What Can Be Negotiated?

Well, just about anything can be a negotiable...

A negotiable is anything which might be exchanged during a negotiation.

There are two basic types of negotiables – the tangible and the emotional.

Tangible Negotiables

These are easily identified. For example: when negotiating the sale of a house, the tangibles include the house itself, a diary date for moving, a price, the contents which are to be included in the sale etc.

Tangibles will be typically documented and quantified in some way. So, when selling a house, the following will be agreed to in writing:

• The address and defined boundary of the specific property under negotiation.
• A specific date on which the price will be paid, and the house will be made available to the buyer.
• A specific purchase price.
• A list of specific contents included or perhaps excluded from the agreement. For example: when selling a house, the garden plants are generally regarded as included – unless the vendor specifies otherwise.

When negotiating, we typically remember most of the tangible negotiables – but note:

• Failing to document tangible specifics can cause significant problems.
• For instance, imagine the response if it was never documented when a negotiated pay increase was to be implemented!

Tangible Needs and Wants

Tangible negotiable can be sub-divided into ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. Two examples:

• When selling your home, you might want to get twice (or three times) what it is worth! A would-be buyer might want it at half the market value.
• In business, when employers and employees are engaged in pay negotiations – the former (generally) doesn’t want to pay as much as the latter wants to receive.

In the above examples, the wants are in conflict and there is no way forward for the parties:

Sticking to tangible wants leave no room for negotiating.

But there is an alternative. Let’s re-consider the two examples:

• When you sell your house, you might need enough money from the sale to buy another. A buyer needs to be able to afford it.
• When seeking to agree a pay increase from an employer, the employees might need to be given their market worth and the employer needs to keep them on the payroll and motivated.

Both examples provide room for manoeuvre in a negotiation, not least because ‘needs’ are (typically) more reasonable than ‘wants’ and there are different ways to achieve success. To illustrate:

• If you want twice the market value of your house, the chances of a sale are negligible. But if the buyer can enable you to buy another home, there will be lots of homes from which your needs can be met.
• If you want a 20% pay increase, the employer could refuse, and you are at an impasse. But if you state your need is to reflect your market worth, there could be a mix of options negotiated – enhance your pension, reduce your hours and/or give you a pay increase.

Stating tangible needs is a basis for negotiating.

Emotional Negotiable

Every negotiation involves emotions and they can have a profound impact on the progress towards an agreement by causing us to act subjectively and frequently irrationally. However, they are not necessarily that easy to identify. Let’s illustrate this with our house selling example:

• The buyer may fall in love with the house. They may be (emotionally) pressured by their family or friends to make the move and/or buy this specific house. Yet they are unlikely to let the seller know of such pressure for fear that the seller might take advantage and increase their asking price.
• The seller might be selling because they need the proceeds to buy urgent medical treatment for a loved one. Again, the seller’s reluctance to reveal this might be caused by fear that it will give the upper hand to the buyer.

Therefore, rarely will all the emotions be revealed in a negotiation...

Emotional negotiables are also present in business negotiations. Consider:

• The senior manager who is driven by an emotional need ‘to be seen’ as successful.
• The person who gets upset when they think their needs are being disregarded or disrespected.
• When a negotiation falters because one party insults another.

Always take account of the emotions in a negotiation...

Emotional Needs and Wants

Does the principle of stating tangible needs, rather than wants, work with emotional negotiables? Alas, no!

Let’s look at a business example:

You negotiate the best possible deal for your organisation but believe that it is not quite good enough to avoid you ‘losing face’ among your peers. If you emotionally want to look good in front of your peers, you might choose to scupper the deal rather than proceed with it. Rationally, we would say that such action would be wrong. But who said emotions were rational?

When negotiating, address the emotional needs and wants as well as the tangible needs to deliver success.