Business Negotiations

Sen. Lecturer: Ms. Tharuka Jayathilake

(MBA (RMIT), B.Des (UoM)
 • Understanding the
concept of Continuous
improvement
• To identify different
Negotiating styles
• To understand different

Learning negotiating strategies

Objectives
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 2
 Continuous improvement is
the process of making small
incremental changes that add
up to significant results based
on deliberate observation of
current processes.

What is Continuous
Improvement?
SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 3
 Continuous • Also known as Kaizen,
the continuous improvement me
Improvement thod originated in Japan.
Today, it’s been adopted by
businesses across the globe as a
way to achieve
operational excellence.
• The main idea behind
continuous improvement is that
no process is perfect and there
is always
room for improvement.

BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 4

 How can organizations capitalize on negotiation experience?

Through

reflective
practice :
the process of considering the
results of each negotiation in
light of initial expectations and
then discussing what ought to be
tried next.

While each negotiator must take initiative for reflective practice, to truly
learn from experience, most need continual coaching from
mentors.
SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 5
 continual coaching from mentors

• Ideally, senior managers would provide negotiation advice and feedback to

all their direct reports.
• However, this is unlikely to occur for several reasons:
• Senior managers are unlikely to make enough time available for this task
• they may not be skilled coaches or negotiators themselves
• companies can establish an internal center where employees can receive
ongoing negotiation advice and assistance.

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 6

 • The staff at such a center could help managers better prepare for negotiation, offer analytic advice
during the bargaining process, and review the negotiation once its completed.
• Center personnel would track company trends and identify additional training for resources upon
request.

• Without a shared sense of negotiation vocabulary and concepts, managers will struggle
to get useful feedback on a recent negotiation.
• Thus, negotiation training is a prerequisite for effective coaching, and ongoing coaching is essential
for an organization to capitalize on past experience.

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 7

Reasons why formalizing a continuous improvement strategy is important:

1. It gets everyone using the same language

2. It creates a mindset
3. It makes people accountable
4. It reinforces the importance.
5. Better Morale: Your collaborators will
benefit from the improvements and
increased dynamism that continuous
improvement provides.
6. Better Acceptance of New Ideas

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 8

Broad categories as potential areas
of improvement:

1. Need to get better at preparation

2. Lack of confidence/need to be more assertive
3. Give in too easily
4. Need to be more patient/become a better listener
5. Experience feelings of anxiety prior to negotiating
6. Need to better control emotions during the
negotiation

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 9

 There are five primary
negotiation styles:
accommodating, avoiding,
collaborating, competing, and
compromising.
A successful negotiation often

Style
consists of one or more of these
different negotiation styles.

We all have a style • We must recognize our

own style • Recognition allows for improvement

BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 10

 Accommodating negotiators
prioritize maintaining the
relationship between the
negotiating parties.
Those who exhibit the
accommodating style seek to
satisfy the other party's needs
while minimizing the level of
conflict involved in the
negotiation.

1. Accommodating
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 11
 Negotiators with an avoiding
style prefer to remain objective
and avoid creating tension.
They’ll often defer responsibility
to a counterpart in an attempt
to remain neutral. They do not
actively pursue their own
interests or the interests of the
other party.

2. Avoiding
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 12
 The collaborative negotiation style is
a joint problem-solving technique.
It aims to create a win-win scenario.
Collaborative negotiators are great
at finding innovative solutions to
complex problems.
By working together with the other
party, those exhibiting the
collaborating style aim to find
creative solutions that satisfy the
needs of all parties involved.

3. Collaborative
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 13
 Competitive negotiators are results-
oriented and focused on getting their
own way.
They do not focus on the relationship
with the other party or maintaining a
good rapport.
Those with a competitive negotiation
style are usually less willing to
compromise and, in extreme cases,
can be aggressive.

4. Competing
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 14
 However, it is different from the collaborative
style in that it does not aim for a win-win
scenario. Instead, compromising negotiators
seek a solution in which both parties sacrifice
part of what they want for resolution. Think of
haggling for a lower price at a flea market—the
buyer offers the seller a lower price, hoping
they’ll meet somewhere in the middle. In this
situation, neither party gets everything they
want, but they walk away with their need or
desire partially fulfilled.

5. Compromising
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 15
SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 16
 Negotiations Strategies
A negotiation strategy is your plan of attack of
how you plan on interacting with the
negotiator, and how you plan on moving your
interests forward, and advancing your interests
in the negotiation.

Four basic negotiation strategies.

1. Problem solving
2. Contending
3. Yielding
4. Inaction

BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 17

 • Problem solving tactics include increasing
available resources, compensation, exchanging
concessions on low priority issues, minimizing
the costs of concessions, and creating new
mutually beneficial options.
• Problem solving outcomes are likely to benefit
both parties when the situation has high
integrative potential and both parties have
reasonably high aspirations.
• Parties must be firm about their aspirations or
goals, but must be flexible regarding the means
used to reach those goals

Problem solving
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 18
 Contention seeks to persuade the other party to agree to a
solution that favors one's own interests.
This strategy has also been called positional bargaining.
Contentious tactics include overstated demands,
persuasion, and threats.
Contentious strategies alone tend to yield poor outcomes.
Contending may escalate a conflict.
When outcomes are finally reached, they may be low-level
compromises.
Contention is often used as an opening strategy, to be
replaced by problem solving at a later stage.
In such cases the early use of contention may still yield

Contention
beneficial outcomes.

BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 19

 • When parties are resilient/firm, they
reduce their aspirations.
• Yielding is an effective way to close
negotiations when issues are unimportant
and time pressures are high. Negotiators
Concede/accept and give in.
• Yielding can also contribute to a
successful problem-solving approach.
However, outcomes tend to be depressed
when both parties use a yielding strategy

Yielding
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 20
 • Also called as Inaction
• The strategy of inaction is usually used to
increase time pressure on the other party
• Negotiators do not continue the process

Avoidance
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 21
SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 22
 (Contending) (Problem solving)

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 23

Choosing a Negotiation Strategy
Negotiation
Strategy

When developing negotiation strategies, a well-established

tool is the negotiation-behavior matrix: Behavior/ Style

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 24

SAMPLE FOOTER TEXT 20XX 25
• Through Reflective Practice, you can continuously improve your
negotiations, while the organizations can capitalize on negotiation experience
• There are five primary negotiation styles: accommodating, avoiding,
collaborating, competing, and compromising.
• A negotiation strategy is your plan of attack of how you plan on interacting
with the negotiator, and how you plan on moving your interests forward, and
advancing your interests in the negotiation
• There are 4 Negotiating strategies; problem solving, contention, Yielding and
Avoidance

Summary
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS JULY-DEC 2023 26
Thank You!