In the normal give and take of life, we negotiate all the time, making deals with colleagues, family, friends, bosses, and clients. We bargain with the boss for a couple extra days on a report, we try to talk our spouse out of seeing a movie we don’t like, we try to convince a colleague to reschedule a meeting, and we haggle with a client over the terms of a contract.
Here are six ideas to help you reach better deals while preserving goodwill in your underlying relationships.
1. Quit with the hardball tactics. Most of our bargaining happens with people we have a relationship with, not with a used car salesman who we will never see again. When someone you know feels taken advantage of, he will have numerous opportunities to get even. Bargains that harm existing relationships are bad deals.
2. Look for joint gains. The key to negotiating with people in your life is that both of you need to get a good deal. Look for areas of overlapping interests, and convert these into mutually beneficial agreements whenever possible. And don’t be afraid not to strike a deal if you sense that your interests are widely divergent.
3. Stop keeping score. Stop keeping score. Keeping score is problematic because our assessments are often riddled with bias. We improperly value gains and losses to our advantage (known as the self-serving bias), and we discount external factors (like the economy) and overweight internal factors (like our smarts) in a self-enhancing bias called the fundamental attribution error. Research shows that these biases are usually strongest when we interact with people distant from us (like strangers and acquaintances), and that the biases often weaken when we are dealing with people we feel close to. Taken together, these findings suggest that you are likely to cook the books with more distant bargaining partners, and that an urge to keep score with someone you are close to is probably a warning sign that distance, dissonance, or disagreement of some kind has crept into one of your close relationships.
4. Know your priorities, and have a sense of theirs. Many of our negotiations involve multiple options. For example, a summer vacation may require coming to agreement on the location, the dates, the primary activities, and any other people you may invite; a work project might require negotiating the deadline, the work distribution, others on the job, and so on. Establish your priorities, and see if you can uncover areas of mutual agreement to secure some early yeses and build positive momentum for the rest of the bargain.
5. Don’t rush the deal. Excessive pressure to make a deal is often a warning sign of a bad deal. Remember: You have an underlying relationship with your negotiation partner. Don’t pressure him or her for an agreement, and be wary of deals you are asked to make quickly.
6. Don’t gloat. If you are fortunate enough to strike an amazing bargain, don’t gloat about how much more you would have paid, or carry on about what a great deal you got. People hate feeling like suckers, and you don’t want future deals plagued by avoidance or retribution-based behaviors.
Your bargaining partner is often one of the most important people in your life, so go out of your way to make deals are good for both of you.