When you ask a question, you are negotiating! Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage. Don’t you negotiate all the time in your personal and professional lives?
When you were a child you were a natural negotiator! Your negotiating style was fairly limited though. It started as soon as you wanted something. You cried and cried until someone paid attention to you. You did not stop crying until you were satisfied with the results. It ranged from getting a drink, changing your diaper, food, a toy, candy, a nap or just your way. How quickly you forget.
As you get older, your style expands just a little. You start to communicate and ask for things. It is probably the same list of things you wanted when all you could do was cry, but now you put it into words. Some children ask for things and cry when they do not get them. Usually, you keep it up until you get what you want. You wear down your parents and other adults by just staying after them.
You discovered how to negotiate! You negotiate for your wants and needs before you could even talk. As soon as you could talk, you would express yourself beginning your sentence with I want or I need something. When you did not get it soon enough, you might cry or have a tantrum. Is this a natural phenomenon or a learned response? When you learn to stop crying or have a tantrum, you seem to forget how to negotiate.
As we get older, we realize that negotiation is more art than science. You need to do more research to understand that both parties in a negotiation should come away with something, but that comes later. Your next opportunity to negotiate is for an allowance. Every family looks at an allowance differently, but it is when you receive a little spending money. In some instances some chores may be involved which is something to negotiate.
Wouldn’t be nice, if you had a playbook that told you what to do when? Instead, you just seem to know anyway, but now it gets complicated. You are becoming a teenager and you just know that you want a car when you turn sixteen (16) years old. Many parents will tell you to go out and earn the money or maybe they will allow you to drive their car I the meantime. A little negotiation occurs here where you might have to pay for gas, earn good grades in exchange for the privilege.
There are more opportunities for negotiation, but it depends on the family. Do you want to go to college, travel or just move out? You need to earn money to do many of these things and it is different in every family. Maybe your issue is to attend college far away from home and your parents are concerned about your ability to handle it.
Children and parents is a constant negotiation! As a parent, we help our children become adults by teaching them a variety of things like values, the difference between right and wrong and how to make decisions to name just a few. Hopefully, parents model the right values and behaviors to their children so they will become productive members of society.
During school or after graduation, you will need to get work to satisfy some of those wants and needs you have accumulated in your short life. It may be your first car, college or just spending money. You have to negotiate with strangers for a job, car dealers for a car and it doesn’t stop there! In school you probably had friends, participated in clubs, organizations or sports. You probably negotiated for something by getting a recommendation, with friends or teammates.
As you can see negotiation is not just for things! You negotiate for everything including personal relationships. Yes, dating is a negotiation! With all this experience, why aren’t you better at it? Interviews are a negotiation! Before you actually negotiate your salary, you should give the employer good reasons to want to negotiate a salary with you. You should have researched the company and use the job description to show how you match their requirements. In other words, give the employer a reason to negotiate with you.
Negotiation is in every part of your life, some may call it compromise. You negotiate with your employer, businesses, and people just about everybody. It may be for the purchase of your first home, a marriage proposal, mortgages, loans, products, services and relationships. You negotiate for everything!
Final thoughts
When you ask a question, you are negotiating! It is a great way to put the other party off guard. The answer may just help you reach your agreement. I always start my negotiation by asking questions that I know will help me achieve the desired outcome. For example, when turned down on a price, I ask what I need to do to get my price. In most cases, the other party will tell you what they want. Don’t you ask the car dealer, if they would take $X for the car? When they say no, you are still negotiating! Ask a question!
Photo by: Jean-Louis Zimmermann
Thank you for reminding me…I should try out that cry, and cry, and cry thing again just to see if it works as an adult. Hahahaha–just kidding;).
You’re welcome, a little emotion may work in the right moment such as a traffic stop by the police. 🙂
Dating and marriage are probably some of the biggest negotiations. Where you live, what house you buy, how many kids you have, how you raise them etc. etc. Negotiation is a good thing and people shouldn’t be afraid of it.
Negotiation was automatic when we were children, but we forget how to do it as we grow up.
Rather than both parties feeling that they got something, the best negotiations leave both parties feeling slightly screwed over…
I think the result may be the same! You got some of what you want, but no necessarily the most important points.
The art of negotiation starts as soon as you have interactions with people. As I read this post my 11 month old son tried to negotiate with me on what part of the TV he could touch without getting in trouble.
Interaction can be different with various people too. It could start with a gesture or smile.
“Children and parents is a constant negotiation!” Lol, as a parent of little ones I could not agree more. It starts so young for them and it really is our duty as parents to help them grow in that and realize they can’t just cry for something and expect to get it.
That is how it starts! 🙂 My son took negotiation further than most and my response to him was that certain thing are nonnegotiable. That usually stopped it. He is grown now and a lawyer!
Its funny my wife and I were just having a conversation like this last week. Our baby cries and we say oh these days when crying got you what you wanted. Fact is its still the same principle of sorts. Open your mouth and say something. like you said ask if they so no you are still negotiating.
Everything is negotiation and you would think we would be more comfortable with it. As an adult, some people are afraid to negotiate.
You’re Right. Negotiation is such an important part of our lives as a whole, not just our finances! Leslie and I just re-negotiated our responsibilities with household chores about a week ago. Negotiation helps smooth out relationships as long as both parties are willing to cooperate.
I think that is an import part of negotiation, both parties willing to cooperate. Both parties willing to work toward a mutual goal is important too.
You got it right with children and parents always negotiating. My daughter is only 7 months and she negotiates with her cries. 🙂
Absolutely! We negotiate all the time. Think about it when you do something nice for your wife or she for you. Is she or you expecting something for it?
Great point! Asking questions can also be quite pointed when negotiations get tense, and productive as well.
I think asking questions keep it low key, but pressure on the other side.
I hate negotiating because I don’t like conflict. But you have to learn to stand for what you want or you can be miserable for years for not speaking up!
I use questions as a method of negotiating. I find it easier and less confrontational.
Really great point in this post: you are always negotiating! I have definitely seen this in my day-to-day life, even in situations you don’t view as negotiation. I think we also negotiate with ourselves more often than we think – if I do x then I will allow myself to do y later. It’s a good motivator, at least for me, to do things that I need to do but don’t want to do.
I create rewards for the things I don’t like doing too. It is a great way to motivate yourself.
You are right that everything is a negotiation from choosing my daughter’s clothes for the day to fighting with insurance companies about what should be covered and for how much. I guess I should have been a lawyer.
we were able reduce the conflict with our kids by giving them choices. We would pick two desirable choices and allow our children to make a choice. They learned a great deal from the experience and improved there decision making. They pretty good negotiators, I guess learned from th best! 🙂
Negotiation really starts when a person opens his mouth and someone over heard what he just said. It can lead to a conversation. At the end, you’ll learn new things that you would want to remember forever or forget as soon as the negotiation ended.
Not all conversations are negotiations although most conversations are worthwhile. If a conversation is a negotiation it means one of the parties wants something from the other person which may or may not be true. I suppose on a very basic level all conversations want some kind of agreement.
If we could only just cry like when we were babies. Life was so much simpler. My negotiation skills were pretty weak because my parents spoiled me a little. I need to work hard not to repeat the mistake with my son. Since I was given what I wanted most of the time, I didn’t really have to negotiate. Tantrums as an adult aren’t pretty!
Hmmm! I never thought about adult tantrums. I think too many people think a negotiation is some long drag out fight. Just the other person “if that price is the best they can do?” A question is all it takes.
I’m going to see how far I can get with the cry tactic next time I buy a car; maybe throw some paperwork in the air. Thanks for sharing!
Let me if that works!
The high pitched loud shriek of crying certainly gets your point across, although coming from an adult I think I’d slowly back away if they tried that lol. I learned a lot of my negotiation skills by haggling with vendors at the flea market. Gotta be good with sticking to your guns on a lower price and walking away if they don’t come down.
I think you always have to be able to walk away from a negotiation! If you can, you have a chance of winning.
That’s a great way of looking at it. A lot of times negotiating can seem too intimidating or too much hassle, but it’s not hard to ask a question!
Thanks, reducing negotiating to questions makes it much easier on everybody.
The ability to exert influence depends upon the combined total of a variety of factors. First, having a good alternative to negotiation contributes substantially to a negotiator’s power. A negotiator with very strong alternatives does not need the negotiation in order to achieve at least a satisfactory outcome.[31] In their 1981 bestseller, Getting to Yes,[32] Roger Fisher and William Ury coined the term ” BATNA ” (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) to refer to this type of negotiating power. When parties have many options other than negotiation, they have more leverage in making demands. Therefore, parties should develop a strong understanding of their alternatives before participating in negotiations. Making one’s BATNA as strong as possible, and then making that BATNA known to one’s opponent, can strengthen one’s negotiating position.
In many cases the retail price is a satisfactory outcome, however you can find reasons for a discounted price too.
You have written excellent article. Yes, we start learning negotiation from childhood itself and keep on learning till the end. I am saving this on my PC. thank you
Thanks. If you use what you learned as a child, you will be very successful.
I’m not very good at negotiating, which is likely why I never got my way as a child (just kidding). Some people have a natural nack for it, but not I.
Many people think the same way! If you reduce negotiation as just asking questions, it is less intimidating. Last, you always have to be prepared to walk away if you don’t get what you want.