In my years as the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, I learned an important fundamental lesson: Hostage negotiation is often nothing more than a business transaction.
The No. 1 rule in any negotiation is don't take yourself hostage. People do this to themselves all the time by being desperate for 'yes' or afraid of 'no,' so they don't ask for what they really want. Instead, they ask for what they can realistically get. I've heard many people say, 'Well, that's a non-starter, so we won't even bring it up.'
In Syria, for some time, they have been trading hostages for a number of things: for weapons, for money, for political influence, and for favors.
In a job negotiation, the implementation of that deal is your success that also causes the company to succeed.
The best messages in any given negotiation are really implied indirectly, come to the other person based on thinking that you're getting them to do - getting them to get some really solid thought behind their answers. And so a great thing to send someone in an email is, 'Have you given up on this project?'
Successful negotiation is not about getting to 'yes'; it's about mastering 'no' and understanding what the path to an agreement is.
The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is to give the other side the illusion of control. Don't try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Ask questions, that begin with 'How?' or 'What?' so your opponent uses mental energy to figure out the answer.
The most dangerous negotiation is the one you don't know you're in.
People typically only believe they're in a negotiation when dollars are involved. And maybe sometimes they're smart enough to see if there's a commodity that you can count being exchanged. And, of course, the commodity that we most commonly exchange is money.
In reality, every single negotiation involves another commodity that's far more important to us, which is time - minutes, hours, our investment in time. So even if you're talking about dollars, the commodity of time is always there because there has to be a discussion about how the commodity of dollars is moved.
'Fair' is, like, this incredibly overused term in negotiations: 'I just want what's fair.' 'What's the fair market price?'
As a negotiator, you should strive for a reputation of being fair. Your reputation precedes you. Let it precede you in a way that paves success.
Salary negotiations are particularly important because people are testing you as both a co-worker and an ambassador. They really don't want you to be a pushover, and they don't want you to be a jerk.
Negotiation is often described as the art of letting the other side have your way. You have to give the other side a chance to put stuff on the table voluntarily.
