The art of negotiation

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THE fact that success in business, just like success in any endeavour in life, is a contested territory that cannot be over emphasised.

THE fact that success in business, just like success in any endeavour in life, is a contested territory that cannot be over emphasised.

The business world is populated with economic agents running in all directions to satisfy opportunities they locate in society. It so occurs that in the process of running around a manager or owner of a firm discovers that they have to do business with someone who is lethargic. It also occurs that when in business some players believe that you have to prove your mettle before they can trust you with their resources, time and effort. This is what makes the art of negotiation an indispensable tool for successful enterprises.

Nearly 20 years ago there was a businessman in Bulawayo who ran a chain of fabric outlets. The man was a skilled negotiator and a gifted salesman. He knew when to appear and disappear to or from his employees and business partners. If by appearing and talking to employees he stood to lose more than he could gain, the man would busy himself with other activities in his sprawling business empire.

Before he appeared he laid the groundwork by offering incentives to most of the critical employees in a bid to gain them to his side. These incentives were invariably communicated to the concerned employees by his senior managers.

In that way he tested the waters and got to know whether he could appear to spearhead negotiations with employee representatives. In most meetings with employees he just outlined the agenda of the meeting and would be quiet almost throughout the meeting.

He normally spoke last and would invariably have a definitive word because he usually summarised the mood in the house and proffered solutions that were a negotiated settlement of employer-employee grievances.

The art of negotiation just like any mind game depends largely on players involved and the power structures that obtain in a given situation. There are four negotiation lessons that we can glean from the case of the astute local businessman presented in the foregoing case study.

The first lesson is to never negotiate about something in business directly when signs clearly show that you are more likely to lose than win. Negotiating through others (subordinates or alternates) enables those that wield true power in a firm to later evaluate the results of the negotiation process with a view to ensuring that the interactions with their opponents do not become a lop-sided affair in which they lose to benefit others.

The second lesson is the divide and rule principle. Since negotiation is a power game it is always imperative to recognise that if those that one is negotiating with are more numerous or more powerful than one’s side, then one has to work on re-organising the power dynamics at play. In employer-employee relations more power is often wielded by those who control the means of production.

If employees initiate negotiation they have to ensure that they are not exaggerating their power base because there have been instances in the past where some out-spoken employees agitated for higher salaries which later benefited their colleagues after they had been laid off or transferred elsewhere under unclear circumstances.

If employers initiate negotiation with employees they must make sure that they do not irritate employee representatives by bringing the boss or manager mentality to the negotiating table. A boss attitude is one of the most important determinants of protracted strikes because all human beings have a right to dignity or honour. Being deprived of dignity at the work place may be so de-motivating to most employees leading to a decline in productivity.

The third factor to consider when negotiating is patience. Creating a convergence or confluence among divergent views is not as easy as solving a mathematical equation which is facilitated by a known formula or theorem. Talking which is a major aspect of negotiation reveals the inner feelings of the players in a negotiation game.

There is a time during the process when dialogue appears like a tug of war. With much patience, interpersonal skills and effort invested in negotiation erstwhile enemies may develop improbable friendships which facilitate a convergence of different views. When diverse opinions cluster around a common issue and take on the image of one hybrid view, a breakthrough in the negotiation process is realised.

The final aspect which is important in negotiation is balancing key factors which are represented by the human head. A human head is one entity that houses or hides the brain. This means that during negotiation serious players must never reveal everything they are thinking because this serves to empower their opponents.

It is only the impudent and highly naive who go around making reckless pronouncements on issues that are still a work in progress.

The head has two eyes, two ears and one mouth. This means that one must use preliminary sessions of negotiation to see or observe more, hear or listen more because people are not as straightforward or simple as they normally appear. In fact people are complex. It takes time to understand what motivates them to act in a certain way.

That is why wise negotiators think more, listen more, observe more and talk less in any power game or negotiation situation. A genuine negotiator will never engage in a negotiation process in which they singularly predetermine the outcome of the process because this only serves to perpetuate the conflict and threaten future productivity in an organisation. Ian Ndlovu is an economics lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology. His research interests cover business, development, economic and e-commerce issues. He writes in his personal capacity.