Listening and Speaking Tips for Negotiations, Part II
Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant
Editor’s note: this is Part 2 of a 5 part series on the importance of verbal communication in negotiations. Part I deals with open mind assumptions. Part II deals with questioning techniques. Part III deals with word usage while Part IV addresses common statements and Part V wraps up the lose ends
4. “What if” questions
This technique is a reflection of the open mind because it implies flexibility, creativity, and a willingness to entertain divergent views. It does not signal acceptance but encourages experimentation. You might even find nuggets that you can use or did not expect to pan out. For example, suppose that the supplier’s high quality is adding unsupportable costs to you. You ask, “What if we were able to accept a lower quality; would you be able to supply that and what would be the impact on the price”. The supplier might not be able to do anything, but that sales person has learned a valuable lesson about your willingness to keep an open mind and will reciprocate at its first chance. Or, that supplier may jump on the chance to contact its sales management and engineering people for a list of alternatives. The seller may have sufficient inventory of equally high quality material left over from a production overrun. It is slightly off spec for our purposes, but the supplier offers to underwrite the cost of testing to see if we can use it. If we can, they offer a 50% discount to move the inventory. Should this exercise in open mindedness work out, both sides will have actively participated in a Win-Win strategy .
5. Open-end and close-end questions
The open end question is designed to elicit information or encourage dialogue. It calls for an informative and involved response. The close-end question can be and should be answered with a yes or a no. It is designed to enhance precision or weed out non-essential or even misleading information.
Suppose you are in the market for equipment to increase productivity, reduce costs, improve safety and save on utilities. An open end question to pose could be “Can you tell me how this equipment will help increase productivity, reduce costs, improve safety and save on utilities?” If the sales person says “No”, throw them out. A “Yes” answer must immediately be followed by detailed explanations in response to your inquiry. The open end question will occur more often in the exploratory stage, before the territory narrows.
As that territory narrows, the close ended question comes to the fore. Precision is gained by asking tightly defined yes or no questions. “Does the unit qualify as US made the ‘Buy American” clause?” is a close end question requiring a clear, unequivocal response. The close end question also clarifies details and pins down people you think might not be acting entirely candid with you. For instance, assume that you ask, “Can we have this unit in our Chicago facility in 90 days from today?” If the answer is, “Well, we can ship it 10 weeks after receipt of order and down payment,” we have work to do. Remind the respondent that the answer calls for a yes or a no. In either case, we have made progress. If no, and under no conditions, we will need to look at extending our deadline or at other alternatives. If yes, we can then get more finite with the specifics to make that delivery date happen.
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6. ‘I’ and ‘You’ re-statements
Everyone has heard the country expression that, “It ain’t what you said; it’s just how you said it.” Contained ironically in the adage is a demonstration of the ‘you’ statement. Consider these two statements of equivalent message. First, take the ‘I’ statement. “As I understand what I think you said, thus and so would be preferable to you. Do I have that right?”
The statement accounts for the possibility that we misunderstood, did not fully appreciate, or otherwise failed to recognize all the significant data under transfer. This tacit admission by us conveys the notion that it is important to us that we understand the sender’s communication, its issues and motivations so that we can deal with it. This is what the social scientist call empathy and that is a good quality in negotiators. We expressed no agreement nor disagreement, or even much positive or negative emotion. Rather, we proffered a down the middle statement of fact and asked for affirmation of meaning.
Contrast that with this imperious alternative ‘you’ statement. “You mean to tell me that you want thus and so.” Imagine this being said with the accompanying finger pointing as well. Clearly, the ‘you’ statement let’s fly an accusation and invites retaliation. The ‘you’ statement needlessly inflames the conflict that negotiation is intended to resolve. Our motives may be pure, our intent only to ensure that we understood, but our words of communication derailed our good intentions. In general, substitute the ‘I’ for the ‘you’ statement often.