Listening and Speaking Tips for Negotiations, Part IV
Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant
Editor’s note: this is Part 4 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 V wraps up the lose ends.
11 Announcer statements
Announcer statements encompass a variety of prefatory remarks intended to condition the other side for desired effect. Off the cuff terminology comparable to “By the way”, or “As you know” sometimes inadvertently introduce important or decoy information.
The preface, “To be honest with you,” merits particular attention. On its face, the phrase is ridiculous. Is the speaker confessing dishonesty up to this point? That is probably not the intention, but it may be the message received. It should alert the listener that significant information probably follows.
The use of repetition is another announcer alarm tone. Politicians repeat for emphasis, or maybe because they expect people not to listen so they won’t notice the repetition. Constant repetition, however, may be an indication of importance of the repeated point. It might simply be a flaw in negotiation skills. In any event, it bears clarification.
12 Avoid pronouns
Is anything more prone to confusion than the overuse of pronouns? They (referring to pronouns) are just too non specific. The pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘we’ and ‘they’ are tough enough, but ‘it’ comes in for special scrutiny. A description that goes on for more than three sentences needs to reconfirm the identity of nouns being supplanted by pronouns. Any more than one male in a story and the use of ‘he’ becomes troublesome. Given that ‘it’ covers almost all creation, the pronoun problem (it, meaning the pronoun problem) cannot be overstated.
At home, I live with a wife, two daughters and a cat, all female. With my back to the crowd, I will hear, “did you see how she did to her?” Huh? Unless the house is on fire, I tune out all the static noise rather than try to unravel the pronoun references.
This fault of logic must be one of the most common problems for familiar parties. If someone offers an observation, do not impute your own conclusion. It may not coincide with theirs. If the seller says, “We cannot sell at that price,” that is merely an observation. To furnish our own conclusion would be erroneous. We cannot summarily conclude that the price is too low. It could mean their costs are too high, or that they have some other controlling factor that is not divulged. Clarify the conclusion by asking straight away about what conclusion to draw. If the person is challenged by direct questions, employ the reflective response and rephrase the observation. Then, with the ‘I’ statement, ask about the conclusion. The talk might be like this. “So, if I understand the statement, that price is not available. Is that right so far?” If you hear a no, investigate with open end questions. If the answer is yes, the test for conclusion might be, “So that I am clear, is the conclusion that the price is too low for to cover the costs?” If the answer is yes, then switch to the Cost Analysis tool. This process of negotiation is an interconnected set of wide ranging skills!
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13 Distinguish observation from conclusion
This fault of logic must be one of the most common problems for familiar parties. If someone offers an observation, do not impute your own conclusion. It may not coincide with theirs. If the seller says, “We cannot sell at that price,” that is merely an observation. To furnish our own conclusion would be erroneous. We cannot summarily conclude that the price is too low. It could mean their costs are too high, or that they have some other controlling factor that is not divulged. Clarify the conclusion by asking straight away about what conclusion to draw. If the person is challenged by direct questions, employ the reflective response and rephrase the observation. Then, with the ‘I’ statement, ask about the conclusion. The talk might be like this. “So, if I understand the statement, that price is not available. Is that right so far?” If you hear a no, investigate with open end questions. If the answer is yes, the test for conclusion might be, “So that I am clear, is the conclusion that the price is too low for to cover the costs?” If the answer is yes, then switch to the Cost Analysis tool. This process of negotiation is an interconnected set of wide ranging skills!