Negotiating in Europe #4 – Greece, Britain et al.

When Negotiating You Get What You Deserve.

1. If you are at the receiving end of an unrealistic proposal and wondering to yourself: “How on earth could anyone expect us to consider that?”, ask yourself: “What have I done / failed to do /  that allows the other side to make that proposal?”.Why does this happen? Well there may be many reasons, but most common are that you have most likely failed to make it clear earlier what was possible and what was not – what is negotiable and what is not – what would be the consequences of unrealistic positions – what range of sanctions were available – what would be possible.

   After all, negotiating is the art of the possible! (Even though so many spend all their time arguing about what is impossible).

2. If you do not define what you want ahead of a negotiation you are preparing to receive what others will let you have. You are planning to be Reactive not Proactive – Passive rather than Active – Defensive as opposed to Assertive.

   Touring round the parties of a multilateral negotiation to find out what others think can easily fall into this trap. It then leads to your objectives being defined by what others will offer rather than what you want.

3. If you make it obvious that you do not have any real threats, or intentions to carry out a threat (eg. the threat to walk away / leave.), then the other parties will take full advantage of the opportunity to reject your ideas, propose tougher terms and take the “high ground”.

If you go into the negotiation with just a list of demands, you give the others the opportunity to set a high price against each demand. If the other side are irritated, then the price can be very high; BUT you only have yourself to blame!