they themselves have refused or not known to ask their own self. Thus the essence of The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions is revealed by the relative significance of any question to the person being asked.

As I began my barrage of resourceful questions I soon discovered that my client had a low frequency of flirting as a result of having a vast array of rules governing his own process of flirting. I challenged his information and instructed him to practice every chance he was offered. This was quite challenging to him and he of course showed me his resistance. His resistance was-is a form of anxiety that is defined by unresourceful questions such as “What if I’m wasting my time? What if she’s not the one? What if she states on her myspace account that she’s not looking? What if she’s wearing a ring and I’m not sure if it’s a wedding ring or not..” His list was endless.

We have all played the “what if” game. When adults play it to prevent taking action - they can become self-oppressing. When I find a client has this much resistance to new information then the new behavior I help them install must be easy and simple - something they can do all the time in any situation without alot of thought. For this client the prescription was this: 1)Ask any woman you meet thoughtful questions and 2)Make her feel good. Of course he had a million questions and “what ifs” and so on. He didn’t like the specific instructions - he wanted to “get there himself” so he asked me for a metaphor as a guide. My metaphor was “Treat flirting like golf. When a woman appears before you in any situation think of the golf rule of “playing the ball where it lands”. So if you are in a restaurant, on a subway, walking your dog, jogging, parking your car, etc. that is the right place to flirt. He had another wave of questions for this of course. Resistance is as resitance does not.

The purpose of my instruction was for him to become masterful at flirting so that if he ever did meet the one he’d be ready for it instead of getting overwhelmed by his emotions and choking. Have you ever been in a situation where you knew what you wanted in a relationship but you had no idea what to say next to get it? Feel free to share your thoughts and comments or even your questions in the comment section or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

What would happen if you were able to flirt for your own best good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Greetings Negotiators!

My wife, Suzanne is a very devoted entrepreneur. When she’s managing her home-based business and I “pop-in” her Ignore Quotient is quite high. This morning while I was showering I thought I might negotiate through her high Ignore Quotient by creating a pattern-interrupt (see #10). I was looking in my shaving mirror and thought - What would happen if I removed my mustache but kept the goatee? then laughed knowing I had found a way to negotiate thru the Ignore Quotient.

After turning myself into a dead-ringer for the Stone Temple Pilot Singer:

I went into her office and snuck up behind her. I began giving her a shoulder massage and talking to her quietly they way you might speak to an animal that’s about to bite you. Then I told her I had to leave so I walked away from her desk and picked up one of her girly office pillows and covered my face from the nose down real quick. She looked at me a few times kind of the way you look at the person in the left-hand turn lane that has a green light but isn’t turning.

Finally I asked her some benign question with the pillow down. Her Ignore Quotient was strong and unfettered. I asked the question again and the part of her wife-censor that detects annoyance began to wake up. After asking the same boring question a third time she stopped working and looked at me. “What did you do? Did you cut your hair? Something’s different…” It was at that moment that I made a kissy face at her.

Then she made the face. She saw the missing mustache and said not-so-sweetly “That’s scary”. Now considering I was about to go out into the world and deal with people - this was not the wife-will-boost-your-confidence comment I was hoping she’d make. Nonetheless, I did pierce her Ignore Quotient. I’ve been reaping the rewards of my shaved-mustache gambit all day now. Everytime she sees me - we talk about how I need to shave the chin-brow now that the lip-brow has departed.

I was going to shave it but when she compared me to the Stone Temple Pilot singer I changed my mind. I might be bias so you be the judge:

I think there will be some negotiating post I make in the near future that relates to “holding out” for your own best good. How many days do you think I’ll go without shaving the scary chin-brow? What will Suzanne ultimately offer me to do so. Stay tuned…find out!

If you’ve had someone attempt or even succeed to do something with you that put you in shock and changed the entire dynamic of any kind of communication and would like to share a story - please feel free to leave a comment or write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. What can you do right now to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?

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Bruce Burns the Negotiator!