Better Negotiating by Prof. Seth Freeman www.betternegotiating.com
August 2004	Volume 1, Number 1
Inside-  ·Negotiation of the Month ·Skill Building- Using Matchmaking to Find Good Trade Partners ·Links of the Month Monthly Newsletter of Professor Seth Freeman, Contract Professor of Business, Columbia Business school. Reach him at Seth.freeman@gte.net. His website on negotiation is www.betternegotiating.com	Negotiation of the Month Using I FORESAW IT in an Airport Crisis Student Marge Smith* recently had her flight to London cancelled at Newark. Desperate to see her child, she asked for the manager and took 30 minutes to develop an I FORESAW IT plan** as she waited. Among other things, she spotted some hidden interests of the manager which she could appeal to, including his interest in satisfying a customer who had many classmates who traveled regularly by plane. "I also realized I could show empathy to the manager’s situation of having to deal with 250 irate passengers." When they spoke, she appealed to his interests, saying “it would be very "To say I was amazed at this outcome would be putting too fine a point on it…. " good public relations if he could 'do something' for my situation” given her situation and her ability to recommend the airline to classmates. Also, she added,”.…although some of the passengers may prefer to go home on time, many may be on holiday… and glad of the extra time in New York.” To her amazement, “he actually listened and just said he would see what he could do." While he checked she did further factual research and learned about a partner airline that had a flight that day. When he returned and said there was nothing he could do, she reported this new information as an option to him. "He smiled and said I was a very 'difficult & determined' lady to deal with, and 'you are sure getting your dollars worth from that MBA M'am.' He then got her on the flight at no extra cost and even issued her telephone cards to call home. "To say I was amazed at this outcome would be putting too fine a point on it…. Being prepared kept me calm and rational and gave me suggestions to offer the Manager which in the end worked in my favour….The lesson here," she concludes, "is to be prepared, get all the factual information you can get your hands on. Use all the resources available to you, friends, telephone, and written information. Seek someone, a decision maker who can actually influence your situation." ________________ *I changed her name here for the sake of privacy, **I FORESAW IT is a mnemonic that lists ten questions a negotiator should ask and answer before a negotiation. See file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/sfreeman/Desktop/olddocs/www.betternegotiating.com for details. Skill Building Using Matchmaking to Find Good Trade Partners Matchmaking means finding someone to negotiate with who's interests and assets compliment your own. It begins when you do factual research to answer to this question:"who needs what I have and has what I need?" For example,a student's firm wanted a strategic ally to help his firm offer customers one-stop shopping.The student's research revealed that there were 500 companies that might be interested, one of which was particularlyattractive."Through research  The meeting "went almost too smoothly. " and planning, I knew going into the meeting that they had no real sales force, had excess capacity, and wanted to establish a name for themselves in this arena...." He found that the firm complemented his firm perfectly- "we do not in any way compete with each other nor is there any overlap in our service offerings."The meeting "went almost too smoothly.I had prepared myself and geared up to negotiate but didn't even get the chance to.We ended up agreeing on all aspects of the alliance.In fact the arrangement ended up better than I had hoped.They are going to start cross-selling our capabilities immediately to their existing customer base...." One way to think about matchmaking is to use I FORESAW IT mnemonic.Rather than planning for a specific negotiation with a specific counterparty, you start by listing your Interest(s) and then you listthe interest(s) of your ideal negotiating partner- interest(s) your firm can easily satisfy. Be sure to list common interests too. Then you do matchmaking Factual research by answering the question, "who needs what I have and has what I need?"(Notice that as you develop your list you are automatically developing your Alternatives to Agreement). Once you identify the candidate who best compliments you, you can fine tune your preparation by focusing on the rest of the mnemonic- developing specific Options, Targets, and so forth.For more information, visit www.betternegotiating.com. Links of the Month Job Offer Negotiation; Conflict Management; Prof. Freeman's website  ·Leigh Thompson, a professor at Northwestern University, has a nice web page on job offer negotiation.It'shttp://www.leighthompson.com/books/MindandHeart_2e/appendix_4.htm ·Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado offers an excellent site with dozens of very short, pithy essays on different ways to manage conflict better. Valuable for practical and theoretical insight.http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/ · Seth Freeman's webpage offers articles, links, information about training, and other useful information for negotiators. file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/sfreeman/Desktop/olddocs/www.betternegotiating.com