By Dana Small, Ms. Category Management When you are in procurement, you’re not just an enemy—you are the enemy to almost everyone involved (or least that’s how it feels). That’s why I like to call it negotiating with the dark side. Because more times than not, you’re viewed as counterproductive and a middleman to with whom most just want to check the box. Yes, we talked to procurement, now let’s get the project started! Why?…
Why Post-Negotiation Assessment Is Vital For Future Success
No matter the outcome of the negotiations you’re involved in – positive or negative – a vital practice you need to develop is to conduct a post-negotiation assessment. This debrief should include everyone on your negotiations team. Walking through the events of the negotiation together can give you perspective, enable you to notice the nuances of what made things turn out the way they did, and provide an understanding of things that didn’t go as…
Effective Listening = Negotiation Success
We all believe that we know how to listen, but it’s not true. The truth is that what we call “listening” is only hearing. Hearing is done easily because it’s an automatic function of the ears and the brain, but listening means that we process what others say in a way that enables understanding and empathy. And it doesn’t happen instantly just by hearing the words the person says. Listening is a process, and…
Negotiation Lessons From The Field
The Waco Branch Davidian siege is one of the most well-known hostage negotiations of all time. Former FBI hostage and crisis negotiator, Gary Noesner, was on the negotiation team at Waco during the siege. He remembers it as one of the worst negotiation situations he has ever been in, the failure of which he doesn’t attribute solely to David Koresh. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So, at Waco, we…
Negotiate Like An Entrepreneur
For entrepreneurs, the idea of negotiation in business is often absent, or at least put on the back burner for things like hiring staff, finding office space, or hunting down suppliers. In all those things, however, there is negotiation. On a recent episode of Negotiations Ninja podcast, I spoke with professional entrepreneur, business coach, and first-time author (Tiger by the Tail), Marty Park. Marty has started thirteen companies in six different industries in the past twenty-five…