We all are a negotiator
We all are negotiators.
However, we may find it difficult to acknowledge.
When you were a child, you would have done this unknowingly while sharing a piece of chocolate or toys with your sibling.
While a teenager, you would have done this umpteen times with parents while asking for pocket money or by what time you will be back home after attending a birthday party.
In the summer holidays whether you will go for summer camp or go with your parents to their native places.
You would have grown up negotiating things all your life without even realizing it.
Then you negotiate with your car dealer when you buy your first car.
You negotiate with your boss on your annual rise to get the highest hike in the team.
You negotiate with your spouse which movie to for or where to go for your next vacation.
Life is an endless act of negotiation.
You negotiate in your mind by creating two imaginary personalities inside you; if you contemplate multiple ideas, you negotiate one for another and decide accordingly.
In the clichéd phrase, you play devil’s advocate, negotiate for one idea with an alternate idea.
It is intriguing to me that despite being such a vital life skill, in our education systems or for that matter, our parents even do not teach us these skills consciously.
Why?
Do you think that this should be imbibed naturally like you learn to speak, walk, run, etc?
If it is a skill, then it has to be learnt , practised to be good at that.
We all can run, but to be able to run a marathon or to run on a track, we have to train ourselves.
Our quality of personal and professional life depends largely on how we can negotiate better without giving in too much so that we do not have to feel deprived of our dues.
Negotiation is not as natural as it seems to be; to be effective, one must put deliberate effort to hone the skill.
I was not aware of the importance of developing this skill deliberately initially, and I suffered a lot because of the same.
Once, one of my good friends told me, Mukul, you are one of the most underrated guys.
I did not know how to react to that.
I looked at the dichotomy; it meant you are a** hole and selling yourself cheap; another way to look at it is that you are good and you can still make it.
This situation culminated because of my inept skill of negotiations and not been able to sell me right.
So, don’t you think you too should learn the skill?
Currently, what kind of negotiator you are?
Are you a hard negotiator or a soft negotiator?
A hard negotiator treats the other party as his adversary all the time.
He thinks the customer is always there to squeeze him till the last drop.
He is suspicious of the other party and carefully examines their every move, and smells a conspiracy in everything.
A hard negotiator uses threat as a negotiating principle; you would have heard your customer saying, give me a 10% discount or else I will move to the next vendor.
A hard negotiator sounds confrontational, mostly unwilling to concede from his position.
He decides his position beforehand and tries his best to protect that.
On the other hand, a soft negotiator treats the other party as his ally.
He knows that if he has to succeed, then the other party also has to co-operate.
A soft negotiator starts on the premise of trust rather than suspicion.
A soft negotiator is also aware of his position, but he is not confrontational in his approach, he is ready to extend offers to the other party and willing to concede.
He starts the negotiation keeping the middle ground in mind.
On the other hand, a hard negotiator starts with the premise that the other party is there to outsmart him, and he has to closely guard his turf.
A soft negotiator is not driven by ego, but for the hard negotiator, ego is a big factor in the negotiation strategy.
Now, of course, you will have your natural style.
But one size does not fit all; you need to be able to manoeuvre between styles and use them appropriately depending on the situation and based on the other party’s approach.
You would have seen in Hollywood flicks how the good cop and bad cop strategy is used.
My problem was that I was primarily a soft negotiator.
Hard negotiation never came easy to me, nor did I try to practise the same deliberately enough.
I also had a limiting belief; pushing hard my own agenda is arrogance.
As a result, I always sold myself short.
These principles are applicable both for professional and personal life.
What is your negotiation style?
A hard one or a soft one?
In a relationship, are you using only one type of negotiation style, or you are flexible?
Whatever natural style you may have, do not get boxed by the same and you should bring versatility in your approach.
Once you do it, you will see that you are getting things done much easily.
