Negotiation Guide

It happens every time you need someone to agree with you or to do anything for you or to tell him to move away, and then you are in a negotiation process. You negotiate all the time and you often never realize that. You negotiate when you

• Ask your company for a rise
• Ask the plumbing guy to arrive at specific time
• Telling the plumber to hurry
• Decision for marriage (would become a source of countless negotiations, beware!)
• Enforcing discipline on your children

Negotiating is present in all aspects of life. It happens in your personal life (marriage, divorce and parents), from business, government, and among nations. For example, at the time of this writing, the United States are in heated negotiations with Iran on its nuclear project. The decision may result in severe sanctions against the Iran. So, a debate may be at the global level or on a personal level, such as "Honey, you can put the seat down." If you try to resolve a dispute agree on an approach or negotiate individual benefit, you are in a debate, like it or not. The aim is to achieve a resolution that is acceptable to you and who will work for both parties. If it is not possible, try to find such an agreement elsewhere.

We're living in a complex information network and by reading this hubpage, it means that you are connected with it. The shape of communication has shifted rapidly, caused by the phones and the Internet. These newer kinds of telecommunication have made communication easier and faster. More significantly, you have a new type of negotiation medium. You may now negotiate with your clients from the comfort of your own room, in a road while driving with family to zoo, or even from North Pole. Negotiation in phones and Internet needs the similar state of preparedness and ethical steps, just like a face-to-face negotiation. The real difference is that the negotiation occurs at the push of a button. Although easier, phones or Internet may not be as perfect as negotiating directly with the person. You will miss the human interaction, the body language, and the unique gestures that are so vital in measuring others when doing a negotiation in a meeting or lunch.

Some negotiations are pretty straightforward, and the interests of each party are clear. For instance, when you are buying a car from someone who wants to sell a car, the negotiation is win-win if you find a price that works for each of you, assuming the wheels don't fall off the day after your check clears. In more complicated negotiations, the motivations are not always so easy to find, at least not the more subtle factors that are driving the negotiation.

Sometimes some head scratching and imagination is required to fully understand the interests of the other side. Win-win is when a deal fills your needs and goals while at the same time filling the needs and goals of the other side. But your counterparts must determine their needs and be sure they are satisfied. You can't play mind reader and divine their needs and then start giving up what you want to make them happy. Because creative thought is often necessary to arrive at win-win solutions, I have found that the best negotiators in a tight spot are also people who enjoy games or riddles - people who enjoy figuring things out. This is not to say that the only good negotiators are those with a Sudoku puzzle lying around the house. But it does help if you enjoy the challenge of figuring out what serves both sides - and the solutions are not always easy.

Here are three tips for women when listening to men:

• Don't talk when he's talking. Many women think that because they are marrying their "best friend," they can talk to their husbands the same way that they talk with their best friend. As their husbands talk to them,they interject comments. Usually, the husbands abruptly stop talking.The women, confused by this response, ask what's the matter, and the husbands accuse them of interrupting. The women don't think that they're interrupting; they think that they're adding. Women allow each other to add to each other's sentences. However, most men need a space in which to enter a conversation, and they want to keep their space until they're finished talking. Listen silently instead of vocalizing little affirmations such as "uh-huh," "oh, yes," and "wow, yeah." Women use these phrases to encourage the speaker to keep talking. A female speaker interprets these comments the way they are intended. A male speaker may view them as an interruption. Another problem is that sometimes when you verbalize such affirmations, a man thinks that you are agreeing with the content of what he is saying, rather than letting him know that you understand what he means.
• Believe what he is saying. Women often say, "He said this, but here's what I think he meant." Many women believe men speak on many levels, and they try to find hidden meanings. Men usually say what they mean and mean what they say. They don't spend two minutes of their time calling another guy to say, "Here's what she said at breakfast this morning. What do you think she meant?"
• Be patient. A man's pace may be different from yours. He may talk more slowly or pause more often than you do. Let his thoughts flow. Don't speak during his pauses.

Here are three tips for men when listening to women:

• Listen to her all the way through. Sometimes, women talk to process information or to figure out what they want to do, instead of thinking in silence and then stating a conclusion. If you sense that this is the reason for a woman's conversation, just let her thoughts progress. Don't rush her. You will interrupt her thought-process and make her feel slighted. Let it flow. Or as the saying goes, "Go with the flow."
• Give her your full attention. Don't just mute the TV; turn it off. Don't just look up from the sports page; put the newspaper down. Turn to her. Look her in the eye. This response shows you care about what she is saying.
• Be patient. A woman's pace may be different from yours. She may want to cover more subjects in the same conversation than you do or tell you more about a subject than you want to hear. Remember that men and women communicate differently. Make an effort to accommodate those differences.