Business Negotiation June 27, 2013

Negotiating-A Five Act Drama.

A negotiation is much like a five act drama. Viewing the give and take process this way provides insights and tools to plan effectively.

When he was Foreign Minister for Israel, Shimon Peres had a similar view of negotiation, but his metaphor was somewhat different. He saw the negotiation process as an airplane flight. The plane enjoyed a smooth take-off. Before long it encountered severe turbulence as it rose through the dark and choppy clouds. Once above the clouds it proceeded in a smooth flight toward its destination. But to get where it wanted to go, it had to descend once more through the clouds. There the turbulence was worse than ever. Below these wild and treacherous clouds it encountered the normal difficulties of landing, never and easy task.

Peres expected that his meetings with the Palestinians and others would be difficult. By viewing the process in terms of an airplane flight he was better able to remain cool as others wavered when the clouds of disagreement grew dark. In a similar way, understanding negotiation as a five act drama will be useful as you prepare for your voyage through the ups and downs of the bargaining process.

The five acts of the negotiation drama are:

Act One: Before the Negotiation Begins. Act One takes place before the conference, sometimes long before.

Act Two: The Bargaining Talks Begin. Act Two begins when the buyer and seller meet for the first time at the bargaining table.

Act Three: Moving Toward Agreement: Act Three is when the buyer and seller jointly search for win-win ideas to make the deal better for both of them.

Act Four: Hard Bargaining and Power. Act Four is the hard bargaining and power stage of negotiation.

Act Five: The Closing Stage: In Act Five, the hard bargaining ends and the closure state begins. 

In my next post, I will discuss Act One-Before the Negotiation Begins.