"I offer my thoughts not as a Buddhist nor as a religious believer, but simply as one human being among nearly 7 billion others. One who cares about the fate of humanity and wants to do something to safeguard and improve its future"
-Dalai Lama
My personal definition of negotiation is changing. Before, I used to think negotiation was very hard edged, it was fighting with somebody to get what you want. Now it has turned into explaining to the other person where you're coming from. Letting them contextualize it from their own vantage point. The other person truthfully needs to understand what you're going through. Putting them in your shoes and putting yourself in theirs extrapolates on the do unto others as they would do unto you rule. It's not a trick, it's just two humans working to understand each other.
One example is my negotiation with Verizon a few weeks ago when they called me the day after I got my iPhone about a promotion of 500 free minutes if I renewed my account. Since I had already renewed my plan, only 12 hours before, they said I wasn't eligible for the promotion anymore.
At this point, I had several Machiavellian choices. I could have gotten angry with the agent, making them so annoyed that they would've just given me the deal instead of staying on the phone with me any longer. The agent could've hung up on me, but that leads into the next strategy of calling as many agents as necessary before I got the one willing to give me the promotion. I could've pulled the "let me talk to your supervisor" bit, I could've threatened to cancel my plan, thereby being switched to the cancellation department who would've gladly conceded to keep a 5-year subscriber to their service.
Instead, I kept chatting with the agent who originally called me about the promotion. I told him how I got the iPhone after going to three different shops who all said I wouldn't get it for two weeks. He liked the tall tale I told (which was all true) and we laughed about my luck in finally finding a manager who was saving a new iPhone for his friend but gave it to me anyway (part of the reason he gave it to me was because I told him my story of looking for an iPhone all day and he understood why I wanted it before Christmas). The agent lived my experience and realized it was seriously dumb luck that I got the phone and that he called 12 hours later to give me the promotion.
He asked me to hold while he talked to his supervisor to get the authorization code to override the denial. He did this completely of his own accord. Turned out you couldn't override it on his system. Makes sense, just in case someone is up to those Machiavellian techniques I mentioned earlier. He apologized, but then decided to connect me to the customer service department to see if they could help. He was my spokesperson about why I wanted the 500 minutes and the customer service rep said she'd try it on her end. She could in fact make the change and we all had a "woohoo" moment when it worked. All in all, I was on the phone for under 20 minutes, generally had a good time talking to customer service reps and got the promotion on grounds that it made sense to everyone involved.
One example is my negotiation with Verizon a few weeks ago when they called me the day after I got my iPhone about a promotion of 500 free minutes if I renewed my account. Since I had already renewed my plan, only 12 hours before, they said I wasn't eligible for the promotion anymore.
At this point, I had several Machiavellian choices. I could have gotten angry with the agent, making them so annoyed that they would've just given me the deal instead of staying on the phone with me any longer. The agent could've hung up on me, but that leads into the next strategy of calling as many agents as necessary before I got the one willing to give me the promotion. I could've pulled the "let me talk to your supervisor" bit, I could've threatened to cancel my plan, thereby being switched to the cancellation department who would've gladly conceded to keep a 5-year subscriber to their service.
Instead, I kept chatting with the agent who originally called me about the promotion. I told him how I got the iPhone after going to three different shops who all said I wouldn't get it for two weeks. He liked the tall tale I told (which was all true) and we laughed about my luck in finally finding a manager who was saving a new iPhone for his friend but gave it to me anyway (part of the reason he gave it to me was because I told him my story of looking for an iPhone all day and he understood why I wanted it before Christmas). The agent lived my experience and realized it was seriously dumb luck that I got the phone and that he called 12 hours later to give me the promotion.
He asked me to hold while he talked to his supervisor to get the authorization code to override the denial. He did this completely of his own accord. Turned out you couldn't override it on his system. Makes sense, just in case someone is up to those Machiavellian techniques I mentioned earlier. He apologized, but then decided to connect me to the customer service department to see if they could help. He was my spokesperson about why I wanted the 500 minutes and the customer service rep said she'd try it on her end. She could in fact make the change and we all had a "woohoo" moment when it worked. All in all, I was on the phone for under 20 minutes, generally had a good time talking to customer service reps and got the promotion on grounds that it made sense to everyone involved.
Empathy won out in this case and that's not to say it will in every case. The process of negotiation - I hesitate to even call it that in this case - was much more enjoyable for all parties. Their system could just not have accepted the promotion and even then no one would've been for the worse. We all would have tried to make the computer system understand human common sense and if it didn't, so be it. That's our loss, not just mine. At the end of it, they commiserated with me, we all had a laugh and moved on.
It was only 500 minutes after all. And that's the crux of it. I'd rather leave off feeling good if none of it had worked out, because it's a measly amount to worry myself over. If I had pursued the call to battle the reps, and not won, my blood pressure would've been up, the taste in my mouth would've been sour, my viewpoint would've been generally negative for the next few hours and the reps would've also been a worse place because of me. Later on in the day, I would've regretted messing up my mood for a mere 500 minutes on my plan.
Negotiating mutually may as well be called mutual understanding and if you take the "mutual" out of it, negotiation is just another form of coming to an understanding. There are a lot of tactics out there about leverage, stake, walking away and so on, and they have their place. Sometimes - car sales for example - you're simply walking into a battlefield.
Most negotiations aren't of this sort. Whether it's your rent going up or your insurance company denying your claim or a store not accepting your return, there's a human on the other end of that desk or phone. The system may not allow you to negotiate, but humans can come to an understanding that can override the system they built in the first place. You have a personal story to tell now and you'll have your chance to listen to someone else's story soon too. As they say, keep paying it forward. Maybe we'll even make it easier to buy a car someday.
It was only 500 minutes after all. And that's the crux of it. I'd rather leave off feeling good if none of it had worked out, because it's a measly amount to worry myself over. If I had pursued the call to battle the reps, and not won, my blood pressure would've been up, the taste in my mouth would've been sour, my viewpoint would've been generally negative for the next few hours and the reps would've also been a worse place because of me. Later on in the day, I would've regretted messing up my mood for a mere 500 minutes on my plan.
Negotiating mutually may as well be called mutual understanding and if you take the "mutual" out of it, negotiation is just another form of coming to an understanding. There are a lot of tactics out there about leverage, stake, walking away and so on, and they have their place. Sometimes - car sales for example - you're simply walking into a battlefield.
Most negotiations aren't of this sort. Whether it's your rent going up or your insurance company denying your claim or a store not accepting your return, there's a human on the other end of that desk or phone. The system may not allow you to negotiate, but humans can come to an understanding that can override the system they built in the first place. You have a personal story to tell now and you'll have your chance to listen to someone else's story soon too. As they say, keep paying it forward. Maybe we'll even make it easier to buy a car someday.