Strategies and Tactics
for Difficult Cases
Second Edition: 2015
Copyright © 2008 by Matthias Schranner.
All rights reserved.
www.schranner.com
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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info@Schranner.com
Book design by Stefan Melzer
Edited by Susanne Bunzel-Harris
Page layout by Franzis print & media
All graphics: Stefan Melzer
Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck
Printed in Germany
ISBN 978-3033031869
eISBN 978-3982034133
To the best negotiator in the world:
My Son Marco
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Seven Principles for Negotiations on the Edge
Notes on the language in the book
Principle No. 1: Analyzing the negotiation partner
Analysis of the negotiation partner prior to the negotiation
What are the positions and the motives of the negotiation partner?
What are the contents your negotiation partner expects?
Procure all the important information
Have your negotiation partner observed
Tips for the preparation of a negotiation
Analysis of the negotiation partner during the negotiation
Use analytic listening
Analyze your negotiation partner’s language
Selling and negotiating
The right solution for the right motive
Fewer reservations
Structure of the questions
Becoming aware of motives
Let’s suppose …
Analyze the body language of your negotiation partner
Analysis of the body language
Principle No. 2: Pursue your target with a clear strategy
The Strategy
Strategy no. 1: Exerting pressure
Strategy no. 2: Evasive maneuvering
Strategy no. 3: Giving In
Strategy no. 4: Integration negotiation
Strategy no. 5: The compromise
Which strategy should you use?
How important is the agreement to you?
Where lies the power?
What mutual interests are there?
What is your personal relationship with your negotiation partner?
What should the relationship with your negotiation partner look like after the negotiation?
The tactic
Tactic no.1: Embrace
Tactic no.2: Precedent
Tactic no.3: Untruth
Tactic no.4: Promises
Tactic no.5: Meet at the half-way point
Tactic no.6: Flatteries
Tactic no.7: Good cop/bad cop
Tactic no.8: Seating chart
Tactic no.9: Referring to a higher authority
Tactic no. 10: Setting a time
You decide for how long a subject is negotiated
You decide how to divide the time in a way that’s favorable to you
Your decide when an adjournment makes sense
Principle no. 3: Convince with the Right Arguments
Let your negotiation partner speak first
Communicate the benefit for your negotiation partner
Focus on a target range instead of a target point
Pay attention to the principle of reciprocity
Name as few arguments as possible
Name your strongest argument first
How many arguments do you need?
Speak the language of your negotiation partner
Convince through emotional language
Pick up your negotiation partner’s argumentation
Focus on your negotiation partner’s weakest argument
Highlight the importance of your arguments and not their accuracy
Only say what you wanted to say
If you don’t have anything to say – say nothing
Principle no. 4: Take the Leadership in the Negotiation
How stress affects your performance
Recognize stress and make use of it
Enter the stands
Avoid the instinct trap
If you are attacked, don’t react
Do not work on your negotiation partner’s actions but work on your own reaction
Hand the problem over
Principle no. 5: Show your power
Become aware of your power!
Show your power!
You can think about the following questions during the preparation phase:
Make sure the negotiation cannot fail!
Negotiations with individuals you don’t like
Negotiations with irrational individuals
Negotiations with arrogant individuals
Negotiations with individuals who seem powerful
Negotiating with groups
What are you? What is your role?
How can you recognize the individual positions?
Important methods for negotiations with groups
Negotiations with drug addicts
Principle no. 6: Break Any Resistance
Warn your negotiation partner
The warning
The threat
Never push your negotiation partner into a corner
Emotionalize your warning
The following questions proved successful for this method:
Do not win against him, win him for you
Demonstrate your decisiveness
Your warning is ignored
Make your warning come true
Offer alternatives to your negotiation partner to keep face
What if your negotiation partner fails to cross the bridge
What if your negotiation partner does cross the bridge
Principle no. 7: Make Sure the Agreement is Kept
After the execution of the agreement: Trust is good – control is even better
Prepare a detailed write-up of the agreement so that there is no room for interpretation
Make the agreement in writing
Reassure your negotiation partner that he made the right decision
Epilogue
Summary and Work Manual
Literature
Schranner Negotiation Institute
As a police officer, drug enforcement agent and trainer for negotiation techniques at the training institute of the Ministry of the Interior, I was confronted with the most difficult of negotiations. I negotiated mainly with kidnappers, bank robbers and drug dealers.
After my studies I decided to make my experiences of the most difficult negotiations accessible to managers. In this book I recount my personal negotiation results for the first time and give you tips on how to master your difficult negotiations. Negotiations always follow the same principles, no matter if you negotiate with your partner or with difficult customers. You always try to feel like a winner. It is almost always true that the wishes of one partner do not match the wishes of the other. The conflict as such is not a problem at first. Many conflicts can be solved by negotiations. The difficulties start when one partner wants to win by all means and thereby drives the other partner into the role of a loser. When that happens there can be no more satisfactory agreement. Then, there will be war – marriage war, price war, war with weapons.
The objective is a satisfactory agreement
Every day we are negotiating with our partners on purchasing, finances, raising our children, on who is to take the trash out and who is to wash the car. We negotiate with our children about when they have to tidy their rooms, when they have to do their homework and when they have to go to bed. We negotiate with our bosses when we want to leave earlier, when we work on a project or when we want a pay rise. We consider most of these negotiations as normal.
We know how to best master these everyday situations. After several tries we have a main connecting thread ready in our mind which almost always works. Yet this central idea does not apply to all negotiations. Most negotiations can be classified as normal, some are difficult. The only difference is our judgment. It becomes difficult if we cannot analyze and judge the negotiation partner or the situation. Maybe our lack of information or our lack of negotiation skills will make us unsure of ourselves. Possibly, we are simply scared of the consequences or of our negotiation partner’s presumed or real power.
There are numerous guides that offer negotiation support. Most guides provide support for when the negotiation partner is going along, if he is also convinced of the benefit of a satisfactory agreement and is therefore cooperating constructively. Nevertheless, if the negotiation partner no longer plays along and thinks he can win without us, we need a successful strategy. Negotiations on the Edge is the right guide for tough negotiations. I have applied all these strategies and tactics successfully in my negotiations with hostage-takers and managers in the past.
In this book you will discover the “7 Principles for negotiations on the edge”.
• How you analyze your negotiation partner before and during the negotiation;
• How you formulate your goal and use the perfect strategy and tactics;
• How you convince with the proper and correct arguments;
• How you take the leadership within the negotiation;
• How you show and prove your power;
• How you break your negotiation partner’s resistance;
• How you make sure that the agreement is kept.
What you are now holding in your hands and reading is a perfect guide for achieving a satisfactory agreement if your negotiation partner is cooperating constructively.
In addition, you will find out how to proceed if your negotiation partner refuses to cooperate constructively.
In the appendix of this book there is a work manual which will help you navigate through a negotiation step-by-step.
What should I have called the negotiation partner? An opponent, an opposite party, an adversary? I decided to use the neutral term “negotiation partner” because language creates awareness. Every person you are negotiating with should be basically your partner on the way to a satisfactory agreement. Even if he starts to be unfair, he is still your partner because without him you will not achieve a long-term and satisfactory agreement. Any hard formulations like “opponent” or “enemy” already imply the desire to win or to serve a destructive blow. However, victory is not the objective of a negotiation because there are no winners without losers. Hence, the victory in one negotiation often just prepares the ground for the next tough negotiation.
For reasons of readability, I limited the use of gender pronouns to “he”, “him”, “his”, etc. However, whenever I use the male form, the female form is implied as this book applies to both men and women. In my experience with the police force I mostly negotiated with men, but there are many tough women negotiators out there as well.
In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
If you want to prepare your negotiations well, you need knowledge-knowledge about your negotiation partner, the employees, the company and social environment. If you expect a tough negotiation you need more knowledge than your negotiation partner. You arrive at this knowledge by way of a thorough analysis before and during the negotiation.
• What are the positions and the motives of your negotiation partner?
• What are the contents your negotiation partner expects?
• Procure all the important information.
• Have your negotiation partner observed to gather additional information.
• Use analytic listening
• Analyze your negotiation partner’s verbal language
• Analyze your negotiation partner’s body language
With a thorough preparation, you may define the priorities and the dynamics you wish to assign to the negotiation. Some negotiators think they are well prepared if they know what they want to achieve and what to abandon. However, this kind of preparation on positions only leads to a negotiation on positions.
A position is the presented standpoint.
A position is the standpoint with the requests and statements that your negotiation partner is presenting.
A hostage-taker has the following demand as his position: He wants money and a getaway car if he is to let the hostage go. If he does not get the money and the getaway car he is going to shoot the hostage.
A police officer negotiating with him takes the opposite position. He is there to keep law and order. Hostage-taking is a felony; the police must arrest criminals and lock them up. Besides, a police officer must ensure the protection and safety of the hostage.
If we are now looking at both positions, no agreement is possible. The hostage-taker wants to walk off with the money and the police officer is not allowed to let the felon get away. But behind the positions there are still motives.
Analyze the motives behind the positions
It is important to find out about the motives of the other party. It is your task to analyze your negotiation partner’s motives.
The motives of your negotiation partner are – regardless of his position – the things he needs or the things he is worried about.
The so-called Harvard Concept illustrates the difference between motives and positions with a very good example.
Two children are fighting about an orange. One of them wants the peel to bake a cake and the other one wants the fruit to squeeze the juice from it. Both children insists on their position: “I want the orange!” In the end, they agree to share the orange. Therefore both of them had underlying motives which could have been satisfied more easily, if one child had got the fruit and the other one the peel.
Your negotiation partner communicates his position, i.e. his standpoint, with requests and allegations.
Do not focus on his position but on his motives.
In your preparation phase, do not concentrate on the position – neither on yours nor that of your negotiation partner.
Do not formulate any demands
If you have your position in your mind you will formulate demands instead of motives. Most of the time, demands set limits. As soon as your negotiation partner hears of a demand with a limit he will emphasize his position more strongly and communicate a limit himself. After all, he does not want to lose. Therefore we end up in the middle of a so-called “trench warfare” where everyone dig their own trench and only poke their head out – as opposed to coming out.
Both parties are compelled to stand their ground by insisting that their position is the only correct one. Such a power struggle puts a lot of pressure on the relationship between the negotiation partners.
Price discussions very often follow these lines. The customer is requesting a limit and the salesperson is jumping on the bandwagon and formulating a limit himself. Somewhere down the line both will eventually agree upon a price which is probably half-way in between the former positions.
Formulate your motives
If you are not certain whether you are dealing with a position or a motive, you should check if there is more than one possibility of satisfaction. If there is only one possibility, it is a position. For instance, this is the case if a customer wants a 20% discount from you. He requests 20%, and that’s it! If he says he wants good value for his money, it is a motive. In that case you can decrease the price or increase the performance.
Once you have identified a motive your work is only beginning. It is up to you to analyze the methods yet concealed.
Example:
A hostage-taker once abducted a woman and barricaded himself and the woman in the woman’s apartment. He contacted the police and demanded a ransom of 1 million Euro plus a fast getaway car with a full tank of gas.
Let’s now suppose you are the police negotiator in charge of the negotiations with the hostage-taker. How would you proceed? The location is of course surrounded and secured, neighbors have been evacuated, snipers have taken position on the surrounding rooftops.
What is the dialogue strategy by which you are approaching this hostage-taking? You will work on gaining time and build up an interpersonal relationship. All of these actions are certainly the right thing to do, but – what are the questions you are going to ask the hostage-taker, what are the inquiries you’ll make? Are you discussing the ransom with him; are you trying to negotiate the amount? Are you negotiating about the getaway car? How about a BMW or a Mercedes?
The crucial question is – Why did the man take the hostage in the first place? Does he really just for once want some money and drive a fancy car? What are the motives behind his position?
The real-life version:
A hostage-taker demanded money and a getaway car. A team of experts, including one of my ex-colleagues, were negotiating. It turned out that the hostage-taker’s girlfriend had jilted him. When she left him she told him that he was not a “real man”. He felt compelled to prove to his ex that he really was a “real man” after all. Real men are strong and have everything under control. So he decided to take a hostage. The perpetrator wanted to be respected by his ex, he wanted affection and attention. This was the motive behind his position.
What would have happened if there had been negotiations regarding the ransom and the getaway car? The negotiations would have been directed at the wrong issue. The hostage-taker explained what he wanted, that was his position. But he did not say why he wanted to have it. Probably, he couldn’t have anyway. He demanded money and a getaway car. But what he really needed was affection and approval. The negotiation team then arranged for a phone call to the hostage-taker’s ex-girlfriend who assured him of her approval. His motive was recognized and dealt with accordingly.
Every negotiation starts with a motive. Everyone involved has obviously motives which he wants to see satisfied in a negotiation. If the other party correctly recognizes and considers the motives, it is possible to move from a mere struggle for resources to a mutually beneficial deal. In doing so, the negotiation expands from one subject (the ransom) to several subjects (motives). To make such a deal work, both parties must have more unfulfilled wishes, which can be real or created just for this occasion.
With optimal preparation, attentive observation and skilful questions before and during the negotiation, you will detect needs and motives.
The hostage-taker’s reason for action was not obvious at first glance. In other negotiations, too, the most important motives often have no detectable connection to the negotiations and must be brought into context first.
Every individual has motives. According to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy (1954)2, a representative of humanistic psychology, every individual has basic needs and, moving further, motives.
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Any given level within the Hierarchy is only reached once the needs of the next-lower level have been satisfied to some degree. On the other hand, the wishes that have already been satisfied lose their importance for the behavior of a person. According to the principles of the Maslow-Hierarchy, the hierarchy level that the person occupies at any given moment is critical at that moment. We will find that the basic needs like eating, drinking and sleeping (experts are still discussing whether sex is a basic need) are satisfied in most of our negotiation partners.
The second level according to Maslow is the need for protection and safety. People strive to minimize their fear of an uncertain future. Of course, this does not mean that everyone wants to live a life without any risks. Everybody has different ideas about how much risk they are willing to tolerate. Once we get past our personal risk threshold, safety becomes a significant motivation. Translated into terms of daily life, this level is about a secure job and income. If the need for protection and safety is satisfied for the present moment and the foreseeable future, the motives on the third level, according to Maslow, turn towards the social environment. We all want contact with other people and experience friendship, love and acceptance by others. Particularly, the inclusion in a group is an important motive which all of us pursue – consciously or unconsciously. Even a loner wants to belong to a group, just a very small one consisting of other loners. The next step after integration into society – level 4 of the Hierarchy – is the aim for a prestigious role.
The acceptance as a person should be followed by the recognition of personal accomplishments and abilities. Whether you call it respect, status, good reputation, the objectives at this level have many names, but they all have one thing in common – the respect by others increases our self-esteem3. We feel better when we are successful and are being promoted because of it, when we can afford a new car or a bigger house. A higher income almost never serves the goals of levels 1 and 2, but the satisfaction of the motives on levels 3 and 4.
At the top of the Hierarchy we find personal motives which are no longer related to society but to selfhood. The benchmark here is no longer the group but one’s own potential. On this motivation level we aim for personal fulfillment and self-actualization. We want to achieve everything we believe we are capable of. The motives on this level are very different from person to person and can range from owning a yacht to living like a monk in a Tibetan monastery. They do have one thing in common, though – they correspond to the individual’s goal in life and must therefore be taken very seriously.
Example:
A media report about the war in former Yugoslavia there talked about the food supplies and feeding of the inhabitants of Sarajevo. There was a long line of people waiting for a bowl of soup at the Red Cross soup kitchen, which was right next to the so-called “Sniper Alley” in town. Crossing this infamous road meant putting one’s life in danger. At this time, snipers were firing at everyone who attempted to cross the road. Nevertheless, inhabitants were taking a high risk to get a bowl of soup. A camera team wanted to interview a bearded old man waiting in line. As soon as they were aiming the camera towards the old man, he turned away and said, “Do not interview me, I’m so ashamed. Before the war, I was a respected professor at the university and now I line up here for a bowl of soup.”
Before the war started, this man had reached the top of Malsow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Eating, drinking, protection and safety as basic needs were satisfied. Social contacts, recognition and self-actualization were guaranteed. Now, standing at this soup kitchen, he no longer cared for self-actualization, recognition or social contacts. He even gave up protection and safety in order to satisfy his basic needs of eating and drinking.
For negotiations, this Hierarchy gives us crucial hints on the motives our negotiation partner might have.
The hostage-taker from the previous example wanted to satisfy his needs for recognition by all means. His desire for money was nothing but a false position. It is therefore extremely important to analyze the real motives of our negotiation partners.
Let’s assume that one of your employees wants a pay raise from you. It is now up to you to analyze your employee’s motives.
Put yourself in the position of your employee – does he need more money because he has moved? Was he “forgotten” at the last round of promotions? Is he given too little responsibility? For each of these motives, a different kind of reaction is possible. If your employee earns not enough money to support his family, a pay raise would be the proper reaction. If he, however, needs more money to buy insurance for his children, offering him an in-house insurance might satisfy his motives. If the employee often feels left out by his colleagues, integration in an important work group or invitations to business luncheons would be the right alternative. If your analysis shows that he wants a pay raise in recognition for his work, visible signs of acknowledgement like a larger office or a larger company car might be more significant than more money.
Perhaps your employee equates a pay raise with trust in his person. You could demonstrate trust by giving him more responsibilities, thus giving him the chance for self-actualization in the company. On the basis of the following graphics you can see five fundamentally different reactions to the same request.
The employee requests a 10 percent pay increase. Your reaction reflects the respective level of the Hierarchy according to Maslow:
The same request leads to five different reactions.
Self-actualization? Let him work more with more responsibility
Recognition? Larger office, larger company car
Social needs? Integration in important work groups
Protection and safety? Offer in-house insurance
Basic needs? Grant a pay raise
The same starting position leads to five different reactions. The reactions on levels 2 to 5 are more effective for your company and most of the time more beneficial than the pay raise in level 1.