One of the conversations that crops up regularly on our programmes revolves around the styles in which negotiations are conducted. Broadly speaking, there are two distinct approaches: collaborative, or competitive.
Rather than analysing the characteristics of each, I’m more interested in the tendency (for many of us, at least) to view collaborative behaviour in the abstract. Namely, that it’s nice/friendly/accommodating and so on. I can appreciate why the association exists – there is, after all, plenty of overlap between indicators such as trust, transparency and pursuing mutual benefit and ideas of being nice to each other. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s helpful for negotiators to view collaborative negotiating behaviour exclusively as “nice” – far from it. Why? I think it risks missing out on obtaining incremental improvements in negotiations. Not all of us are lucky enough to like everyone with whom we have to negotiate – but if I’m only collaborative with counterparties who are “nice”, I am very confident that the probability is I’ll be missing out on value where the atmosphere is more tense or less friendly. Equally, if I’m collaborative in a negotiation based on my counterparty’s behaviour alone, I may miss the broader context that a more competitive approach might yield a better outcome. In other words, I ought to be focused on understanding how I can obtain the best outcome – the mood music is simply background noise.
Along with the unhelpful idea that collaborative behaviour is “nice”, there is frequently the accompanying abstract that co-operating with your counterparty is “soft”. Having taken part in and observed countless negotiations, I can understand why this view resonates so widely. However, in the event that you ever find yourself wondering whether an agreement was “soft”, my view would be that a review of the preparation, in particular the objective setting, would be a better idea than to fixate on the behaviour in the conversations that led to the deal. You’re likely to find causation in an audit of the preparation, whereas the behaviour is far more likely to be correlation.
If you’re still not convinced, a recent example of how collaborative behaviour can be shared between enemies occurred in the Middle East. Following the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, the Iranians were bound to respond – and they had a number of options. The one they chose was interesting: a missile attack on a US airbase in Qatar. However, the attack was flagged in advance to the Qataris (and by proxy, the US) – which meant casualties could be avoided with relative ease, and the missiles were also likely to be intercepted by US air defences (which happened). In other words, an objectively collaborative approach which led to mutual benefit: both the US and Iran could claim victory having demonstrated actual sanction power through military action. But was it “soft”? I don’t think the use of lethal force fits in that category. And are the US and Iranian leadership “friendly” with one another? Again, the idea of Trump and Khamenei sitting down for a cosy chat over a pot of tea isn’t one that springs to mind. Collaborative negotiations, where they are in our better interest, most certainly shouldn’t be limited exclusively to our friends. Nor do we have to don our finest kid gloves when we are being co-operative.
