Negotiating Skills

As the coach you will be constantly in contact with the coachee. As we have mentioned earlier on, conflict situations could evolve from time to time. You will also have to act as a “shield” between the coachee and the other employees. For this you will need skills to negotiate yourself and the coachee through these situations.

What is negotiation? It is communication in which the parties seek agreement to an exchange between them.

Guidelines that you can follow:

Parties, not opponents. You should work together to resolve the issue to be negotiated.

Set the ground rules. These might include timekeeping, staying respectful or how discussions will be structured.

Know your authority. State your authority up front to avoid the coacher seeking to negotiate with someone else in your organisation from whom he/she might think he/she can get a “better deal”.

Explore needs and wants, not demands. Also focus on what interests underpin the coacher’s position.

Ask for specific evidence. Do not allow vagueness in negotiations. If you have any reason to doubt what you are being told, ask for the evidence.

Do not antagonize or insult. When you know he/she is lying to you, it is so tempting to call them a liar – but don’t! No matter what is said, avoid making personal attacks.

Be conscious of the difference between positions and interests. If you can figure out why you want something - and why others want their outcome - then you’re looking at interests. Interests are the building blocks of lasting agreements.

Be creative. Anyone can do things the same old way. Using brainstorming techniques, listening to outlandish proposals and opening up to unanticipated possibilities expand agreement opportunities. If you respond with new ideas and do the unexpected, you can open doors to far greater gains than when you behave predictably. Creativity can make everyone look good.

Be fair. If people feel a process is fair, they’re more likely to make real commitments and less likely to walk away planning ways to wriggle out of the agreement. Sometimes things are helped when a neutral, external authority is used to measure fairness.

Be prepared to commit. You shouldn’t make a commitment unless you can fulfil it. Commitment isn’t likely to result unless all parties feel the process has been fair.

Be an active listener. Communication takes place when information passes from a source to a receiver. If you spend all of your listening time planning how to zing the other party, then, when they finally stop talking, you haven’t heard them. Focus on what others say, both on their words and their underlying meaning. This will help you understand the interests upon which agreement can be based. When your response makes it clear that you’ve really been listening (and the other party gets over the initial shock), they, too, may be more prepared to listen. Active listening can change the rules of the game and raise the level of civility in the negotiation.

Be conscious of the importance of the relationship. Most of your negotiation is with repeaters (people you run across time after time such as your spouse and kids). The same is true for borrowers, directors and representatives of affiliated institutions. If you understand the relative priority of the relationship, it can be easier to know when giving on a particular point may yield short-term cost but long-term gains.

Be aware of BATNAs. BATNA stands for the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. Your BATNA is the situation you want to improve by negotiating with a given party or set of parties. If you can improve things on your own, you don’t need to negotiate. But BATNA is not your bottom line. It’s a measure of the relative value of negotiating a particular issue with a particular party - or whether you can fall back on better alternatives. Be prepared. In order to negotiate effectively, efficiently and wisely, it’s crucial to prepare. Your job isn’t to outline a perfect, total solution; that would be a positional approach. Preparation means studying the interests and BATNAs of every possible party. It means understanding the short- and long-term consequences you use and the substantive results you pursue. Doing your homework can save a lot of time.