How to prepare for any negotiation

Negotiation is key to business success. Almost everything that happens within an organisation requires people to reach an agreement.

While securing investment, hiring staff or dealing with suppliers are obvious examples, negotiation is also required in internal conflict resolution, project timelines, establishing company policies, giving and receiving feedback – the list goes on. That makes it incredibly important for leaders to hone their negotiation skills.

For this masterclass, we speak to two experts. The first, Sue Williams, is a former senior detective with the Metropolitan Police and an expert in hostage negotiation. She was involved in the successful resolution of hundreds of kidnap and hostage situations both on land and at sea. She now serves as a member of the risk and advisory board at the risk management firm Healix.

The second, George Kohlrieser, is a professor of leadership and organisational behaviour at the International Institute for Management Development. He is also the author of Hostage at the table: How leaders can overcome conflict, influence others and raise performance.

He has worked with global companies and their leaders in more than 100 countries. Before that, he worked with the police, the military and humanitarian organisations in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Croatia. During his work, he has been taken hostage four times – and used his skills to negotiate his way out.

VIDEO - Sue Williams framework

While not every negotiation in business is as intense as a hostage situation, the fundamentals are the same. Before a note has been taken or a word spoken, you need to make sure you are prepared.

“Find out all about the people. Find out all about the issue. Find out about the commodity itself,” says Williams. “I know we are all busy people, but putting time in the diary to prepare for a negotiation really does pay off. You go in more confident, and it cuts down on surprises.”

Preparation doesn’t just cover the other party. You need to prepare your own mental and emotional state as well. Practising a negotiation with someone in your organisation or a person you trust using methods such as visualisation can be useful to help understand your emotions and be prepared.

The experts also recommend not making negotiation personal and keeping the outcome in mind. Focus on interests and not positions. Be sure to factor in unforeseen circumstances and concessions you are willing to make, setting a firm foundation for you to work from.

Then the focus shifts to connection. “First of all, you’ve got to get your counterpart to like you,” says Williams. This is the first step in building trust, something which any negotiation relies on. “The relationship-building in negotiation is so important. It's about building rapport and using empathy.”

VIDEO - George Kohlrieser manipulation vs influencing

Kohlrieser agrees: “It's about understanding the person. Some of the biggest mistakes that can derail a negotiation happen at this stage.” He adds: “People don’t listen. They talk too much and focus on what they want, or on the goal or object. You are dealing with a person. This goes a long way to finding common ground.”

Hostage negotiators have a superpower: listening. That is key in business too. “A lot of people think that we are just fancy wordsmiths and we know how to manipulate people through words but that is not true,” says Williams. “Active listening is undervalued. Once you engage in it, then you find out so much more about the situation, about the person. This is the difference between listening and hearing.”

VIDEO - Sue Williams tactics

One way to do this is with open-ended questions. In his book Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg illustrates how subtle shifts in the way we ask questions can elicit a dramatically different response.

“Rather than asking someone about the facts of their life, ask them how they feel about their life,” he says. For example, instead of asking a doctor where they work, you might ask, what made you decide to become a doctor? This invites them to share something meaningful, allowing for a deeper connection.

“As you are fact finding and asking questions,” says Williams, “peel back the layers and find out the true motivation of what people want out of this negotiation. Establish, is it really a negotiation, or is it just a fact-finding mission? You’ve got to be adaptable and make yourself approachable. I often describe myself as having to be a convincing chameleon, because I have to be what the person I am communicating with wants me to be.”

VIDEO - George Kohlrieser bullying

Open questions can be used to gather information, but combining them with closed questions can narrow in on a specific goal or desired outcome. Duhigg refers to this as “looping for understanding”. It’s a delicate balance of open and closed questions. Here’s how it works in his own words:

Ask questions to make sure you understand what someone has said. Repeat back, in your own words, what you heard. Ask if you got it right. Continue until everyone agrees we understand. It’s a fairly simple technique — prove you are listening by asking the speaker questions, reflecting back what you just heard and then seeking confirmation you understand — but studies show it is the single most effective technique for proving to someone that we want to hear them. The goal is not to repeat what someone has said verbatim, but rather to distil the other person’s thoughts in your own words, prove you are working hard to understand and see their perspective – and then repeat the process, again and again, until everyone is satisfied.

Williams points to a common pitfall of not making the effort to understand the opposite party’s perspective.  Just approaching the negotiation through your world view, agenda and what you want can be a recipe for disaster. Look at their challenges, culture and true motivation. This ability to step into the other party’s shoes isn’t just strategic, it’s emotional intelligence in action.

VIDEO - Sue Williams clip top tips

The best negotiators can be likened to orchestral conductors. As with music, negotiation is not a rational process; it’s an emotional process, according to Kohlrieser.

“There has been a big mistake made in the whole development of leaders,” he says, “and that is that we are rational beings who happen to think. But it’s the other way around.”

He suggests involving a choice to help understand the person’s reaction: “If they become belligerent, you use de-escalating techniques. If they’re not emotional enough or don’t have enough energy, you have to provoke a little bit. You have to be careful with that but aim to understand their emotional triggers.”

De-escalating techniques include maintaining a steady and normal voice, not matching their pitch or volume, keeping eye contact and looping for understanding. “If it’s appropriate, and if there’s a reason for it, use a ‘sorry’,” says Williams. “It’s a really important de-escalation tool because people aren’t usually expecting it. But if you say sorry, make sure it’s a real one.”

VIDEO - George Kohlrieser top tips

This emotional intelligence must also extend to your own state, especially empathy. It is sometimes described as the lubricant of negotiation and Williams believes this is true. It helps people understand their own feelings, but more importantly, their counterpart’s emotions.

She also suggests that you should never assume the outcome of a negotiation: “Sometimes I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be very difficult’ or ‘this is going to be very tragic’ and actually it wasn’t. Don’t prejudge the outcome of any negotiation because your body language will give it away, or your mind is not going to be as open as it needs to be. It’s not over till it’s over.”