Corporate negotiations, for our purposes here, are negotiations between companies or between organizations. International negotiations, here are between companies or organizations in different countries. While you may care about the outcome, it is not necessarily personal. This affords you, and your negotiation partner, some emotional distance from the subject and that is a huge advantage. You are both a lot less likely to feel threatened and end up in Stage Three (I am my needs). Corporate negations might include mergers, acquisitions, public offerings, or partnership agreements… anything where each side must contribute something to the other.
Any negotiation between your organization and their organization is, at first, a negotiation between you and another human being. From that viewpoint, you should include the process that we used for Personal Negotiations. If the two of you have complete responsibility and authority for this negotiation and its results, then treat it as a personal negotiation in its entirety. The difference here is that, although you are both human, you are probably not the only decision maker or stakeholder on your side, and they are probably not the only decision maker or stakeholder on their side. And all those other decision makers and stakeholders are human too.
You have an end goal in mind. Perhaps a merger of two companies after a buyout, or a joint venture. There are many aspects to discuss. You will likely have a set of nonnegotiable items and some concessions you are willing to give. Read up on all the best strategies. Then add to that list of strategies, your new understanding of the stages.
For corporate negotiations, you will need to take each person involved and the organizations themselves into account. Consider the following questions…
- Who are the decision makers? What is their dominant stage? What stage are they likely to be in during this negotiation, given the larger situation?
- What is the primary stage of your organization? What is the primary stage of the other organization?
- Do they match? In what ways will the difference between the two cause problems? How can you mitigate that?
- What do they (the larger set of decision makers and stakeholders) REALLY want? What is truly important to them and why?
- Can you shift the entire group into a more appropriate stage for what you are asking for? Setting the stage (literally) with an introductory statement or presentation can help.
The hard part here is juggling the stages of multiple people. But it is worse than even that. corporate negotiations last for days, weeks and even months, during which each member of both sides may cycle through several stages, causing them to change their mind a bit on what is important and what they are willing to give. If corporate negotiations are your thing, you already know that the secret is understanding what they really want, not just what they say they want. And now both are changing between meetings.
When we spoke about personal negations, we listed out the ideal stage someone should be in before you ask them for different kinds of things. That still holds here. The difference is that you have to get an entire group of people all on board at the same time. Presentations can be a useful tool in setting the right stage for the ask. You are probably already using presentations in some form here. Make sure your presentations begin by walking them through the stages to the ideal stage for your ask. Because this is for a whole group of people who may be in all manner of different stages, I recommend assuming everyone is in Stage Two (which is likely, given the experience at hand) and walk them to where you need them to be using the appropriate questions. Learning to read your negotiation partners is key. Learn to spot the signals (as discussed before) and use that at part of your tool kit in the negotiation.
For international negotiations, the good news is that every human on this Earth cycles through these stages, regardless of culture, religion, politics or any other factor. It transcends country boundaries and can be used anywhere in any culture. Do translate the questions appropriately with a qualified native speaker to avoid embarrassing episodes. But the method holds.
Now let’s talk about what you really want to know… how do you get someone to give in on a point that they do not want to give in on? The worst decisions are made in Stage Three (needs) and Stage Five (ideology). This is where wars are started and where negations turn decidedly one sided. If you are seeking to force an emotional decision, these are the stages where you will do it. But that emotional decision can backfire into walking away, or worse, into your negotiation partner digging in further. The damage can be irreparable. Tread carefully.
Ultimately, your new understanding of the stages is just one more tool in the tool kit to help you understand their psychology and read what is important to them. May you use it carefully and with good intentions.
