The Most Important Negotiation You Will Ever Have

Negotiating may be tough at times. It can be stressful. There are a lot of forces that can act against us. When I am working with a client one of the first topics we discuss is the internal negotiation that must occur. Once this first and essential negotiation has occurred, the other external talks become easier.

Most believe the internal negotiation is the negotiation you have with your team, management, and staff. It is correct that we must have everyone working from the same sheet of music in any negotiation. We should negotiate the terms of what we want and what we want to happen next with our co-workers and superiors. This step is critical, so you avoid unknown saboteurs, and you and your team send out a unified message to the other side.

However, that’s not the internal negotiation I am talking about. The most crucial negotiation you will ever have is the internal negotiation you have with yourself. We usually don’t consider ourselves as someone we must negotiate with but in fact, we do and must establish a good working relationship with ourselves.

The internal negotiation we have with ourselves will ultimately impact the degree of success we achieve in our external negotiation with the other side. Our internal negotiation is our ability to see, feel, understand, and control our emotions. It’s about getting into the proper mindset for the external negotiation.

It All Begins with Mindset

Our mindset is likely the single most significant asset or liability to our success in negotiations. Your mindset is your attitude towards something, someone, or someplace. There are good attitudes and bad attitudes out there. It’s easy to identify bad attitudes in others, but what about ourselves?

What is an attitude? Your attitude is the way you think and feel about something. So your mindset is the manner in which you think or feel about a person, place, or event. It is critical you understand your mindset, your attitude, your thoughts and feelings before you being any negotiation for the following reason.

Every action we take begins with a thought or feeling. We are emotional creatures, and our actions are directed by our thoughts and feelings. Before we act, we experience a preceding thought or emotion. Even in situations where our fight-or-flight reactions engage, there is a preceding through or emotion. When my daughter is texting while walking through a parking lot and almost gets hit by a car, I have an immediate thought and emotion rush through me before I act to grab her and pull her out of the way. When I’m sitting at the negotiation table, and the other side makes an offer or statement that upsets me, offends me, or surprises me, I immediately experience emotion and thoughts pop into my head. These reactions are typical but must be controlled. We do that by understanding our mindset, negotiating with ourselves, and predetermining our responses should these reactions occur.

Successful Negotiators Respond, Poor Negotiators React

It is reasonable to experience thoughts and emotions during a negotiation. Stressful situations will easily create pressure and strife. The burdens that we and others place upon ourselves can work as a lever and make it easy for us to give in to our emotions and react to the situation. Instead of reacting, we must respond.

Responding to a situation requires that you first understand the situation for what it is. You remain objective and recognize the impact your emotions can have on the situation. You must understand your mindset and have a plan in place on how to deal with your thoughts and feelings. Creating the plan requires you to understand your mindset by having an internal, personal negotiation.

Reacting can lead to less than optimal outcomes as we behave from our more primal emotions. We might say or do something that negatively affects our position and power in the negotiation. If you have ever said or done something while reacting, you likely regret it. We protect ourselves from these types of behaviors by establishing the rules of engagement with ourselves. This allows us to respond and be objective as we negotiate.

Steps to Negotiate with Yourself

Negotiating with yourself, understanding yourself, begins by asking yourself a few questions. Since questions are the best tool you have in any negotiation, it’s logical we start with asking ourselves questions first.

What do you want in this negotiation?

What do you think you need? Is it really a want you’ve misidentified as a need?

What is required to occur for you to get what you want?

What is the best possible outcome? What is the worst possible outcome? How will you cope with either?

What baggage are you carrying into this negotiation? Our baggage is attitudes we gain from our personal past experiences, either in general or with a specific person, organization or event. This baggage can contribute to our mindset and bias our observations of what is being said by the other side. I would encourage you to dump your baggage.

What do you feel as you prepare for the negotiation? What are your initial thoughts? How would you characterize these thoughts and emotions? Why do you think you are feeling and thinking that way?

As you ask yourself these questions, write the answers down. This will help you work to identify and shape your mindset before you sit down at the table. Negotiating with yourself is the first and most important step you will take towards a successful outcome. After you have completed this crucial first step, you’ll have better results in your negotiations.