Negotiation is a requisite skill for an empowered, decentralized and more autonomous organization.

Negotiation has no best strategy: what works well in one situation might be disastrous in another.

Negotiation is about results (success). It is also about relationship (effectiveness). How you conduct yourself in a negotiation can have a significant impact on both the short and long term.

Negotiation is aprocess of disguise and discovery. It is a process of clarifying and changing conflicting points of view and expectations to reach a mutually acceptable conclusion.

Negotiation, as practiced by successful • effective • negotiators, is a process of collaboration and compromise through which each party satisfies his/her priority interests at the lowest cost to the other. Winning in negotiation does not require someone to lose.

Negotiation is movement. Patience, persistence and planning are essential. If one approach results in a stalemate, adopt another. There is nothing worse for a successful • effective • negotiator than walking away from a deal or agreement that was makeable. You will never lose a negotiation using the ideas you are about to explore, unless you capitulate. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Never, ever, ever, ever, give up.”

Empowered, decentralized andmore autonomous organizations will continue to be a significant part of our future. The movement toward empowerment is based on the need for: (1) recognition, (2) involvement, and (3) a sense of worth – a strong need to be valued and consulted – by both individuals and organizations. Empowerment is a gradual process of facilitation, rather than control. It is a concept of cooperation and collaboration, rather than competition and coercion. It takes a mutual problem orientation; an attitude of doing it with and not to, or for.

To operate successfully and effectively in this empowered period of rapid and continual change and intensified competition, business professionals must be able to deal with a variety of situations and uncertainties that create conflicting interests. Negotiation is the best method to resolve these conflicting interests in a cooperative and collaborative manner.

As organizations evolve, employees are selected more carefully. Since organizations are relying more heavily on a collaborative effort, the emphasis is on individuals with technical and interpersonal skills and managers with the ability to mentor and support the development of others. To survive and prosper in a collaborative, yet intensely competitive business environment, individual contributors, managers and executives must hone their relating and negotiating skills to translate commitment into action.

Negotiation is often a game that combines the best elements of collaboration and competition, pure bargaining and problem solving, on a playing field lined by tension and uncertainty. To a great extent, this game of negotiation can be controlled or managed to improve your results, especially in high impact interactions (high risk, high reward). The skillful use of the four relating styles of successful • effective • negotiators coupled with knowledge of the various elements, rules and rituals, and appropriate preparation and planning strategies, will significantly improve your ability to get results with relationship.

In this summary, we will examine the four Relating Styles – Rapport, Initiation, Disclosure and Assertion – that provide the foundation for this unique form of human interaction. Also, we will explore the various strategies and tactics that must be prepared and planned for, to resolve conflicting interests successfully and effectively in empowered, decentralized and more autonomous organizations and situations.