Saturday, August 09, 2008

The Fine Art of Negotiation

Much of our life is interacting with others. Very few, if any, are an island, isolated from the rest of humanity. Our life can be greatly improved if we learned to deal with others.

This week in Toastmasters one of the speakers talked about "The Fine Art of Negotiation." The speech was based in part on an article with the same name: The Fine Art of Negotiation. The article explores four aspects of negotiation:

Time: "The person who has the most time wins. If you have a tight deadline, the other side can wait you out to get the better deal. You feel pressure. The other side is calm, collected and patient."

Information: "They call this the information age. And certainly, information is money. The more knowledgeable you are, the better a deal you will get."

Options: "Always keep your options open. Have a fallback position."

Approach: "This is really a common sense approach to people skills. As Shuttleworth put it, 'People like to help nice people. They like to hurt jerks.' So be nice! Be friendly!"

The article was a good overview of some basics to be aware of the next time you enter into a negotiation.


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