FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT NEGOTIATION

Jim Camp answers your questions about negotiation, his training system of negotiation, and his negotiation training books

How do you define negotiation?

I took a definition from the Oxford Dictionary in the early 70s. The effort, energy, and the activity of working for agreement between two or more parties with all parties having the right to VETO!

It is not the process of give and take, or win-win, or both sides being happy. It is not that. Those are made-up definitions of collective bargaining.

Why a system of negotiation?

Negotiation is a human performance event. There are principles, laws and rules that govern human behavior. When the principles are aligned and used to solve problems, we have a much better performance. When you don't even know the principles, you are behind and the outcome is far less than it could be. In fact, when you don't know the principles, let alone apply them, you are stuck with far less. It is so bad you don't even realize what could be.

What is the driving force of a negotiation?

Decisions drive negotiation. We spend a great deal of time around the principles and laws of decision-making. Decisions are formed by vision, "how we see it." They are not formed by intellectual information. The greatest weakness in most negotiators is their effort to intellectually explain their negotiation position with facts and figures. Then they wonder why they had to compromise; they proved their point. Unfortunately, whole negotiation teams are trained this way and they give up needless millions.

What is your negotiation training book Start with No® about?

It is an overview of what we teach. The negotiation training book is written to show everyone what the greatest negotiators know, which is: "Don't be afraid to hear no," "Don't be afraid to say no!" Don't compromise needlessly. The greatest negotiators don't prepare with assumption and compromise. They prepare with vision and facts.

The title of your negotiation training book is Start with No®. NO - is it the main principle of your negotiation training system?

The best 'YES' one can get at negotiations is always the result of 'NO' said by your negotiation opponent. My negotiation training principle is based on understanding and acceptance of the fact that NO is a valid negotiation decision. When it was said, you can always try to change it, while an early YES is usually a dangerous catch. When your negotiation opponent says YES at the very beginning we start to get nervous, having an image of our future commissions in mind… and lose control. Meanwhile your negotiation opponent brings numerous ifs and buts that follow his first YES, and we fall for compromise to get the deal closed. 'Maybe' is just another emotional trick, that gives no clue on actual status of the deal. Do not be afraid to hear NO, encourage your negotiation opponent to say NO. This helps us to handle emotions and get straight to the business.

Could you illustrate the strength of NO by an example in your negotiation training practice?

A large corporation negotiated with three different companies (much smaller than the large one) on a special project. The large corporation set the three small companies as negotiation opponents against each other. By demanding concessions of each and informing each of the other's concession, they attempted to drive the pricing down. My negotiation training client decided to say no and withdrawn. They were convinced there was too much negotiation risk in going any further with the large company and they believed strongly the project would be a terrible failure. The other two smaller companies continued to bid downward. The larger company rethought the possibility of failure of the project and decided to go back to my negotiation training client and award the contract. They saw the possibility of failure as unacceptable.

It's not easy to hear NO to your negotiation offer, and it's not easy to say NO in response. Don't you think there is always a risk that your partner in negotiations will take that NO personally?

Let me make a note: There are respected opponents in your negotiations but those you negotiate with and against are not your partner. Do not fall for the negotiation tactic and the delusion that those guys on the opposite side of the negotiation table want to become friends with you. Having accepted that, you will understand my answer: YES, there is the chance they will take a no personally, but the key is how you say no. If you say it aggressively or without respect, chances are you will be taken personally. Example: "Please don't take this personally, but I can't do that." With that example, you are attempting to set a negotiation agenda that will be agreeable to them and soften the bite of no. Remember, nurturing is very important in negotiations.

Perhaps, you could share your recipe of successful negotiations?

To achieve the best results, one must clearly understand the difference between what we can control and what we can't. We cannot control or manage the negotiation result, we can only manage our negotiation activity and behavior. What we say, how we say it, what we do or don't do. Our most successful negotiations are ones that we demonstrate the very best behavior and activity. Preparing a good negotiation checklist is an activity. The better the negotiation checklist the better the negotiation performance the better the negotiation result. The best negotiation results come from the best negotiation behavior and activity.

How do you make your skillful negotiation opponent tell you the truth?

It is not unusual to be lied to in negotiations. Win-win and PICOS-trained negotiators are both taught negotiation training tactics of "mis-speaking" to trick you emotionally. It is very common to hear things that inflate or attempt to boost your expectations. These negotiation training tactics are easily overcome with the activity of taking great notes and asking questions properly around the negotiation topics you think are most important. We work in this area very hard with our negotiation training clients to empower them against such negotiation training tactics.

What's the difference between right and wrong questions?

The best negotiation questions create vision. They allow the respected negotiation opponent (adversary) to see the situation in the negotiation clearly. Interrogatives do just that. How, what, why, when, where, who and sometimes which make up interrogatives. On the other hand, the worst question to ask is trying to close or force a yes answer. The ramifications of that can be terribly damaging in a negotiation.

What is win-win negotiation?

It is born of collective bargaining. It is an invention utilizing compromise and assumption as its foundation. It forces the user to craft compromise to please the other side. Very seldom will the user get the full price in a win-win negotiation. Fear of failure, loss of the deal, reduced margin of profit, even going out of business can be the byproduct of win-win negotiations.

In your negotiation training book "Start with No®" you say win-win negotiation is the worst way to do business. Why?

I can't tell you how many times I have sat down with a team of negotiators and asked them to list the first 3 things they must do to prepare for a negotiation. In almost every case, the list included figuring out how much discount they should offer to make the other side happy. Before the negotiation even begins, they are giving up precious profit out of fear of not making the other side happy. Win-win negotiators believe they "know" what the other side is thinking and what will make them "happy." It is sad that so much is given away for no reason.

Negotiation training book "Start with No®" is now printed in 8 languages. What is happening to your negotiation training and coaching efforts?

Well, we are currently training negoitation teams and coaching negotiations with our negotiations training and management system using our Coach2100® negotiation training technology on every continent. We have negotiation training coaches involved with every language working to build negotiation teams and improve bottom lines just about everywhere you can think of.

How can you train and coach negotiations on every continent?

We have developed over the last 7 years proprietary negotiation training technology that allows us to teach, coach, improve the skills of our negotiation training clients, and manage teams of negotiators all over the world in a secure environment in real time. We call it Coach2100. We developed a negotiation training simulator that allows us to evaluate individuals and teams and determine the weakness to be worked on. We qualify negotiators using the simulator.

Our negotiations training and management system is the only one we know of in the world.

How can you evaluate negotiators?

We have designed and built a leading-edge interactive negotiation training simulator. We believe it is the only one in the business world. We use a complete record of real negotiations from our negotiation training and management system as our model. We simulate negotiation reactions and decisions and can evaluate weaknesses and strengths in the negotiation training client. We then provide negotiation training to build on the strengths and reduce or eliminate the weaknesses.

How long does a negotiation training evaluation take?

A negotiation training evaluation usually takes about 45 minutes.

Why is negotiation coaching so important? You apply 2 negotiation training coaches to each negotiation training client. Why?

Negotiation is a human performance event. When a coach helps you apply principles and rules in the event, you have an advantage. Anytime you have someone who owns the principles of the event and they stand outside looking in and coach you and point out what you don't see, you have a great advantage.

What is your greatest weakness?

Ralph Waldo Emerson teaches that your greatest weakness is also your greatest strength. And vice versa. Ours is our negotiation training system and our negotiation coaching ability. Unfortunately many people are not used to working with a negotiation training system to solve problems and bring successful conclusions. Worse, they are not used to having a negotiation training coach help them. So, many don't recognize the tremendous value of a real system of negotiation and coaches supporting the negotiation training system.

What is a negotiation training client's greatest challenge?

I would have to say there are three parts to the greatest challenge our negotiation training clients face. First, recognizing change is needed; second, knowing the challenge of change; and third, the commitment it takes to bring it about. It is the age-old story. People form habits; we are all creatures of habit, and habits are hard to change. Smoking is a habit, it has been known for decades to cause cancer and heart disease and death, and yet it's still here. Obesity, caused by overeating, is a habit that is very difficult to break. How we think about things is very difficult to change. Probably the best institution for changing the way people think is the military, but, many don't like that model. Change is a great challenge.

What does the future look like to you, and how will negotiations change?

We are seeing a change as we speak. We see the world we are working with becoming much more effective in their negotiations and in their decision making. A great deal of credit for this must go to our Coach2100 negotiation training technology. The ability to spend just a few hours in negotiation training anywhere in the world to learn our negotiation training system and then apply it with the help of our negotiation training coaches even on the other side of the world is amazing. No travel to negotiation training, no lost work time, fully supported by our negotiation training coaches, and the results are amazing.

Jim Camp's Decision-Based Negotiation™ training has been used successfully by over 100,000 people in business transactions totaling over $100 billion. Visit his negotiation training website at http://www.startwithno.com.

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