I often talk and hear about trust in negotiation as a key element to ensuring you achieve the outcome you desire. In a past episode of Negotiations Ninja podcast, I spoke with Keld Jensen, internationally recognized expert and advisor on negotiation and behavioral economics, about the importance of trust in negotiation. I believe we take trust for granted in negotiation. Business often comes down to numbers. Trust is a belief, an emotion. Many feel our…
Empathy In Negotiation
Listening to our counterparts is imperative to negotiation, but it is meaningless if the right questions aren’t being asked. People often disguise commands as questions or use a tone that evokes accusations instead of empathy. Most people think they ask great questions, but questions that already supply an answer, or are engineered to get the answer we want, are low-value questions. Dan Oblinger, a recurring guest on Negotiations Ninja, calls these “garbage questions” and says…
Creating Alignment with Challenging Internal Customers
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is a highly important part of negotiation and success. In procurement, professionals tend to excel at strategy and following process and downplay the magnitude of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence has been linked to career success more than intelligence alone, proving EQ a critical tool to have. Luckily, unlike IQ, EQ proficiency can be developed through exercise. On a recent episode of Negotiations Ninja I spoke with Antonio Humphreys, Adobe’s marketing procurement…
Deadlocks Begin Negotiations
We all fear conflict, we fear rejection, we fear ridicule. In negotiation, conflict is inevitable and trying to avoid it could hinder your ability to reach your desired outcome. In a recent episode of Negotiations Ninja, I talked with Matthias Schranner, former hostage negotiator and founder of the Schranner Negotiation Institute, about conflict in negotiations. Matthias says the biggest mistake in business negotiation is the avoidance of deadlock scenarios forcing compromise and postponed decisions. Starting…
A Systems Approach to Negotiations
Everybody goes into a negotiation with emotional baggage. We can expect emotions from those being asked to make sacrifices – there usually is at least one party in a negotiation who will be making sacrifices. As negotiators, we don’t often think about the emotional baggage we are bringing to the table as negotiators. In a recent episode of Negotiations Ninja, I chatted with war-time and hostage negotiation expert, Cal Chrustie, about his three S’s of…