When life becomes routine we are more likely to overlook details or, conversely, we cannot see the forest for the trees. In both instances, what we may lack is a creative outlook on the situation at hand. In integrative negotiations, creativity can lead to value-creation for both parties. Coming up with innovative ideas in the middle of the collaborative process can be difficult, so how does the skillful negotiator change her mindset to become more creative? The March 2012 issue of the Negotiation newsletter offers three practical tips drawn from the best negotiation examples for obtaining more creative deals with your counterpart in negotiation.
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Three Tips for Integrative Negotiations
Tip 1: Try breaking the problem down into more easily managed component parts.
This constructs a multi-issue negotiation out of what at first is a single-issue negotiation, allowing both parties to make tradeoffs based upon their differing preferences.
To engender a creative and collaborative environment conducive to integrative negotiations, you should ask many questions and listen intently to the answers given, with an eye toward using this information to reconcile your respective differences during the course of the negotiation. Additionally, opening up the table to multiple proposals acts a social cue that you are flexible and open to suggestions, inviting similar behavior from your counterpart.
Tip 2: Use deal structuring to help to close the divide on differences or “barter your way to the finish line.”
This tactic is best for determining what each side can and cannot do, and the dialogue that emerges from this process helps to bridge the divide between the parties and their respective capabilities. By adding conditions to an agreement, each party can create value in the course of the negotiation for their side.
Tip 3: It is often helpful to play ‘mind games’ or to create cognitive maps that both reduce the group mentality and foster creative outlooks.
For example, the negotiator can outline the issues at hand and create word associations in a process called ‘mind mapping,’ or she can choose to ‘flip’ the situation, that is she can consider the opposite of any given scenario or proposal. These two tactics break negotiators out of the mold and open up avenues for value-creation between the two parties. Rather than two groups with fixed interests and objectives meeting and hammering away at each other at the bargaining table, the process becomes collaborative and creative – two mindsets well-suited to engaging in future negotiations with one another and others.
What creative methods have you used to create value in integrative negotiations?
Claim your FREE copy: Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals
Discover step-by-step techniques for avoiding common business negotiation pitfalls when you download a copy of the FREE special report, Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
Adapted from “So you want to reach a more creative agreement…but how?” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, March 2012.
Originally published in 2012.
Fantastic article. Thanks. Creative approach, creative thinking and bringing creativity to the negotiation table is beneficial to all parties. Sometimes all we need is a skilled negotiator to guide us through creatively and we all learn something new about ourselves and our ability to see multiple perspectives.
A very good approach is also to apply systematic thinking tools like Triz or ASIT to negotiation challenges. As in your first point, it starts with making lists of items that can be manipulated (in the ASIT-case: problem objects, environment objects and problem attributes). Then the items in those lists are systematically used to create triggers for creative solutions. A thesis from Dr Dina Nir explains the approach and verifies the efficacy.