Quotes About Negotiation

There can be no saving of the adversary emotionally, intellectually, financially, or on any level. No. None.

But even if you're good at blank slating, have no expectations and no assumptions, listen well, take great notes, refrain from excessive talking, and don't spill beans—even if you're the perfect blank slater, the world outside the negotiation can still intrude on your ability to blank slate. If you're overly tired, it's difficult to focus.

We greatly enhance our opportunity for a successful deal by putting the adversary first in our mission and purpose. You make your killing—or just a solid profit—only by entering heart and soul into your adversary's world, business, needs, requirements, hopes, fears, and plans.

You want your human adversaries to see the pain, but you do not want to hit them between the eyes with it. You soften the blow, so to speak, with nurturing.

Discipline is difficult. But without discipline, you will never be a great negotiator.

When you begin any new negotiation or find yourself losing control of an ongoing negotiation, you return to—what? Your mission and purpose. And where is your mission and purpose set? In your adversary's world. And what is embedded deep within your adversary's world? Their pain. When in doubt, return to the pain. And always nurture, because without it, the pain may simply be too much.

They know that what is really said and what we actually hear during a negotiation is far more important than what we allow ourselves to think while others talk. In order to blank slate effectively, the little voice in our own heads must be silent.

Making decisions based on a sense that the adversary seeks your friendship is misguided. They would much prefer your effectiveness.

Why would you want to load down a business relationship with a lot of emotional baggage, including guilt, which can be the by-product of "friendship"? It doesn't work. It doesn't pay.

the price that will be paid in any negotiation—is directly related to the clarity of the vision of pain?

The essential problem is that they are I-centered. They are set in the world of the individual building the mission and purpose. This is why they are 100 percent invalid and worthless for any person, business, or negotiation.

The only agenda that is valid for purposes of negotiation is the one that has been negotiated with the adversary.

win-win is hopelessly misguided as a basis for good negotiating, in business or in your personal life or anywhere else.

Your ability to blank slate is directly related to your ability to rid yourself of expectations and assumptions, two very bad words in my system of negotiation.

your adversary is building your positive expectations to close the deal. If you buy into these statements, he'll move right in and take the advantage.

In any negotiation, where do we want to spend as much time as possible? In the adversary's world.

It is absolutely imperative that you as a negotiator understand the importance of this point. You do NOT need this deal, because to be needy is to lose control and make bad decisions.

neediness can have—will have—a dramatic, always negative effect on their behavior. You must overcome any neediness at the negotiating table.

The serious negotiator understands that he or she cannot go out into the world spending emotional energy in the effort to be liked, to be smart, to be important.

The wise negotiator knows that only one person in a negotiation can feel okay, and that person is the adversary.

no" gets you past emotional issues and trivial issues to essential issues. We want decision-based negotiation, not the emotion-based waste of time known as win-win.

Embrace "no" at every opportunity in a negotiation. Don't fear the word, invite it. You do not take it as a personal rejection because you are not needy. You understand that every "no" is reversible.

EFFECTIVE NEGOTIATION IS effective decision making, plain and simple, and the foundation of effective decision making is a valid mission and purpose to guide it.

Well, purity - there's no purity in politics.