Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
Successful Negotiating
I’m reading a very interesting book called Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin and Robert Cialdini, and I came across a certain reference this morning that caught my attention.
The authors quoted a study in which two groups of MBA students conducted negotiations via e-mail. One group was provided personal information about the person they would negotiate with including a picture, college they attended, interests, etc. and were instructed to get to know that person via e-mail before beginning the negotiation. The other group was given instructions to simply begin negotiations without any additional information.
The group that was not provided any personal info came to an impasse 29% of the time. The group that got to know their negotiating partners via e-mail beforehand came to an impasse only 6% of the time. Additionally the ‘personalized’ group ended up with more beneficial joint outcomes than the ‘depersonalized’ group.
Although the results of this study are not surprising to me, it does reaffirm what we should already know – working with people that you know and like is always easier than working with someone you have never met before, and it’s difficult to like someone if you don’t know anything about them.
If you have a hand in negotiating whether you’re in sales, buying or work with vendors in a different regard, you should always try to spend some time getting to know your client or vendor on a personal level not just because it will make working with him/her more enjoyable, but also because it will make you both more successful.
Posted in: Business by Dan Cassidy @ 11:18 am Permalink |
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