Written by Neal Tomasin
Reo Oravec, Adjunct Professor for the Global Executive Academy of the Internazionale Instituto di Decisioni Scienze, AKA The "Ninja Negotiator" and Norm Brodeur, RapidIT, Master Negotiation Practitioner, AKA The "Arranger Negotiator" joined our January Technology Forum to discuss "Best Practices for Project Negotiations."
Nancy Berlin & Steve Kruger started the meeting at 5:45 PM and introduced the speakers. Reo identified three for the evening - Educate, Develop Condition Response, and Introduce Negotiation Skills. Why Learn to Negotiate? Negotiating will: a) improve life, personally & Professionally; b) improve relationships and communication (ie: married couples negotiating over garbage takeout?); c) conversations will have more control; d) agreements more durable; e) express Creativity by producing Win-Win situations; f) build Confidence and Relationships; and g) ability to handle Conflict Resolution.
In negotiations, a term we learned is BANTA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). Nancy and Norm then acted out a skit where several classic negotiating "Gambits" were used. These were the Nibble, Higher Authority, Takeaway Clause or Clawback, Counter Concession, & Condition.
Reo then discussed Intelligence Gathering of your adversary, and stressed the importance of matching personality grids (similar to Myers-Briggs charts of Amiable, Analytical, Driver, Expressive). Individual power (Physiognomy) plays an important role in negotiation, you are judged by people in these areas, based totally on your appearance: Social Position, Income Level, Education Level, Trustworthiness, Reliability, Credit Worthiness, Level of Detail.
We then did a mini Negotiation workshop, where 2 teams of 4, attempted to negotiate a contract for services and gain agreements. This was a valuable exercise in the 3 stages of a negotiation, maintaining the "no" posture, providing concessions, comparison to your SLA & BANTA, and finally an outcome.
Overall, an excellent presentation and thought provoking session, especially the live negotiation exercise.