ABSTRACT
Project together with the other well-known model of negotiation: that of adversarial negotiation.
It is important to understand that whilst this chapter can provide some useful hints on how to negotiate, no literature can substitute for experience. It is only through practice that negotiators can become better negotiators. Armed with the various bodies of theory on negotiation, a negotiator can improve with each negotiation to a point where he or she displays a high rate of settlement. There is no rulebook for negotiation – only theory and practice. Negotiations tend to display their own individual attributes and may leave the negotiator with the feeling that he or she could have done something different so that a better outcome could have been achieved. Reading about negotiation is nothing more than supplying willing listeners with a negotiator’s ‘tool bag’ full of negotiating techniques or tools. During any given negotiation, a negotiator will almost certainly need to reach into the tool bag and take out a negotiating tool. The benefit of dealing with a skilled negotiator is that he or she will have many tools in the negotiation tool bag. If one tool does not work, then there are others just waiting to be tried. It is rare that a skilled negotiator will not have some form of success using the vast array of negotiating tools available. In this respect, negotiation is best characterised as a process conducted ‘by the seat of one’s pants’. In other words, there are many unexpected twists and turns in any negotiation and a skilled negotiator is generally prepared to deal with anything that can happen.
