Negotiation Goals and Strategies

• Most negotiators can achieve their goals with effective planning and goal setting.
• Without effective planning and goal setting, results occur more by chance than by effort.
• Goals, strategy, and planning are related to each other.
• Many negotiators begin planning midway in the sequence and work backward or forward until the steps are aligned.
• Goals drive a negotiation strategy.

Determining Goals

• Consider substantive goals, like money.
• Consider intangible goals, like winning.
• Consider procedural goals, like shaping the agenda.

Effective Preparation

• Requires negotiators to list all goals they wish to achieve.
• Requires negotiators to determine the priority among those goals.
• Requires negotiators to identify potential multi-goal packages.
• Requires negotiators to evaluate possible trade-offs among multiple goals.

Direct Effects of Goals

• Wishes are not goals, especially in negotiations.
• Goals may be linked to the other party's goals.
• There are limits to what realistic goals can be.
• Goals should be concrete, specific, and measurable.
• Intangible goals may be maintaining a reputation or setting a precedent.
• A procedural goal could be believing the sincerity of the other party after two concessions.
• Criteria used to determine goals depend on objectives and priorities.

Indirect Effects of Goals

• Short-term thinking affects the choice of strategy.
• Negotiators may ignore the relationship with the other party in a concern for achieving a substantive outcome only.
• Progress on some goals may be incremental and require a strong relationship.
• Relational goals tend to support the choice of a collaborative or integrative strategy.
• Such goals should motivate a negotiator toward a strategy valuing the relationship as much as the outcome.

Strategy Versus Tactics

• Tactics are short-term, adaptive moves designed to enact broad strategies.
• Strategy in turn provides stability, continuity, and direction for tactical behaviors.
• Tactics are subordinated to strategy.

Accommodation, Competition, and Collaboration

• Competition is distributive or win-lose bargaining.
• Collaboration is integrative or win-win negotiation.
• Like competition, accommodation is a win-lose strategy where, "I lose, you win."
• Accommodation can be used to build or strengthen a relationship.
• In a long-term relationship, use accommodation early to build trust and to expect "reciprocity" in the future.

Drawbacks

• Distributive strategies create “we-they” patterns, leading to distortion in judgment and perspectives.
• Integrative negotiators may be taken advantage of.
• Accommodative strategies set a pattern of avoiding conflict.
• These strategies set a precedent that is difficult to break, where efforts to restore balance may be met with resentment.

Steps to Implement Strategy: The Planning Process

• Define the negotiating goal.
• Define the major issues related to achieving the goal.
• Rank the issues; define the bargaining mix.
• Define the interests.
• Know your alternatives (BATNAs).
• Know your limits, including a resistance point.
• Understand the other's goals, issues, and resistance points.
• Set your own targets and opening bids.
• Assess the social context of the negotiation.
• Present the issues to the other party.

Assumptions of the Planning Process

• There is only a single planning process.
• Factors beyond the table may affect strategizing.
• Negotiations are one-to-one.
• The steps are linear.

Step 1: Defining the Negotiating Goal

• Goals can be substantive (tangible).
• Goals can be psychological (intangible).
• Goals can be procedural (how we get to agreement).
• Goals can have both direct and indirect effects on the choice of strategy.
• Knowing your goals is the most important step in developing a strategy and executing a negotiation.

Step 2: Defining the Major Issue to Achieving the Goal

• Single-issues dictate distributive negotiations.
• Multiple-issues lend to integrative negotiations.
• Whether to claim-value or create-value creates the “negotiator's dilemma.”
• Single-issues can be made integrative.

Step 3: Assembling the Issues, Ranking Their Importance

• Assemble all the issues into a comprehensive list.
• The combined lists from both sides is the bargaining mix.
• Determine each issue's importance and use rank-order, grouping, or weighted measures.
• Set priorities for both tangible and intangible issues.
• Specify a bargaining range for each issue in the mix.
• Determine whether the issues are linked or separate.
• Separate issues can be easily added or subtracted.
• Connected, settlement on one is linked to settlement on the others.

Step 4: Defining the Interests

• Positions are what a negotiator wants.
• Interests are why they want them.
• Ask "why” questions to surface values, needs, or principles.
• Interests may be substantive, process-based, or relationship-based.
• Interests may also be based on intangibles of negotiation.
• Surfacing interests may be essential to understanding the other side's position.

Step 5: Knowing your Alternatives (BATNAs)

• Preparation requires establishing alternatives and limits.
• BATNAs allow negotiators to meet their needs in other ways.
• Alternatives define whether the current outcome is better than another possibility.
• The better the alternatives, the more power to walk away from the current deal while still meet needs.

Step 6: Knowing Your Limits, including Resistance Point

• A resistance point is where negotiations stop, as any settlement beyond this point is not minimally acceptable.
• A seller's resistance point is the least they will take.
• A buyer's resistance point is the most they will pay.
• Clear resistance points help keep people from agreeing to deals that they later realize were not very smart.

Step 7: Analyzing and understanding the other party's goals

• Find a way to see the negotiation from the other party's perspective.
• Understand their approach and what they are likely to want-then compare against the negotiator's own position.
• Gather broad, overall goals and objectives.
• Understand the issues and likely bargaining mix.
• Understand the other party's interests and needs.
• Understand their resistance point and alternative.
• Such information may be difficult to obtain before negotiation.
• Collect as much information as possible during opening stages.

Step 8: Setting One's Own Targets and Opening Bids

• Targets should be specific, difficult but achievable, and verifiable.
• Target setting requires proactive thinking about negotiator's own objectives.
• Target setting may require packaging several issues and objectives.
• Target setting requires an understanding of trade-offs and throwaways.
• It may be the best possible outcome, an ideal solution, or a better outcome than last time.
• Overconfidence leads to unrealistic openings.
• Other parties may laugh, get angry, or walk away before responding.

Step 9: Assessing the Social Context of Negotiation

• One way to assess all the key parties in a negotiation is to complete a "field analysis."

Step 10: Presenting Issues to the Other Party

• Present and frame the issues.
• What facts support the POV?
• How can facts be most convincing?
• Plan process and structure the context.
• What agenda should be followed?
• Where to negotiate?
• Time period for negotiation?
• Outcomes if negotiation fails?
• How to keep track of agreements?
• Create a mechanism for modifying the deal if necessary?

Explore negotiation goals and strategies, including prioritizing relationships, creating multi-goal packages, and setting beneficial precedents. Analyze the risks of focusing solely on short-term substantive goals and understand the importance of procedural goals.