Negotiations on the Edge: Strategies and tactical steps for difficult negotiations

By Matthias Schranner

The Seven Principles of Negotiations on the Edge. As a police officer, drug enforcement agent and trainer for negotiation techniques at the training institute of the Ministry of the Interior, I was confronted with the most difficult of negotiations. I negotiated mainly with kidnappers, bank robbers and drug dealers. After my studies I decided to make my experiences of the most difficult negotiations accessible to managers. In this book I recount my personal negotiation results for the first time and give you tips on how to master your difficult negotiations. Negotiations always follow the same principles, no matter if you negotiate with your partner or with difficult customers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Schranner
• Release date: Nov 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9783982034133

Book preview

Institute

Introduction:

The Seven Principles of Negotiations on the Edge

As a police officer, drug enforcement agent and trainer for negotiation techniques at the training institute of the Ministry of the Interior, I was confronted with the most difficult of negotiations. I negotiated mainly with kidnappers, bank robbers and drug dealers.

After my studies I decided to make my experiences of the most difficult negotiations accessible to managers. In this book I recount my personal negotiation results for the first time and give you tips on how to master your difficult negotiations. Negotiations always follow the same principles, no matter if you negotiate with your partner or with difficult customers. You always try to feel like a winner. It is almost always true that the wishes of one partner do not match the wishes of the other. The conflict as such is not a problem at first. Many conflicts can be solved by negotiations. The difficulties start when one partner wants to win by all means and thereby drives the other partner into the role of a loser. When that happens there can be no more satisfactory agreement. Then, there will be war – marriage war, price war, war with weapons.

The objective is a satisfactory agreement

Every day we are negotiating with our partners on purchasing, finances, raising our children, on who is to take the trash out and who is to wash the car. We negotiate with our children about when they have to tidy their rooms, when they have to do their homework and when they have to go to bed. We negotiate with our bosses when we want to leave earlier, when we work on a project or when we want a pay rise. We consider most of these negotiations as normal.

We know how to best master these everyday situations. After several tries we have a main connecting thread ready in our mind which almost always works. Yet this central idea does not apply to all negotiations. Most negotiations can be classified as normal, some are difficult. The only difference is our judgment. It becomes difficult if we cannot analyze and judge the negotiation partner or the situation. Maybe our lack of information or our lack of negotiation skills will make us unsure of ourselves. Possibly, we are simply scared of the consequences or of our negotiation partner’s presumed or real power.

There are numerous guides that offer negotiation support. Most guides provide support for when the negotiation partner is going along, if he is also convinced of the benefit of a satisfactory agreement and is therefore cooperating constructively. Nevertheless, if the negotiation partner no longer plays along and thinks he can win without us, we need a successful strategy. Negotiations on the Edge is the right guide for tough negotiations. I have applied all these strategies and tactics successfully in my negotiations with hostage-takers and managers in the past.

In this book you will discover the 7 Principles for negotiations on the edge.

• How you analyze your negotiation partner before and during the negotiation;

• How you formulate your goal and use the perfect strategy and tactics;

• How you convince with the proper and correct arguments;

• How you take the leadership within the negotiation;

• How you show and prove your power;

• How you break your negotiation partner’s resistance;

• How you make sure that the agreement is kept.

What you are now holding in your hands and reading is a perfect guide for achieving a satisfactory agreement if your negotiation partner is cooperating constructively.

In addition, you will find out how to proceed if your negotiation partner refuses to cooperate constructively.

In the appendix of this book there is a work manual which will help you navigate through a negotiation step-by-step.

Directions to the language in this book

What should I have called the negotiation partner? An opponent, an opposite party, an adversary? I decided to use the neutral term negotiation partner because language creates awareness. Every person you are negotiating with should be basically your partner on the way to a satisfactory agreement. Even if he starts to be unfair, he is still your partner because without him you will not achieve a long-term and satisfactory agreement. Any hard formulations like opponent or enemy already imply the desire to win or to serve a destructive blow. However, victory is not the objective of a negotiation because there are no winners without losers. Hence, the victory in one negotiation often just prepares the ground for the next tough negotiation.

For reasons of readability, I limited the use of gender pronouns to he, him, his, etc. However, whenever I use the male form, the female form is implied as this book applies to both men and women. In my experience with the police force I mostly negotiated with men, but there are many tough women negotiators out there as well.

Principle no. 1:

Analyzing the Negotiation Partner

In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

SIR FRANCIS BACON

If you want to prepare your negotiations well, you need knowledge-knowledge about your negotiation partner, the employees, the company and social environment. If you expect a tough negotiation you need more knowledge than your negotiation partner. You arrive at this knowledge by way of a thorough analysis before and during the negotiation.

Analysis of the Negotiation Partner prior to the Negotiation

• What are the positions and the motives of your negotiation partner?

• What are the contents your negotiation partner expects?

• Procure all the important information.

• Have your negotiation partner observed to gather additional information.

Analysis of the Negotiation Partner during the Negotiation

• Use analytic listening

• Analyze your negotiation partner’s verbal language

• Analyze your negotiation partner’s body language

Analysis of the Negotiation Partner prior to the Negotiation

With a thorough preparation, you may define the priorities and the dynamics you wish to assign to the negotiation. Some negotiators think they are well prepared if they know what they want to achieve and what to abandon. However, this kind of preparation on positions only leads to a negotiation on positions.

What are the Positions and the Motives of your Negotiation Partner?

A position is the presented standpoint.

A position is the standpoint with the requests and statements that your negotiation partner is presenting.

A hostage-taker has the following demand as his position: He wants money and a getaway car if he is to let the hostage go. If he does not get the money and the getaway car he is going to shoot the hostage.

A police officer negotiating with him takes the opposite position. He is there to keep law and order. Hostage-taking is a felony; the police must arrest criminals and lock them up. Besides, a police officer must ensure the protection and safety of the hostage.

If we are now looking at both positions, no agreement is possible. The hostage-taker wants to walk off with the money and the police officer is not allowed to let the felon get away. But behind the positions there are still motives.

Analyze the motives behind the positions

It is important to find out about the motives of the other party. It is your task to analyze your negotiation partner’s motives.

The motives of your negotiation partner are – regardless of his position – the things he needs or the things he is worried about.

The so-called Harvard Concept illustrates the difference between motives and positions with a very good example.

Two children are fighting about an orange. One of them wants the peel to bake a cake and the other one wants the fruit to squeeze the juice from it. Both children insists on their position: I want the orange! In the end, they agree to share the orange. Therefore both of them had underlying motives which could have been satisfied more easily, if one child had got the fruit and the other one the peel.

Your negotiation partner communicates his position, i.e. his standpoint, with requests and allegations.

Do not focus on his position but on his motives.

In your preparation phase, do not concentrate on the position – neither on yours nor that of your negotiation partner.

Do not formulate any demands

If you have your position in your mind you will formulate demands instead of motives. Most of the time, demands set limits. As soon as your negotiation partner hears of a demand with a limit he will emphasize his position more strongly and communicate a limit himself. After all, he does not want to lose. Therefore we end up in the middle of a so-called trench warfare where everyone dig their own trench and only poke their head out – as opposed to coming out.

Both parties are compelled to stand their ground by insisting that their position is the only correct one. Such a power struggle puts a lot of pressure on the relationship between the negotiation partners.

Price discussions very often follow these lines. The customer is requesting a limit and the salesperson is jumping on the bandwagon and formulating a limit himself. Somewhere down the line both will eventually agree upon a price which is probably half-way in between the former positions.

Formulate your motives

If you are not certain whether you are dealing with a position or a motive, you should check if there is more than one possibility of satisfaction. If there is only one possibility, it is a position. For instance, this is the case if a customer wants a 20% discount from you. He requests 20%, and that’s it! If he says he wants good value for his money, it is a motive. In that case you can decrease the price or increase the performance.

Once you have identified a motive your work is only beginning. It is up to you to analyze the methods yet concealed.

Example:

A hostage-taker once abducted a woman and barricaded himself and the woman in the woman’s apartment. He contacted the police and demanded a ransom of 1 million Euro plus a fast getaway car with a full tank of gas.

Let’s now suppose you are the police negotiator in charge of the negotiations with the hostage-taker. How would you proceed? The location is of course surrounded and secured, neighbors have been evacuated, snipers have taken position on the surrounding rooftops.

What is the dialogue strategy by which you are approaching this hostage-taking? You will work on gaining time and build up an interpersonal relationship. All of these actions are certainly the right thing to do, but – what are the questions you are going to ask the hostage-taker, what are the inquiries you’ll make? Are you discussing the ransom with him; are you trying to negotiate the amount? Are you negotiating about the getaway car? How about a BMW or a Mercedes?

The crucial question is – Why did the man take the hostage in the first place? Does he really just for once want some money and drive a fancy car? What are the motives behind his position?

The real-life version:

A hostage-taker demanded money and a getaway car. A team of experts, including one of my ex-colleagues, were negotiating. It turned out that the hostage-taker’s girlfriend had jilted him. When she left him she told him that he was not a real man. He felt compelled to prove to his ex that he really was a real man after all. Real men are strong and have everything under control. So he decided to take a hostage. The perpetrator wanted to be respected by his ex, he wanted affection and attention. This was the motive behind his position.

What would have happened if there had been negotiations regarding the ransom and the getaway car? The negotiations would have been directed at the wrong issue. The hostage-taker explained what he wanted, that was his position. But he did not say why he wanted to have it. Probably, he couldn’t have anyway. He demanded money and a getaway car. But what he really needed was affection and approval. The negotiation team then arranged for a phone call to the hostage-taker’s ex-girlfriend who assured him of her approval. His motive was recognized and dealt with accordingly.

Every negotiation starts with a motive. Everyone involved has obviously motives which he wants to see satisfied in a negotiation. If the other party correctly recognizes and considers the motives, it is possible to move from a mere struggle for resources to a mutually beneficial deal. In doing so, the negotiation expands from one subject (the ransom) to several subjects (motives). To make such a deal work, both parties must have more unfulfilled wishes, which can be real or created just for this occasion.

With optimal preparation, attentive observation and skilful questions before and during the negotiation, you will detect needs and motives.

The hostage-taker’s reason for action was not obvious at first glance. In other negotiations, too, the most important motives often have no detectable connection to the negotiations and must be brought into context first.

Every individual has motives. According to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy (1954)², a representative of humanistic psychology, every individual has basic needs and, moving further, motives.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Any given level within the Hierarchy is only reached once the needs of the next-lower level have been satisfied to some degree. On the other hand, the wishes that have already been satisfied lose their importance for the behavior of a person. According to the principles of the Maslow-Hierarchy, the hierarchy level that the person occupies at any given moment is critical at that moment. We will find that the basic needs like eating, drinking and sleeping (experts are still discussing whether sex is a basic need) are satisfied in most of our negotiation partners.

The second level according to Maslow is the need for protection and safety. People strive to minimize their fear of an uncertain future. Of course, this does not mean that everyone wants to live a life without any risks. Everybody has different ideas about how much risk they are willing to tolerate. Once we get past our personal risk threshold, safety becomes a significant motivation. Translated into terms of daily life, this level is about a secure job and income. If the need for protection and safety is satisfied for the present moment and the foreseeable future, the motives on the third level, according to Maslow, turn towards the social environment. We all want contact with other people and experience friendship, love and acceptance by others. Particularly, the inclusion in a group is an important motive which all of us pursue – consciously or unconsciously. Even a loner wants to belong to a group, just a very small one consisting of other loners. The next step after integration into society – level 4 of the Hierarchy – is the aim for a prestigious