Skill 5 – Negotiation

Negotiations happen every day. People negotiate pretty much anything and everything. It's often quite casual, in a form that we might not even notice, but often it's formal as well, especially in a software project context.

The number, clarity, and feasibility of requirements, bug accuracy, and severity, availability of resources, priority of features, go-live date, release schedule, overall cost, and price, are all usual negotiation points. The agreed figure at the end is rarely, if ever, the original baseline.

For our purposes, and ease of illustration, let's just say there are only two parties involved: a supplier and a customer. As a manager, you will need to understand and appreciate the art of negotiation from both angles.

As the saying goes: An old poacher makes the best gamekeeper.

Empathy is a skill often associated with negotiation. Essentially, whether you are the supplier or customer, you can negotiate most effectively if you are aware and understanding of the other party's position, thoughts, and feelings, which ultimately lead to their negotiating actions.

Interestingly, empathy is sandwiched between two topics that we've already discussed: active listening in Chapter 1, Why Do You Want to Become a Manager?, and rapport as well as influence, which are the focus of this chapter.

In the scenario illustrated in Figure 2.6 by the Behavioral Change Stairway Model, the behavioral change can be interpreted as the other party accepting your negotiation point. This shows how important it is to show empathy toward the other party, even if you are having a hard-nosed and heated negotiation, where each other's motives seem to be polar opposites.

The Behavioral Change Stairway Model was originally developed by the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit. Motives and tensions hardly get further apart and stressed than with a hostage situation. See the Behavioral Change Stairway Model in Figure 2.6: