Trust In Negotiations.

 Last year I included the following as part of one of my Blogs - It is even more valid today.

Trust:

Trust is built up over time between parties. It becomes established as agreements are honoured exactly as agreed – not just once, but every time.

Trust is a major part of a relationship, a corner stone.

Trust allows each side to “know” how the other party will act, not just an expectation but a promise that will be fulfilled. 

One can expect (and be right) that secrets and confidences will be kept. The parties know if the trust is ever broken it can never be repaired.

Deals will be delivered to the letter – exactly as agreed, not distorted, misinterpreted, reneged upon or ignored and forgotten.

If changes have to be made they will be discussed and agreed in advance.

The parties know the value of trust (and the cost of losing it).

In Business: 

Trust is very difficult to maintain because:

• Employees are for ever changing.
• Market and economic pressures do not remain constant.
• Greed for profit / commission or bonus have a negative impact – relationships are expendable when there is a quick profit to be made.

When an individual does not understand complexity, consequence, sustainability and the long term, they do not understand trust, relationships, integrity and partnership.

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson Four

Structuring Expectations: One  

The pre-negotiation phase: The negotiation has begun already! 

Many people make the mistake of thinking that in the period running up to the formal start of a negotiation the parties are not negotiating. They could not be more wrong. The reality is that once one becomes aware that someone wants something, then the opportunity to make a deal means that the negotiation is off and running. From the moment this reality begins expectations are being structured.

Every action, statement, move, meeting, event sends out messages as to the aspirations of the parties; how they intend to behave towards each other and indications as to the priorities they are working to. What they want and (often more importantly) what they want to avoid. 

The unguarded are giving information away all the time and not realising it. Discipline and coordination in this phase are all important.

If the negotiating landscape has a considerable number of interested parties trying to influence objectives and strategy,  discipline can become very problematic. An experienced negotiator can read much from watching from the other side. It provides useful information about how well prepared the other side is, what problems they are having within their team, who the key influencers may be, where the real power is and who the key decision maker is. 

 

In this phase the internal conversations within one side maybe the real negotiation. It can be very difficult to get the clarity of objectives and priorities when there are too many fingers in the pie.  But it gives away a lack of togetherness, conflicting objectives and strategies and possible lack of real negotiating knowledge and ability.

Sharpen up your skills at http://www.sharppractices.co.uk/negotiating_sharppractices.htm. 

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson Three

Grandstanding.

Grandstanding may signal a range of messages which could have the opposite meaning to those intended. Good negotiators always think about consequences as part of their assessment of both objective and strategy - particularly those that may not be easily foreseen or may lead to the opposite of what is intended.

Trying to appear tough by taking “hard” positions. Making it look like a hard battle by using strong language, using argumentative behaviour, deadlocking. In fact trying to look and sound like their idea of a negotiator. This is not a good idea. And who are they trying to fool?

Not the other side of the table. Often this type of game is played out with the other side’s connivance. People forget that leadership is a very lonely situation; it is often only other leaders who appreciate this, and they are the sole ones they can trust (more than one’s own side). When you wonder who your friends are, they may be those sitting on the other side of the negotiating table.

Spectators want to see a real hard negotiation in order to accept the result.  Audiences want to hear strong language, to satisfy themselves that the “best” deal has been achieved. Agreements may be easier to accept if there has been a hard fought battle, often the reason for some of the "staged" battles in industrial relations disputes.

It can't be a good deal unless it takes time to achieve. Some cultures measure the quality of a deal based on how long it takes to achieve. If a deal is reached in quick time, it seems too quick, too easy and therefore not the best deal. This can lead to a staged ritual dance between the parties. Long meetings, deadlocks, ultimatums, walk outs, threats. All these are the dramatic tools of the grandstanding negotiator. Make it look as if the deal has been hard fought. Make the protagonists “look” good. Of course, while the "show" is performed, the real negotiation may be going on behind the scenes, in secret.

In talking about time, I am reminded of one dispute when I had to advise a negotiating team to go away and play golf as it had reached an apparent deal inside two months (a deal that more than matched their objectives). However the other side was not able to accept the deal until 6 months had passed even though it was also happy with the position. Their boss had said a good deal could not be achieved quicker than six months. So rather than try to force early acceptance, which would have been dangerous as it might have led to unnecessary concessions to buy the deal, it was better to go away until the time had passed. This kept everyone satisfied.

The danger of grandstanding is that the game (strategy) may become more important than achieving the planned outcome. The drama takes over and because it is so important to “look tough” the players cannot lose face by starting to soften their style (look like giving in) - even though this would provide the best and most efficient deal for the parties.

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson Two

The Problem with Selling a Deal .

Most negotiators are wary of those who have to “sell” a deal in order to try to get it agreed, because the perception is that it not the best deal, right deal, appropriate deal or an adequate deal.

Most often it is politicians, PR specialists and Sales Professionals who are guilty of this approach. It may be because they often “get away” with using their persuasive selling skills that they grow to believe that they can sell anything. This misplaced confidence to be able to spin any outcome as being a “good” or the “best” deal is at best misleading and at worst lying. Whatever the view, it is not good practise and demonstrates a scant regard for the fundamentals and disciplines of professional negotiating.

One of the most common reasons for this selling behaviour is down to a failure to set clear objectives or  plan a proper choice of strategies. “We’ll listen to what they say, see where they are coming from and take it from there” one hears far too often. A plan which is focussed not on what one should be seeking (what one wants), but what the other side will let you have is weak, reactive and inefficient.

There is no substitute for well prepared objectives with well thought through strategies and contingencies. The focus should on what you want, pro-active and positive.  This all needs coaching and practise to build up confidence and courage.

It’s why we are here.

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson One

Multilateral Bargaining - It is always dangerous to have separate, bilateral meetings when trying to get a collective agreement involving three or more parties, although often necessary. For the unwary and inexperienced it is easy to get picked off by more expert and prepared negotiators.

Having a private meeting with one party when there are up to 28 parties to the deal, can lead to making a concession unilaterally to each one in turn to gain each as an ally. All of the 27 other Premiers might ask for a different condition in return. This could lead to 27 concessions (favours) being made for just one gain. Using up considerable currency in a very inefficient manner. And if the deal does not happen, the other parties now know of 27 possible concessions that they might (should demand) gain during the next negotiation.

Buying favours to build up alliances can lead to secret agreements that are “called in” later as part of other deals. An ever present danger.

It is one thing to have informal discussions to “get a feel” as to how things might go in the formal negotiation - what interests and concerns the other parties might have, but to go beyond the preparation and investigative dialogue stages will be a step too far.

Once one has the “intelligence” gathered in, then comes the time to construct powerful proposal options which will bind in all the parties. This approach maximises the efficiency of one’s trading currency, but needs plenty of practise and experience.

Poor Negotiating - A Reminder

Whether the peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland decide to remain or leave the E.U. there will be negotiations inside and outside the Kingdom involving organisations great and small.  But to negotiate with strength, control and authority there will need to be a much clearer set of objectives than have currently been defined and this will require a significant quality of leadership. After all, everyone I meet, who voted in the previous referendum on the Common Market, had no intention of it becoming what it is today; the responsibility for this outcome lies with the politicians (in government and opposition) who let it happen AND the failure of our democratic system to control them and keep them to  the outcome for which we had voted.

To date, the campaigns for In and Out have been chaotic and negative and for many of us  achieved one significant result - that the current crop of politicians and influencers can not be trusted to handle the consequences of any result the referendum might bring.

When coaching Directors and MBA students I find a common problem when analysing their negotiations. It is the inordinate amount of time spent on negative argumentative behaviour, when negotiations is about the possible. The more time wasted in arguing about what is not possible, probable, permissible or needed (what we do not want ), the less time there is for the possible and predictable way ahead (what we want that is possible). The negative, fear tactics are more in line with  PPI selling than the task of shedding more light on the critical issues that have to be weighed up by the intelligent electorate who will be making the decision.

It is the confusion between strategy and objective that highlights the leadership problem. The Referendum hustings are beset with politicians looking for media opportunities to “sell” themselves to their parties, constituencies, and funders in the hope they may get further up their particular hierarchy. They use the present opportunity as a personal strategy to gain attention. However,  the Referendum is only a strategy to provide a clue as to where we want to go. European Union Membership is only a strategy to help us achieve what we want as a Nation. What we want as a nation has yet to be defined, but at least we may be able to define what we do not want. Staying with the status quo may mean that we as a nation no longer want leadership, but prefer drift.

The parties with whom we will have to negotiate are all watching and listening. Our politicians may not realise it, but they are already in the early stages of the post referendum negotiations, and structuring expectations in a way that may not be helpful to us, but helpful to those with whom we will have to deal.

We need to toughen up.

Negotiating for Europe #5 – Discipline at the Close

Beware Last Minute Nibbles.

During the end game, there were some public declarations that a deal was close and that there were just a few minor details to sort out. I suspect that these declarations of being nearly there were made more out of habit and in hope than in all seriousness. It is common for many negotiators and hagglers to try to push for concessions in the end game by bringing up small demands whilst dangling the prospect of a deal. The hope is that the incentive of reaching the deal, especially after long and protracted sessions, may be so inviting that unconditional  concessions will be easy to secure. Most often it is Buyers who use this successfully when dealing with Sellers who just want to secure a deal. Trades Union negotiators use it when they know a Management team is under pressure to get the deal and get back to work.

The tactic may have worked in previous rounds of these Greek Debt negotiations, but this time, after all that has passed, this was not going to happen. As Trust has been lost, it has been important to make sure that all the required conditionality was in place and was going to be “honoured” if an agreement was to be reached and to work.

The German position, as reported by Paul Carrel of Reuters, was made clear by Ralph Brinkhaus, deputy parliamentary floor leader for Merkel’s conservatives:

“The more money is handed out in one stroke, the less leverage one has to stop payments if the reform process in Greece does not pan out as planned and as promised.

“A lot of trust has been lost in recent months,” he said, adding that aid should only be provided in return for Greece delivering reforms.

Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-senior-german-conservative-sees-open-questions-on-greek-bailout-2015-8?r=US&IR=T#ixzz3igZYLg7g

The lesson in the end game is to make sure that all concessions are traded against the agreement of specific conditions. That if a last minute concession is being sought it is traded on agreeing the deal and bringing it to a close. The concession being traded should be small and conditional that the deal is now done. And if trust is a problem, it should be agreed on the basis of everything being clearly understood and how it will all be implemented and what the penalties will be incurred for failing to honour the accord.