BUSINESS SKILLS

NEGOTIATIONS
Situations and negotiator
TYPES OF NEGOTIATION
 If people negotiate (with each other), they talk in
order to reach an agreement which is to their mutual
advantage (good for both of them). For example:
 Customer – supplier negotiations
 Wage negotiations
 Merger or takeover negotiations
 Trade negotiations

 Negotiations also take place to settle disputes

(decide arguments) such as:
 Contract disputes
 Labour disputes
 Trade disputes
WORD COMBINATIONS WITH NEGOTIATION

 Someone who takes part in a negotiation is a

negotiator, and someone who is good at getting what
they want is a tough negotiator.
BARGAINING
 Another word for negotiate is bargain. This is
also used to talk specifically about discussing and
agreeing the price of something. Another word for
negotiator is bargainer.

 another word for negotiating is bargaining,

used specifically in phrases like:
 Collective bargaining
 Pay bargaining
 Wage bargaining (discussions between groups of
employees and their employers aboud pay and
conditions)
BARGAINING
 Bargaining is often used in these combinations:
EXERCISE 1
 Relate these headlines to the situations seen
earlier
EXERCISE 2
 Match the sentence beginnings with the correct endings.
NEGOTIATIONS
Preparing
PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE
 John is an expert in negotiation:
NEGOTIATING SCENARIO
 At the beginning of a negotiation, follow these steps:
NEGOTIATING STYLES
 When you are negotiating with people from
another culture, it is important to think about
what they consider as normal behaviour. You will
need to think about the following:
 Body language
 Physical contact
 Conversational rules
 Relationship building
 Hierarchy
 Attitudes to time
EXERCISE 3
 Jose is head of Xania, a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer. He is
preparing for negotiations with Zebra, an engine supplier. Match
each point in Jose’s notes with one of the tips given earlier.
EXERCISE 4
 Arrange these phrases Jose uses at the beginning of the
negotiation in the correct order.
EXERCISE 5
 Mr. A is in another country in order to try to get a multi million
dollar order from Mr. B and his assistant, Mr. C. Put each
problem that occurred in their meeting under one or more of the
negotiation styles.
NEGOTIATIONS
Furthering negotiations
WIN-WIN
 In a successful negotiation, everyone should leave
the negotiating table happy with the outcome:
there shouldn’t be winners and losers. The
negotiators should try to reach a win-win
solution: an agreement of equal benefit to both
sides. This can be achieved in a number of ways.
PROBING
 One way of furthering negotiations is probing
(asking the right questions and listening
carefully to the answers). Here are some probing
questions:
a. What is the situation on production at your plant at
the moment?
b. What sort of quantities are you looking for?
c. What are we looking at in the way of discount?
d. What did you have in mind regarding
specifications?
e. What were you thinking of in terms of delivery
dates?
f. How important to you is the currency for payment?
PROPOSAL AND COUNTER PROPOSAL
 Through a series of proposals or offers from one side and counter-
proposals or counter-offers from the other side, the two sides work
towards an agreement which will benefit them both. Here are some ways
of making offer:
TRADE-OFFS
 When you offer to change your position to one that is less
favourable to yourself, you make a concessions. Perhaps this
is in exchange for a concession form the other side, although
there is no guarantee of this. Your concession may be a
goodwill gesture: a concession that you make hoping that
the other side will see this as friendly and make a concession
in return.

 Even in a friendly negotiation, there may be horse-trading,

with each side making a series of concessions in return for
concessions from the other side. If you argue about something
for a long time, especially about the price of something, you
haggle.

 A series of concessions in exchange for concessions from the

other side is a series of trade-offs. If you make a
concessions, you may not get anything back. If you make a
trade-off, you give something away and get something in
return.
EXERCISE 6
 Match these replies to the probing questions
EXERCISE 7
 The Xania-Zebra negotiations continue. Complete Jose’s phrases with the
correct form of words in brackets.
EXERCISE 8:
 Complete these extracts:
NEGOTIATIONS
Difficulties
CONFRONTATION
 Sometimes one side is in a stronger position than the other: they have more
bargaining power. For example, during a recent strike at Lamda Inc., the
company was in financial difficulty and the public was on the workers’ side, so
Lamda was negotiating from weakness. The strikers’ union knew this: they
were negotiating from strength.

 The union made demands: objectives that were so important that they were
unwilling to change them. They wanted a 15 per cent pay increase. Later they
moderated these demands and said they would accept ten per cent. However,
their demand for a week’s extra holiday was non-negotiable: they would not
accept less.

 Lamda said they were being forced to accept something that they did not want.
They accused the union of making them negotiate under duress.

 Eventually lamda conceded to most to the union’s demands and gave them
what they wanted. The media said that lamda had backed down, climbed down
and given in.

 The feelings had been very strong on each side: the dispute was bitter, and the
negotiations were confrontational and adversarial.
CONFRONTATIONAL NEGOTIATING
TACTICS
DEALING WITH PROBLEMS
EXERCISE 9
 Match the sentence beginnings with the correct endings
EXERCISE 10
 Jose is trying to deal with some problems in the Xania-Zebra
negotiations. Match these expressions to the points discussed in “dealing
with problems”.
NEGOTIATIONS
Reaching agreement
DEADLOCK AND MEDIATORS
AGREEMENTS AND CONTRACTS
CHECKING THE DEAL
EXERCISE 11
 Are these statements true or false?
EXERCISE 12
 Complete these extracts
EXERCISE 13
 The Xania-Zebra negotiations are ending. Arrange these phrases in the
correct order.
THE END!