So you think you don’t ever have to negotiate? Life just moves forward. In business, negotiating is someone else’s job, right? For you, it’s just a “discussion.” And when you get home from work and have issues to settle with your family, that’s just a discussion, too. Right?
Hardly. No matter what you do in today’s fast-paced business (and personal) world, every day you’ll encounter things you need or want. Not just things, but also behaviors and actions. Discuss them? Yes, it starts with that. But you’re not just discussing—you’re working out a deal. You’re working out an agreement.
That agreement can be in the interest of your own individual achievement, your workgroup’s achievement, or your organization’s achievement as a whole. You want to go get it. That requires negotiation. Especially if you have to give up something—and the other party has to give up something—to reach an agreement.
At its roots, negotiation is the art and science—the process—of getting what you want. This chapter describes further what negotiation is (and isn’t), how it fits into today’s business and organizational context, and what is (and isn’t) new about negotiation today.