Many of us find the idea of negotiation, somehow a little bit alien. It isn't. It's a natural human trait. We all do it all the time. And most of us spend a lot of our private lives with our families negotiating. So we should be pretty good at it.

And yet, as you come into the role of a manager, you'll find yourself doing more and more informal negotiation with your staff, and your colleagues and your bosses and possibly start to move into some more formal negotiation with business partners, and with suppliers and customers. So it's good to understand some of the basics of negotiation and negotiation follows a very simple four step process. The first step is preparation. Do your homework, then the second step That is the opening of negotiation, where we do things like understanding the authority that you have and the counterparty has you introduce yourselves to one another, build the relationship up, you set the tone for the meeting, and also set the agenda for the meeting. The third step is the bargaining stage, what we think of as the negotiation where you give and take and there's a to and fro ideas and exchange where you try to find some position where both of you will be happy.

And the fourth stage is the close where the parties mutually agree to do the deal. wrapped around all of those four steps, some basic principles. Number one, do your search. Never ever go into a negotiation without understanding what you want? What you need, what your Counterparty is likely to want and what they're likely to need, who your Counterparty is and what you know about them and their style. And make sure that when you go into the negotiation, you have all of that research either in your head, or readily accessible in your notes, so that you can refer to it and make quick decisions when you need to.

The second key principle is to build relationships because negotiations are a human activity, it's about the relationship. And the more strongly you build the relationship, the more effective the negotiation will be. But of course, never let yourself believe that your relationship is more important to the other person than the outcome. You need to be just a little bit guarded. So tip three is to Separate the relationship on the one hand, from the results on the other. If the other person is behaving badly, that's a behavior thing, not a relationship things, not them.

It's just the way that they're handling the negotiation at the time. And if you care about that person, that's important. But you also need to care about the results. And sometimes you will need to do a mental calculation because you're trying to balance building, strengthening the relationship with acquiring and achieving the results that you need. Now, clearly, it is possible to do both, you can strengthen the relationship and optimize the results you need. That's collaboration.

It's the hardest style of negotiation, it requires the most effort. If you can do that, then you get the very best from the negotiation, but it isn't always worthwhile doing that. Sometimes you'll want to maybe compromise where you're prepared to give up a little bit of what you want. When you bit the relationship as well perhaps, in order to exchange for something where the other party is prepared to give up an equal value of what they want and perhaps a little bit of the relationship to a course, where it's just not important enough, you may want to walk away. Now, if the relationship is far more important to you than the outcome, then you might be prepared to make a large number of concessions. Likewise, if the relationship has no value to you at all, or very little, but the outcome is vital, then you're going to compete hard to get what you want.

My fourth tip is for the bargaining stage. Never ever make a concession unless you get something in return. This isn't just about getting a quid pro quo, something in return. It's about the principle. The concessions should never be free, or even cheap. Always.

Look Get something suitable in return. And when you do make concessions, make them as small as you can and make each concession smaller than the last. Otherwise things will spiral out of control. So, for basic tips Firstly, do your research. Second, build relationships because they're the basis for good negotiation. But three, separate those relationships from the results and make sure you understand the relative importance of each other five, never make a naked concession.

Always get something in return and make each concession smaller than the last