Thought Leaders II

Negotiating from a Position of Confidence

"Where else will you make money in this turbulent environment if not through negotiation?" asks Richard Shell, author of Bargaining for Advantage and The Art of Woo [Winning Others Over]. "Whether you're purchasing, selling, or pursuing strategic alliances, you cannot help but increase the tangible benefits to your company if you become a more effective negotiator."

For example, Shell was recently asked to lead a one-day workshop on Woo-Style persuasion to a group of internal auditors at a major insurance company. This audience was more at home in the world of data and complex analyses than the murky world of influence and persuasion. But to be effective at enforcing auditing standards, they needed political and people skills — not just analytic knowledge. "This company understands the critical value of teaching specialists to be more astute about getting their ideas across, " Shell commented. "What good is a technical analysis if no one buys into it? No matter where you are on the chain of command, or what department you're in, you need to learn to sell your ideas. It is not enough to just go in with a baseball bat and start swinging."

Getting Personal

In The Art of Woo, the author and Wharton professor targets the process of selling ideas. That process begins by determining the strengths and weaknesses you bring to the bargaining table. Shell emphasizes the highly personal nature of persuasion, noting that "the only way to understand others is to first understand yourself. You must begin every negotiation with clarity on the variables of your personality." The book includes diagnostic surveys that aid readers in identifying preferred persuasion styles. Bargaining for Advantage similarly contains a "Negotiation IQ" test that reveals negotiating strengths and weaknesses.

Once you're clear about yourself, you can focus on the person, group, or organization you are selling your ideas to. The ability to attend to your audience, to be attuned to its needs and desires, is critical. And this is the point that many executives miss. "Barriers to agreement are more than simply differences of opinion," Shell explains. "Often, barriers are differences based on belief systems and cultures (both organizational and societal). If you're not sensitive to relationships, understanding those differences, you won't understand your audience, and that means you won't be able to negotiate optimally."

As academic director of the Executive Negotiation Workshop and academic co-director of the Strategic Persuasion Workshop, Shell helps participants break through these barriers. "Many people come to these workshops seeking to build self-confidence. Others are seasoned negotiators and persuaders looking to sharpen their skills. At any level, executives can get frustrated; dealing with organizational politics isn't easy. They have great ideas, but don't understand why they aren't succeeding. The truth is simple: good ideas don't sell themselves; you need systematic strategy for selling them."

The Process of Persuasion

"Organizational politics are trying because they're often undefined. There is not a formula that defines every organization, because the variables are never the same. But we can teach a structure for preparing effectively to influence others, and that helps to make the process more tractable." In the Strategic Persuasion Workshop, Shell teaches very specific tools and frameworks, broken down into steps.

"There is a definite structure to any persuasive argument that goes back to Aristotle and the ancient study of rhetoric. It's a four-step process:

P= Problem. You and your counterparty must agree on what the problem is.

C= Causes. What causes have led to the problem?

A= Answer or solution. What is your idea for remedying the problem? Is it feasible?

N= Net benefits. Why is your answer better than other alternatives, including the status quo?

"In the workshop, we use complex simulations to practice the process. Participants work individually and in groups to apply the process to a variety of scenarios. You have a chance to integrate what you're learning by experiencing it in a realistic setting. PCAN is a robust plan for understanding persuasion. Not only is it compelling, but it works reliably.

"There is also relentless attention paid to feedback, which is one of the most valuable pieces of the program. At work, you might get feedback once or twice a year. In the program, you get to see how you're doing constantly. When you receive comments about your performance, you can begin to connect the dots, learning what your strengths and weaknesses are. Our final exercise wraps up with one and a half hours of feedback. It's intense, and you receive a lot of evaluation in a short amount of time. It accelerates self-awareness, which translates into better woo, and better negotiating."

Strategy, not Tactics

The five-day Executive Negotiation Workshop also utilizes a personal assessment (which is included as Appendix A in Bargaining for Advantage). Shell explains, "Negotiation is not about tactics. It's not about winning and losing. It's about achieving everyone's goals within the envelope of the individual bargaining styles at the table. Participants get insights into their own psychology, learning how to strategically manage negotiations based on their strengths. Once these highly individualized skills are learned, we provide constant practice. We begin with simple negotiation scenarios dealing with two parties and one issue. You start by juggling just one ball. By the end of the week, there are many, many balls in the air as we work through complex negotiations involving multiple parties and many issues."

Shell emphasizes the critical need for building and growing these skills. "When times are tough, negotiations are tougher. Margins are smaller. You need to sell your ideas from a position of confidence. Think about it this way: The difference between a very successful negotiation and a moderately successful one may be the difference between profit and no profit. You'll have greater success if the confidence you have in yourself inspires others to have confidence in you. Every successful negotiation involves trust."

• Executive Negotiation Workshop: Bargaining for Advantage^®
• Strategic Persuasion Workshop: The Art and Science of Selling Ideas