Soft negotiation expert Hilary Gallo has some tips

FEW OF US enjoy negotiating. Even the word can bring up unhelpful memories. We forget that as kids we were pretty good at it. Most things we do in life are really a negotiation of one sort or another. Negotiation is a key life skill and sits at the heart of the way we are in the world. At what point then did we lose the skill and why do some of us avoid it at all costs?

My new project, The Power of Soft, is a new, more human way of dealing with this challenge. I’ve developed this approach after years of negotiating big deals in large companies like Accenture and Capgemini but also through working with primary school children. It’s a philosophy of negotiation that works just the same at school or at home.

What the Power of Soft does is to expose a paradox: that the “tanks on the lawn” combative approach is at the root of the problem. It’s actually only a solution that works for the armourers. This is something those of us with an idling approach have secretly known all along. What happens is that the combative front tends to insulate us from the truth. Behind the hard front we tend to be more vulnerable. Sometimes the more vulnerable we are the harder the front we put up. What this weapons-based strategy does is to put hard and soft the wrong way round. The Power of Soft is there to break through the armour and re-establish the balance.

In this approach, we first of all develop a “Strong Core”. It’s a bit like Pilates for the mind. We can tend to get a bit disconnected from what we really need. I might be on the verge of an argument with my daughter about what time she should be home. Our approach tends to be to take a position about this. My solution is to tell her she needs to be home by 10pm. Focussing instead on what I really need tells me that 10pm is actually irrelevant. What I care about is her doing her homework and getting a good night’s sleep. If I know my real needs, when I come to talk to her, I will have a very different conversation.

Strong Core is also about empowerment and boundaries. If we are a small company negotiating with a big one it’s easy to lose sight of the power we have. There are always ways of maximising our power. A key realisation is that it is not the power you feel you have that matters, it is the power they feel you have. Their perception is more pliable. This approach effectively puts the armour and our boundaries on the inside rather than trying to put them on the outside. Suddenly, we are significantly more powerful than we think and there are almost always more ways of getting what we need. This is the Strong Core.

The best bit comes later. Building inner strength is only the start. Peeling away external armour also allows for a more open, softer front. Once the tanks are off the lawn things can grow again. This is where the Soft comes into play. Here we focus on our awareness; how we see and hear and our relationships; the ultimate key to any consensual negotiation. This is our modern Achilles heel. In our busy lives we can lose focus and miss the things that really matter. This is about the secret art of real persuasion. The last bit of the book is about how we listen and what can stop us from listening.

ENDS

You can watch a video, pledge for and pre-order the book of The Power of Soft here by going to the Unbound website.

Hilary Gallo is an executive coach who likes change, challenge and conflict. He is the founder of a coaching and mediation business – consensum – http://consensum.org.

Hilary is running a negotiation class on our Business for Bohemians course. To find out more, go to the link on the right.