NEGOTIATION

You Don’t Have to Take No for an Answer4process deeply woven into the social fabric. I was traveling in Morocco not long ago, andthe people there negotiate for everything, from spices to rugs. I saw two guys bargaininglike the world was at stake over the price of a chicken.We're at the other extreme. We negotiate very infrequently. And that's because,except for diplomats, salespeople, real estate brokers, lawyers – people who make theirliving negotiating – the process is alien to us. Sure, we have a few ritualized negotiatingsituations such as buying a car or a house, for example, but for most of us that's about it.The truth is that the negotiating opportunities in our daily lives are virtuallyendless. Most things really are negotiable, no matter what we've been trained to think,which is why I call negotiation a life skill. If you find yourself doubting it, ask yourself ifyou've ever wanted to or will ever want to:CReach a fair settlement with an insurance company for a claim on anaccident/theft/medical bill?CHave more time to finish a big assignment at work?CHave your landlord repair the faucet/toilet/ceiling/etc.?CSecure a bigger budget for your department?CDecide on a vacation both you and your spouse will be happy with?CHave the dry cleaner compensate you for the skirt or jacket he ruined?CGet a higher salary for a new job?CGet a bigger raise than was offered?CGet Mom and Dad to give you the car for the big date on Saturday night?CGet the people you live with to shoulder more household responsibilities?CBuy a house for less than the asking price, with washer and dryer thrownin to boot?CGet your child into that special program that's always full?CHave a repairman finish a job by the date-and for the price-he said hewould?CConvince your church/club/organization to have this year'spicnic/outing/retreat where you want it instead of at the awful place theyhad it last year?I could go on and on. Doubtless you can think of numerous other examples fromyour own life. Can we avoid negotiating in these situations? Absolutely. One student ofmine was so negotiation-shy that when he went shopping for a used car, he refused toanswer any advertisement that said “Make an offer.” Why? Because he was afraid ofmaking an offer the seller might find ridiculous. We can rationalize until the cows comehome. We can squeeze by for another six months without the raise. The skirt the drycleaner wrecked was about to be thrown away. And who cares about that dumb specialprogram? Our child probably would be under too much pressure in it anyhow.In this book, we're going to learn to stop rationalizing. We're going to stopavoiding negotiation. We're going to dispel its negative image, strip away our fears andmisconceptions, and come to see negotiation for what it truly is – an opportunity: areasoned, orderly, comprehensible process that we can employ, easily and effectively, toget more of what we want out of life.

You Don’t Have to Take No for an Answer5We've discussed what this book is about. Now let's discuss what it isn't about. It'snot about manipulating, intimidating, or taking advantage of people. It's not abouttaking the money (or whatever it is you're negotiating for), and leaving the other poorsoul to the buzzards. It is not a manual for the unscrupulous; I have only included asection on dirty tricks so that if you do encounter people who have checked theirscruples at the door, you'll be able to recognize them for what they are and negotiatevery warily with them, if at all.Nor is this book about changing your basic personality. Most people viewnegotiation as a forbidding jungle that's fit only for the iron-willed, table-poundingbreed of animal. But the fact is you don't have to be an ogre or a cutthroat or a fistflailing fanatic to be a good negotiator. You don't have to be a hot-head or a fast talker.You can be nice, and you can be yourself! All you need is the willingness to stand up foryourself and the knowledge about of how to do it.Learning to negotiate, in many ways, is like learning to play tennis. The more welearn about the various strokes (strategies and tactics), the more we develop an overallsense of the game, of where we are on the court, and of what works and why, the betterwe'll be able to drive the ball (our needs) exactly where we want. And by the same token,the more we know about the person we are negotiating with and their strokes, the betterwe'll be able to predict what's coming and fashion a winner of a return.As in any game, learning how to negotiate takes practice. We can't step onto thecourt and start right in with overhead smashes. We've got to build our skills and masterthe fundamentals first. Then, as we go on, we will learn to command more and more ofthe game's intricacies.Negotiation is like tennis in another respect – it's fun! Sure, some negotiationsare very serious and important, but even then the challenges, the strategies and tactics,the give and take of the negotiating process, are unquestionably fun.Everything you need to know to negotiate effectively is between these covers.Here's hoping you get everything you deserve.Michael SchatzkiFar Hills, New Jersey

CHAPTER 1You’re Already on Your WayWE ARE ALL negotiators. I happen to make my living by negotiating, but even ifI built houses or wrote computer code all day long, I would still be a negotiator. Maybe Iwould have to negotiate with my boss for a longer lunch break or a new computer. And Iwould certainly have to negotiate with my wife about our vacation plans if I wanted tocool out on a beach for a week and she wanted to explore Incan ruins in Peru (but onthat one, when I lose I still win since she drags me off to the most interesting places andwe always have a great time). The point is that we all negotiate all the time. There's noway around it, unless you're a hermit.You already know something about negotiation, probably a lot more than youthink you know. You may not have an effective, systematic approach to the subject - it'smy job to furnish you with that - but you nonetheless have an intuitive sense of how togo about the process, just by virtue of being human. What is negotiation after all? It ismerely an exchange between people for the purpose of fulfilling their needs. It doesn'tmatter whether your need happens to be consummating a multimillion dollar merger orwhether its keeping your next-door neighbor's dogs away from your garden; if you haveany needs at all and have to involve someone else to have them met, then you have tonegotiate.Let me give you a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean when I say you'vegot an intuitive sense of negotiating. A man I know was starting up a business in NewYork City, and he had to go to the appropriate city agency to get things properly licensedand registered. After making several phone inquiries he was told that, being aManhattan resident, he should go to a city agency in lower Manhattan. He got on asubway and went downtown, but when he arrived a clerk told him that because he had aQueens post office box, he would have to go to the Queens office of the agency to getthings squared away. He got back on the subway, took a long ride out to the Queensoffice, and waited an hour on line. When it was finally his turn, a stone-faced clerk toldhim, “You were given wrong information. You have to go back to Manhattan and get aspecial application from one of the supervisors there.”Having squandered the better part of his day and nearing the end of his rope, theman made an impassioned plea to the clerk to deviate slightly from the sacred norm andhelp him solve his problem. The plea fell on deaf ears. So what did the man do? Hestormed away from the line, climbed up on the nearest table, and began screamingwretched things about the New York City bureaucracy. A supervisor quickly emergedfrom behind the scenes, calmed the man down, and ironed out the problem in a matterof minutes.Was our exasperated table-climber negotiating? Absolutely. Was he aware of it?Probably not. More likely he was simply thinking, “I'm going to expire from frustrationif these jerks keep giving me the runaround, and I'm going to do something about it.”Let's strip this negotiation down to its basics. What happened? The man had a need -

You’re Already on Your Way7licensing his business - that he wanted the agency to fulfill. When it became apparentthe agency could not or would not meet that need, what did he do? He devised a tactic albeit an unorthodox one - that created a need on behalf of the supervisor - a need forsomething not to happen. So the supervisor sat down and helped the guy with hisproblem.Even young children know how to negotiate. Indeed, they are among the bestnegotiators because they have a keen sense of how to exploit their relative helplessnessto best advantage. Not long ago, while shopping in a mall, I witnessed a negotiation thathas been played out a million times if it has been played out once. A mother and heryoung daughter were walking along when the helium balloon the little girl was carryingslipped out of her grasp and drifted cruelly up to the roof. The girl immediately began tocry, to which the mother replied, “I told you to be careful! Now stop crying, because I'mnot going to buy you another one.”Since such encounters are of immense interest to a student of negotiation, Idecided to follow mother and daughter down the mall to see how things turned out. Thegirl cried - no, make that wailed - relentlessly, doing a splendid job of advertising herunmet need. Mom scolded her repeatedly, to no avail. Inside of ten minutes thenegotiation had been resolved, and relative tranquility was returned to the mall. When Ilast saw them, they were on line at the balloon stand. Persistence, as we'll see later, is avital trait for any good negotiator.Like the table-climber and the young child, you do have an idea of how tonegotiate. Your system may not be terribly refined; it may not be a system at all. Morelikely, it's a piecemeal approach you've settled into without much thought. Being aprofessional negotiator, I have to give the negotiation process a lot of thought, andeverything in this book is a product of that careful analysis. What you will not get is amechanical formula that can be applied to each and every negotiation in your life. Asmuch as I'd like to give you one, no such formula exists, and no such formula couldwork. There are too may types of negotiations and too many variables.What you will get from this book is a highly effective negotiating system designedto help you achieve your goals in any kind of negotiation. It is a system that is predicatedon what you already know intuitively. It is not a system that should be memorized. Beinga push-button negotiator won't get you anywhere at all. Rather it is a system thatencourages you to think and feel like a negotiator yourself. Because only wh

purchasing, insurance, personnel, finance, training, engineering, contracting, real estate, government and regulatory relations, various professional groups and general manage-ment. He is the author of Negotiation: The Art of Getting What You Want, originally published by Signet Books, and the Master Sales Negotiator audio/video program.