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 have 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.

Prior to coming to the table for negotiation, there needs to be just enough research done on the problem. This research gives you the best alternative to negotiating agreements (BATNA). While the interest is to have a win-win solution, often negotiations may end in “win some” – “lose some” situation. Knowing the BATNA helps with the zone of potential agreement (ZOPA) so that agreement is made on what is necessary (Opresnik, 2014). Otherwise, one can be tempted and led into the agreement trap! 

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. 

References

Opresnik, M.O. (2014). How You Learn to Successfully Negotiate. In: The Hidden Rules of Successful Negotiation and Communication. Management for Professionals. Springer, Cham.

Starting the Problem Half solved: Strategic about Successful requirements gathering

In one of the recent round table discussions that I spoke on the differences between traditional and agile approaches, it became apparent to me that there was some disconnect in the notion of what constitutes a requirement. The software development approaches leveraging traditional plan driven approaches to project management focuses on scope planning activities that centers on requirement definition because it is well known that a successful definition of the problem means we have the problem half solved.

Considering the developments in agile approaches to project management where change is welcome even at later stages in the development, the gathering of up-front requirements is often frowned upon. Although the requirements definition may be a daunting task when there is ambiguity around it, value delivery happens only when an attempt is made to eliminate such ambiguity. When client facing members fail to ask powerful probing questions and engage the expertise to eliminate some level of ambiguity, the business goals are often compromised.

For instance, a requirement should at a minimum address what the software must to do satisfy what the users need so that the value is maximized, and benefit is realized. On the contrary, if the requirements are conflicting and attempts made to eliminate ambiguity are thwarted, then neither the traditional nor the agile approaches to software development will benefit. As the movie, Apollo 13 calls its mission at the end, such requirement gathering from the beginning can only lead to "Successful failure."

Readers are directed to check out an interesting video at this point to gather some insights into the incomplete requirement gathering This video is on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg. What went wrong here? A few thoughts are as follows. Share your thoughts.

• Is starting immediately with a “No” a good approach?
• When trying to ask what the end result will look like, is attempting to over-please rather than understand the business goal appropriate?
• Is both the client facing person and the project manager on the same team as the expert?
• Were any attempts made to negotiate for an acceptable best alternative?
• Is this project setup to succeed?
• Is this a productive meeting?

What powerful questions can you add to ensure that redefine the requirements correctly? Stepping outside of this video into our own projects or products, what additional questions can we ask to understand the client’s requirement and the reasons behind the requirements better to position ourselves for success?

Negotiation: Tactical Conflict Resolution to Strategic Transcendent Eloquence

Managers and leaders can always recognize that they may not always get what they want when working with stakeholders. Whether it is working with external vendors and clients or internal business units and employees, negotiating for the right resources, contractual agreements, time, cost, scope and even risk is omnipresent in today’s business environments. The fundamental reason for negotiation is to agree on a term that allows both parties in the negotiation to perform better or produce something on relatively better terms than in the absence of the negotiation agreement.

Those that have worked on negotiation may very well know the common techniques like issue resolution, democratic dispute resolution, bargaining, and litigation. But some may relate to the term phrase best alternative to a negotiating agreement (Fisher and Ury, 1981). Depending upon the root cause that led to a disagreement or conflict, the negotiation may have to morph from simple dispute resolution to a transcendent eloquence. For instance, the discussions such as negotiating for an extension to a project or salary negotiations for a new job may involve evaluating the BATNA from the following areas:

• Opportunity cost of the existing status quo relative to the alternative arrangement
• Impact of the alternative arrangement on the immediate needs that caused the dispute
• Timely feasibility of executing the alternate arrangement
• Risk of the alternative arrangement not providing the promises relative to the status quo
• Evaluating the risk profile and thresholds of the appropriate stakeholders who can be enablers of the best alternative 

However, when the disagreement is no longer simple and arises due to differences of opinions that are both equally valid and respectable, then the resolution to such disputes may involve strategic negotiation techniques like transcendent eloquence. This is a technique where the parties to conflict themselves develop a framework for understanding and addressing their conflict (Freeman, Littlejohn, Pearce, 1992). This approach fosters a constructive dialogue evaluating the strategic fit of these incompatible yet morally valid disagreements. Such beyond-the-normal discourses need to philosophical, comparative, dialogic, critical, and transformative, says Pearce and Littlejohn (1997, p.157). While it is generally recommended to apply this technique in extreme scenarios like military negotiations and high corporate decision-making involving spin-off, merger, etc., this technique can also be beneficial for middle management to exercise their strategic skills.

The philosophical nature of this approach looks beyond the root cause analysis to evaluating the fundamental belief system that gives raise the conflict. Such a journey can encourage both parties to educate themselves on the paradigm shifts in the industry to think outside the box to raise the bars on performance measures. Similarly, the comparative nature of this approach attempts to resolve differences of opinions arising from incorrect frames of references, such as those in differing geographical cultures or vendor relations where each party may have different operating rhythm in software development. As a result, both the parties may establish common patterns of language that serve as the framework of reference on the roles and responsibilities moving further beyond eliminating conflict to addressing productivity.

The dialogic nature of transcendent eloquence engages active listening steering towards breaking a new ground by using powerful questions towards exploring the root causes. Both parties are now engaged in not only establishing common ground but collaborating towards alternative generation that neither party could have arrived at working alone. On the contrary, the critical nature of this technique applies the concepts of power and influence each party can exercise in implementing the solution by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the espoused solutions to ensure that the best alternative is not only a strategic fit but also is rooted on operational efficiency promoting changes that also need to be provided to the appropriate managers and leaders in successfully implementing the solution. 

Finally, the transformative nature looks beyond the conflict into applying the alternative agreement and seeing if the costs of winning justifies being in the game. In other words, should we even be engaged in resolving this situation? For instance, if continuous investment for a product losing its market share may be justified to some extent but if the massive adoption of a new technology is acknowledged in the macro-environment, should alternatives to sustain the product be even considered?

Have you applied any of these approaches in addressing your challenge? How do you think you can apply these negotiation techniques in addressing your challenge?

References

Fisher, R. and Ury, W. (1981) William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. 3rd ed. New York: Penguin Books.

Freeman, S.A., Littlejohn, S.W, and Pearce, W.B. (1992, Fall). Communication and Moral Conflict. Western Journal of Communication, 56, 311-329.

Pearce, W.B. and Littlejohn, S.W. (1997). Moral conflict: When social words collide. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications