Hi! Welcome back. I’ve had a busy week interviewing and would like with today’s post to end our discussion of Jim Camp’s thirty three rules for negotiation from his excellent book Start with No! Below is the final set of Mr. Camp’s rules for successful negotiations.
· Mission and purpose drive everything.
· Decisions are 100 percent emotional.
· Interrogative-led questions drive vision.
· Nurture.
· No assumptions. No expectations. Only blank slate.
· Who are the decision makers? Do you know all of them?
· Pay forward.
In mission and purpose drive everything both you and the person you are negotiating with should be driven to accomplish your objective for the negotiations. In the case of a job interview which I have been on recently the potential employer is looking for someone to fill a vacancy and I am looking for a stream of income but we both have a greater reason for why we are there. I can’t speak for a particular employer out there but my purpose is to return to the business world to help coach people to improve them and work with them to improve the systems they use every day in their work to reach the goals they set for themselves and the businesses they work for. As I evaluate different work scenarios be it as an employee or an independent contractor working on an assignment I am looking to see whether my mission and purpose coincides with that of the employer and can I help them reach their goals and objectives. That thought process that I just describes is what Camp is saying should be used in all negotiations.
Decisions are 100% percent emotional. If you would have ask me this question several months ago I would have said that I disagree with that view because I was schooled in the practice of business management and as we all know business managers are suppose to make logical, rational decisions based on empirical evidence found in the data right!? Well that is not entirely true many decision makers and leaders that I have studies in the past few months have made the decision to do something and then looked for the evidence that supports that decision and only the evidence that supports the decision that they have made. Much has been made for example in the last ten years about Mr. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and then Afghanistan. You will recall the run up to the Iraq War and Colin Powell’s speech at the UN where he claimed that America thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We know now that that claim by the US was not correct but we continued through with the invasion anyhow. Did President Bush make his decision before the evidence was gathered and then only look at the evidence that supported his decision? I don’t know perhaps he did and he would not be the first President or leader to do so. The point is that more often than we would like to believe decisions by leaders and influential people are made before the evidence and the reasons for the decision are only gathered later as a defense of their original position.
Interrogative questions drive vision is that probing needs analysis that I think I’ve written about quite often in this piece on Camp’s negotiation rules. What is the adversary really trying to accomplish within the negotiations and can you help them get what they want and in turn get what you want.
Nurture, not a rule you would suppose Camp would use when he labels his rules Start with no! Nurture as I see it being used here is to serve. The greatest example of serving especially this time of year is Jesus Christ at the Last Supper when he begins to wash the feet of the disciplines at the table. Now I’m not suggesting that you bend down and wash your adversary’s feet in your next negotiations but think about what you can say or do to help them move toward their goals and objectives, how can you move the discussions along to a successful conclusion for everyone.
No assumptions. No expectations. Only a blank slate means don’t come into the negotiations with a preconceived notion of what the adversary will say or do. Listen, discuss, verify details and develop a custom solution to the issues after all if the solutions to which created the negotiations were obvious you probably wouldn’t need to negotiate in the first place right?
Who are the decision makers? Do you know them all? Obviously, you want to be communicating with someone who has the authority to act on the solutions you agree to within the negotiations. However sometimes that is easier said than done because the person who you are negotiating with is acting as a go-between for the final decision maker. Remember Camp’s rule about all agreements must be clarified point by point and sealed three times (using 3+)? Getting to the final decision makers or at least clarifying each point multiple times with your adversary will allow you to find successful closure to your negotiations much easier.
Finally pay forward, a great movie by the way, how can you improve the world around you? What can you do to make a difference in somebody’s life and circumstance? It doesn’t have to be substantial, a kind word, a small bit of advice, a contact that can open the door and unlock a potential barrier to a problem can make a huge difference to people you are dealing with.
I hope you took away something from my review of Jim Camp’s Book Start with No! Trust me my analysis doesn’t do it justice as I’ve written several times this is a great book on how to negotiated but I also see parallels to starting your own business. Until next time thanks for your readership and all my best! Jer.
No comments:
Post a Comment