How to Negotiate Absolutely Everything With an Expert-Strategist Victoria Medvets
This week we are raising our trade with the help of negotiation expert Dr. Victoria Medvets. Vicki is the Adeline Barry Davy Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the CEO of Medvec and Associates, a consulting firm specializing in high-stakes negotiations and strategic decisions. She regularly advises CEOs and other senior executives on negotiation issues at companies such as McDonalds, JP Morgan Chase, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft.
In this week’s episode, you will hear Wiki advising us on how to negotiate absolutely any type of deal (personal, professional, or otherwise), using strategies such as identifying your BATNA (the best alternative to a negotiated agreement), approaching negotiations as multilateral … the problem matters when compared to the questions of a separate question, and how to know when to leave.
Wiki’s new book is titled Negotiating Without Fear: Strategies and Tools for Maximum Results .
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Victoria Medvets:
Why is it important to negotiate:
[Y] Do you really want to make the first offer. You want to prepare and prepare. Understanding the weakness of the other side’s alternatives so you can set the right goal and gain a huge advantage by negotiating rather than following. When I lead, I set the table for the issues we are discussing. When I lead and shape the discussion, I’m actually in a relationship-enhancing position because I’m proposing and building a rationale, and you have to react, respond to criticism, and receive criticism, unlike me.
On how to approach more personal negotiations (for example, finding out with your partner where to spend your vacation):
[In a] very close personal relationship, very often we negotiate the worst job. We get results that leave a lot of money on the table. The reason for this is that we do not like conflict in these close relationships. Therefore, we often choose the first acceptable solution, rather than looking for the most optimal one. So I would say two things: first, think about a few problems. So don’t talk about where we’re going to spend Thanksgiving, talk about the calendar for the coming year. Where is Thanksgiving? Where is the fourth of July? Where is Christmas or New Year? Think of a calendar for the year rather than one holiday with the right questions on the table. And the second thing I would like to say is create multiple options, different ways that we could do this, and explore those options with your spouse or another person. So do not use one sentence, but suggest several alternatives and discuss them.
About knowledge of the “five F” negotiations:
Number one, we want to get in and we want to get in first . We want to focus on them … We want to formulate our proposal correctly. So if we think we want the other side to do something in order to do something different, move away from the status quo, we might want to formulate more loss statements and that we want to maintain the status quo and to keep what people are nowadays we might want to highlight more amplification language. The language of loss is such a language as the threat of risk, competitive pressure, vulnerability, insecurity. Whereas, amplification language is words like value, value proposition, save, increase, improve, improve benefits, benefits … and then we want to make sure the fourth is flexible . We want to do two things: maybe we make them a few suggestions and we always leave ourselves room to concede, because when we see people are more happy with the agreement we ended up with. And the fifth step is very important: no weak proposals. Too often people come in and ask. It’s like I’m in a department store, I see a shirt with a bag and say, “Could you take something off?” This is a weak proposal. Please clarify a specific question. Walk up to that person at the counter and say, “Oh, can you see the bag? This is really unfortunate … you just have to return it, and then you won’t get any commission for it. You know? I would take it off your hands. Give me a 30 percent discount, okay? “It’s a clear, concrete number.
To learn more about Wiki’s clever negotiation techniques, we recommend listening to the entire episode.