Trading Competition for Collaboration: 7 Steps to Successful Negotiations

In any professional relationship, or any relationship for that matter, we need to manage the give and take.  Because we rely on and benefit from one another in specific ways, we have certain expectations.  Professionally speaking, we participate in organizational roles and customer relationships that require us to provide for one another and to resolve differences when this symbiosis isn’t working. On a personal level, the day to day challenges of sharing our life with another requires that we negotiate frequently with both conviction and compassion.

This topic often shows up when I am working with clients who participate in work that requires cross-functional cooperation.  That being; the shared responsibility for outcomes. In other words, one might describe their work as “My result is impacted by the accountability and engagement of others, when they slip up it affects my success”. Or, “I simply cannot make this happen without the contribution of others”. When we break it down that way, it could describe any relationship; whether it’s a colleague, a partner, a boss, a customer or even a family member, so little of what we accomplish impacts only ourselves.

I think the key to this mutual success in these negotiations lies in leaving the competition behind in the interest of cooperation.  Competition can be incredibly healthy when it drives our motivation by inspiring us to strive for more aggressive achievements, but it can also be incredibly destructive when we become preoccupied with being right and approach shared endeavors as individual sport.  

Art Markman, Professor of Psychology at The University of Texas, in a recent article published on FastCompany.com, describes the problem with competition in such situations. “Most negotiations are part of an ongoing relationship. If both of you treat that negotiation as a game in which for each point one side wins and the other loses, then you leave that negotiation with the joy of your victories and the sting of the defeats. That means that you will enter the next negotiation wanting to correct the past wrongs and to build on past successes. That can make later negotiations more intense as each side tries to avoid the mistakes of the past.”

This “scorecard” mentality creates a vicious cycle that will surely distract and erode the relationship and all future mutual outcomes. 

Here is a conversation model that will inspire collaboration and take competition out of the mix:

1. Identify shared goals or outcomes.  On a very basic level we want to know “what’s in it for me?”  Expressing that you share the same desires is a great place to start this conversation. Choose a point of alignment or agreement as your starting point.  Is there a shared commitment to a particular outcome?
2. Reinforce the shared responsibility and the unified front. Anchor new ideas expectations or requests on universally accepted assumptions, values or beliefs. "We both know how important this is".  Or "neither of us wants to suffer the consequences of this not going well". "We are in this together”.
3. Reflect on past successes.  This creates an expectation that success can be achieved.. after all, we have been there before together.
4. Seek to understand divergent goals, needs and expectations. Look for underlying concerns expressed and unexpressed. Demonstrate concern, this doesn’t mean you have to agree.
5. Ask for what you need to be successful. Be specific.  Link your request to outcomes; positive if you get what you need, negative if you have less than what you need.  Embrace a “help me to help you" mentality.
6. Negotiate levels of commitment. Be clear about what is negotiable and non-negotiable.  Best to spend some time thinking about this before this conversation.  If you cannot get full commitment on a "must have" expectation, ask the other party if they would be willing to agree to a short-term commitment or a trial basis.
7. Reinforce with anticipated pay-offs. Close with optimism and make everyone feel great about what was achieved.  This is a good way to minimize the sting of concessions that were made reluctantly in the course of the conversation.  You don’t want any second thoughts after the meeting to undermine your successful negotiation!

Achieving buy-in and collaboration is really about inspiring others, or in the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it”.

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