March 28, 2017
Interview with Michael Wheeler, author of the book The Art Of Negotiation
Mike Carruthers:
Even though we all negotiate all the time negotiation is often difficult.
Michael Wheeler:
We were surprised to discover that even successful negotiators, even experienced negotiators feel a degree of anxiety and sometimes the anxiety is fear and even tear.
Michael Wheeler, author of the book The Art Of Negotiation has some insight and strategies that can help anyone be a better negotiator.
First you want to know your own priorities. If you’re shopping for a car how important is it for you to have a brand new car? How much of a discount would it take to get a demo model? Yes it’d be nice to have a sunroof but do you really want to pay an arm and 2 legs for it? Those things you ought to be able to figure out in advance. Point 2 you ought to do the best you can in terms of things of thinking what the incentives of the other party is.
Knowing who you’re dealing with is always an advantage. So…
…to the extent that you can scout the individual person you know other people who’ve dealt with him or her – that’s valuable information. But you ought to recognize as well that they can have their good days and bad days. So when you add that all up I think you want to at least allow for best case and worst case scenarios and I would add a 5th point to that. You need to know when you ought to walk away and have an exit strategy. If you’re coming to an agreement all of the time maybe you’re being too agreeable.
