Agility in Negotiation: Focusing on the “Why” behind mixing strategy with scenario

Negotiation is a strategic and learned skill. Whether one is negotiating terms of compensation for a gainful employment, partnering with a vendor, or evaluating merger or spin-off arrangements, the principle of negotiation is a critical managerial skill applicable for individual contributors or managerial roles. The agile principles of iterative and incremental are equally applicable in this strategic negotiation. Two simple ways this agility can manifest in negotiation turning out to be strategic involve in getting back to the root cause before taking a collaborative or assertive stand and having the self-organizing mindset to adapt the negotiating style.

For instance, consider that a negotiator always has a predetermined style. Within the organization, when negotiating for a resource or budget such as the distributed negotiation, the predetermined style makes the person too predictable. Such a predictability provides a competitive disadvantage for the negotiator as the other party can deftly predict the questions and be ready with the counter responses. Agile principles recommend the self-organized team where the team determines how work executed after the user stories are explained by the product owner. The team adapts to the operating rhythm within every release and sometimes within every sprint as not all sprints and releases are the same. Similarly, not all negotiations are the same and having an adaptive agile mindset is critical for the negotiator as no two negotiations are the same.

Let us look at the root cause. The goal of the negotiator is to get to the basics of why the other party wants to engage in a negotiation. Trying to understand the fundamental interest takes precedence over taking a position based on power or seniority. This position is the outcome of what the negotiator wants in the negotiation but to make the negotiation successful and satisfactory the focus is on the “why.” Now, lean management principles come to the rescue here with the 5-why approach to not taking the immediate statement at face value and questioning them further repeatedly thereby developing an incrementally better view of the root cause.

As you can see, a strategic negotiation therefore is rooted in adapting the skill to the scenario much like the project manager adapting to the demands of the new project and understanding the requirements more than a solution.