Summary of Behaviour of Successful Negotiators.

Although a lot of research into the behaviour of successful negotiators has been done, very few
studies have actually investigated on what goes on when the negotiations really happen.

This paper attempts the reader to actually know how the skilled negotiator behaves by taking into
account the behaviour of those negotiators who are effective, have a track record of significant
success and have a low incidence of implementation failures. In order to trace out crucial behaviours
of skilled negotiators a comparison is required and for which a group of negotiators were also
considered who failed to meet the criteria or data was not available and these were called the
Average Negotiators.

A research methodology was chalked out wherein negotiators were encouraged to talk about their
plans and objectives during negotiation. Both behaviour analysis and content analysis was used to
obtain interactive data.

Planning before Negotiation:

Before every negotiation, planning is imperative. Success of negotiation depends on how well the
planning is done and execution of the same. The criterion for the same are:

A. Amount of planning time: It was observed that it’s not the amount of time used but how the
time was used for planning.
B. Exploration of Options: For a negotiation to be successful, possibilities of options from both
sides have to be considered. Skilled negotiators considered their options as well as the
options that might come up with the ones that they were negotiating with. In contrast the
average negotiator considered their options only.
C. Common ground: A skilled negotiator during planning gave 3 times as much attention on
areas of common ground rather than just conflict areas as did average negotiator. Common
ground areas are likely to build a positive climate leading to better negotiations.
D. Consideration of Long term and Short term implication: Both the skilled and average
negotiator considered only short term implication.
E. Setting limits: Skilled negotiators set upper and lower limits to give room for a proper
negotiation while average negotiators stuck to particular single point which did not give
room for negotiation.
F. Sequence and Issue planning: Every negotiation is never going to happen exactly as it is
planned. One point important to us may not be so relevant to the opposite party. Therefore
unlike an average negotiator, a skilled negotiator does not concentrate on just Sequence but
rather on Issues.

Face to Face Behaviour:

Every negotiation however well planned depends a lot on personal attitude and more importantly
on face to face behaviour.
Specific words were marked to clearly understand the pattern namely:

A. Irritators: Basically the demise of negotiation is when the certain words used by the
negotiators tend to act as an irritant to the opposite negotiator and thus make them feel
offended. For example a generous offer for us may offend the opponent if they consider it as
unfair. Skilled negotiators generally avoid irritants as they know there is little to gain from
such words. On the other hand average negotiator used it regularly which lead to the failure
of negotiation.
B. Counter proposals: Generally counter proposals don’t go well with the opposite party as
they tend to see it as a conflict point undermining their proposal and create complications. It
is for this reason that a skilled negotiator generally avoids counter proposals.
C. Defend / Attack Spirals: Negotiations are always counter to each negotiators and sometimes
emotions give rise to attack and defend. Skilled negotiators attack less frequently but when
then do they attack hard on leaving no room for the defence. On the other hand an average
negotiator softly attacks giving room to the opponent to be defensive and attack more.
D. Behaviour labelling: Behaviour labelling is more like a veiled label over a question. Skilled
negotiator, instead of asking a direct question, veils a soft sentence before the question
warning the opponent that a question is being asked. In this veiled situation the response
from the opponent is more submissive and is acceptance level becomes high.
E. Testing Understanding and Summarizing: Skilled negotiator uses testing understanding
whereby it checks whether the previous statements have been understood and summarizes
all the points of the discussion which reduces misconceptions.
F. Asking Questions: Questioning the opponent in a fair way always comforts the opponent
whereby they feel that the negotiator is trying to understand their situation. Skilled
negotiator frequently asks questions.
G. Feelings commentary: Unlike average negotiator, a skilled negotiator spells out their feelings
to the opponent over a particular discussion and tells them the feelings that undergoes in
their mind. This leads to a more constructive discussion and softly but surely drives the point
home of the opponent.
H. Argument dilution: Skilled negotiator used less reasons to back their arguments giving little
room to the opponent to argue on reasons given by the skilled negotiator. An argument
when diluted obviously loses its very essense.

Reviewing the negotiations:

Skilled negotiators were more likely to review the negotiations that they were part of against
only half of the average negotiators who were likely to review the negotiations.

Summary of Successful Negotiators’ Behaviour

The successful negotiator

is rated as effective by both sides
has a track record of significant success
has a low incidence of implementation failure