Case study of strengths based negotiation
Do you believe that being empathic could be a hurdle in your negotiation skills or could it be used appropriately?
Do you want to relook at your negotiating skills and discover your unique approach to negotiation?
Then you are most welcome to read on.
There are two kinds of negotiations in the world.
Distributive negotiation and Integrative negotiation.
In distributive negotiation which is also known as a zero sum negotiation, parties compete with each other to claim the most value and share of the deal for themselves at the cost of the other party.
Whereas in integrative negotiation which is also known as win-win negotiation, parties collaborate with each other to achieve maximum benefits for everyone by integrating their needs into an agreement.
Which style do you naturally relate to more of?
Back in December 2016, I was coaching one of my friends using the Gallup Strengths method.
He has Empathy as his number 1 talent theme in a list of 34 talent themes and Achiever as his last theme.
His 4 out of top 5 Signature themes were all about relationship building.
One of the challenges he shared as a result of his high empathy was his challenge in thinking about his and organizational needs while his natural tendency was to always give preference to the other party’s needs and feelings. And so he thought that he is not a good negotiator.
In the Strengths philosophy we believe in either partnering with someone who has complementary talent themes or looking at your own talent theme combination to see how you could get to the same result albeit in a different way; a way that is unique given your own unique placement of talent themes.
No two people in the world have any practical chance of having all their talent themes in the exact same order as each other.
Therefore each person is unique and will get the same result using different methods.
I therefore pointed out certain insights from his All 34 theme sequence insight report. This report lists a person’s all 34 talent themes in the descending order of intensity.
As he looked into his dominant talents from 1 – 12, it emerged that he could prepare for his negotiations by:
·
Allowing his
natural Empathy for the other party to help him identify their needs, concerns
and associated feelings.
·
He could then
use his Communication talent theme to articulate their feelings and needs in
beautifully apt words.
·
This would
help the other party appreciate that he understands their concerns and needs.
·
He could
thereafter use his Includer, Input and Intellection themes to think of everyone
involved, gather as much data as needed and think through all the aspects and
stakeholders and list their needs, concerns, aspirations and feelings.
·
He could come
back to using his Empathy (this time by directing it towards himself) and
Communication themes to articulate his side of the picture.
·
This would
help him apply the second part of Stephen Covey’s 5th principle and help in
being understood by the other party.
·
He could then
bring his talent themes of Harmony and Connectedness to explore and put forth
on the table, the common areas of needs and interests on the table and finally
use his talent themes of Woo and Positivity to win others over and propose a
maximum return on investments using his Maximizer talent theme.
·
And finally,
he could rely on his Adaptability talent theme to respond in case the other
party throws up a surprise to his plans or puts forth another aspect of the
matter to consider.
He could thus create a true win-win by building beautiful relationships.
John F. Kennedy once said: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.”
Negotiation isn’t always about bargaining as much as we can for ourselves and leaving the other person out to dry in the wind or vice versa.
As I conclude, I remember my favourite quote by Mike McCartney:
“We have not come here to compete with one another. We have come here to complete one another.”
_/\_
Sohum
Comments
Post a Comment