Secretarial knowledge > negotiation skills

Negotiation requires reverse thinking

In the negotiation process, you must first determine who your ally is. How many times have you heard people say this? This piece of experience may not always be a good word. The key is, among the allies, who should you talk to first, and then who to talk to, and finally who to talk to? At the right moment, getting the right people involved, the door to success may be open to you. On the contrary, it may fail. The order of negotiations is crucial, although people often ignore it. Whether you want to choose the right person to attend a charity event, invest in a new business, or sign up for a complex business, you always have to face a painstaking sequence. Who should you communicate with first? Then communicate with someone? Rules of thumb such as "allies first" or "internal and external negotiating laws" are not an irrefutable program of action. A more effective approach, the reverse-planning approach to reasoning, often helps you to wisely pick a partner and negotiate with them in the right order. Internet TV - the product of reverse thinking When Perlman set out to launch Internet TV, he faced a difficult sort of life and death. He won the seed fund, developed the technology to connect the Internet to ordinary TV, developed a prototype, and hired the core technical layer and management members. However, at this time, Perlman’s cash flow is in jeopardy, and it has to deal with a large number of potential business partners, including venture capitalists, “angel” investors and industry partners; consumer electronics companies, Internet service providers. Business and content providers; set-top box manufacturers; license holders outside the US; and wholesale and retail distributors. Seeing that his future career is in trouble, Perlman’s next negotiations seem to be pulling money with venture capital firms. However, Perlman knew that at the time, although venture capitalists might be willing to put a small amount of money into his new company, they were quite cautious about the large capital investment in consumer electronics such as Internet TV. As a result, Perlman reversed his own risk investment goals and concluded that if you can partner with a leader in the consumer electronics industry, the attractiveness and value of Internet TV to venture capitalists will be greatly enhanced. He first chose to promote his products to Sony, and was initially rejected by Sony. However, he immediately negotiated successfully with Philips and used the contract to further enter into a supplementary agreement with Sony. With Sony and Philips in the company, Perlman can now sit down and talk about venture capital – and of course the price has soared. Holding this generous amount of money, and then working with producers, wholesalers and retailers, content providers, ISPs, and foreign allies to find out the rules and sign the agreement – ​​and eventually they will be young but strong. Growing companies are selling $425 million to Microsoft, which is a breeze for Perlman. Follow the five steps. When you reverse the negotiation steps, you must first anticipate the results you expect and then think about how you can achieve this. The following are the five steps of reverse planning: 1. Draw a “graph” to indicate each reality or potential participants, their interests and their choice in the event of a breakdown in negotiations; 2. Estimate an agreement with the parties The difficulty and cost, and the value of the value involved in it; 3. Identify the stakes between the parties: who has influence, who may obey, who is grateful, and so on. 4. Concentrate a lot of energy to deal with the most difficult bones - your negotiating opponent or someone else who has the power to kill and kill. Ask yourself: Which of the following is the first to reach an agreement with the gang to maximize the terms of the negotiating opponent? Which object do you want to choose first to initiate negotiations? 5. Before the end of the period, ask yourself a similar question: Which of the best objects to choose at this stage is the most likely to make the most difficult opponent nod? How to win this side? Follow this reverse plan until you open the cloud of hope and find the brightest path to success. To better understand the reasoning of reverse planning, you can refer to the project management system. When deciding how to implement an intricate project, you will first focus on the end point and move back to the present to form a set of key routes and timelines. An agreement that is continuously brought about by an ongoing alliance is equivalent to a successful project. Grasping the four keys Once you apply the reverse planning approach, you will find yourself facing a number of questions: How to identify which are key people? Is the negotiation private or public? Is it the various breaks or talks together? How to deal with the means that the opponents have in order? Here are some suggestions for you: study the effects and compliance models. Those who expect to establish a negotiating alliance will soon realize that the most difficult – and perhaps the most critical – opponents will be dealt with as soon as they come up. In order to improve the odds, try to identify who can influence the target, and who the target will obey. In an article in the 1993 New Yorker magazine, Blumento described that President Clinton’s chief adviser, Dali, in the fight for Congress’ approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was to ensure the vote. : "There is a message claiming that a member who once tended to agree has expressed objection... After knowing this bad news, ... can you find the guy who can dominate this guy? The command can command the guy to order this guy. Guy's. If the owner tries to sell his company, the advice to him is not to formally negotiate with the CEO of the potential acquirer too early. Instead, he should look into who the CEO would seek advice when it comes to acquisitions. Obviously, his CFO is crucial. Continuing the reverse research, you will find that there is a CFO in the Finance Department who admires the analysts. It is undoubted that he will be assigned to evaluate this slightly different transaction. This leads to the conclusion that the key capital allows the key analyst to agree to the sale. After the negotiations with the CEO were finally opened, the work of paving the way had already stopped. The CEO asked the CFO, and the CFO turned to the key analysts, who made our careers internally. Get back and copy and fight for potential opponents. The sequential arrangement can lay the foundation for the final transaction, and sometimes it can be used to deduct the package and obtain the consent of potential opponents. Let's see how Barnivik led to the merger of Asea and Brown Boveri. In an interview with the Harvard Business Review, he said: "We have no choice but to do this quickly. There are no lawyers, no auditors, no environmental research, and no hard work. Of course, we do our best to accurately assess assets. But... we are convinced of the strategic value... Why should we keep it secret? Think about the Swedish side. Her industrial pearl Asea – one makes the country’s vast The centuries-old name of some infrastructure - the headquarters is moving away from Sweden... I still remember the news conference we held in Stockholm on August 10. This message is completely unexpected... The next step is shock, and fait accompli. Then... We must win the shareholder, the public, the government, and the EU one by one.” Barneywick first conducted secret consultations with the top leaders of the two sides and discussed with other parties. As a result, he shaped an irreversible process for his ideal transaction. This high-risk sorting is intended to avoid frictions such as the EU or the Swedish government that hinder transactions. If he started with the consent of the EU and then negotiated with the government and shareholders, things would have been stranded, and ABB would no longer exist. Flexible control of information disclosure. Careful sequential selection helps to flexibly control the disclosure or disclosure of sensitive information. For a building developer, if he is worried that his intentions will be squeezed in price after being disclosed, then the order in which he acquires the land will depend on the success rate of each route. Other factors include the positional relationship between the purchased land and the remaining land. Instead of waiting for the next acquisition, can the developer use the purchased land to launch a certain development concept for the project? The answer to the question may change the order of the steps. If an investor wants to quietly buy consecutive sets of stocks to achieve an acquisition, or wants to take the lead in a bankruptcy acquisition negotiation with complex debt structure, similar sequential arrangements will consider the same. Beware of opponents who play tricks in sequence. Be careful: the other party may also lead you to the wrong way of staggering the order. Most of the parents can quickly agree to the family version of the game: In order for Dad to agree, the child will claim that “Mom said this can be done”, and then immediately rushed to the mother, saying that Dad is already green. When some children are older, they will play this ancient trick at work. For example, when a private equity firm negotiates with a large investment group, the investor informally commits to capital injections, provided that another savvy investor is promised to invest. After learning about this kind of dependence, it is possible for companies that are not ethical to try to negotiate separately with the two parties, and use the so-called consent of Party A as the reason for completing negotiations with Party B - and vice versa. I suggest you: no matter if anyone has packaged a ticket with you, claiming that the other parties have promised something, you must make sure that the verification is correct - the other party may have the wrong impression that you have already approved it. If the negotiation sequence is crucial in establishing negotiating alliances, controlling sensitive information, and dealing with potential competitors, then the reverse planning approach will help guide you in the way forward.

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