BE POSITIVE?

[symokurka]

Hello evrybody.

At the end of yesterday’s RA meeting I said I disliked the meeting’s “aggressive mood”, and half-jokin’ I offered myself as volunteer for a negotiation skills’ training. Alas I was taken seriously.
Here follow some points for discussion, if anybody is interested.

And yes, I’m always available for a “role playing” session (either at NFS school or better in the amphitheatre.. lol).

A few things about war, negotiation and debate.

When we negotiate we’re not facing an enemy. We should clearly have in mind this point. The enemy belongs to the category of war. In war we have to get the most favourable conditions (in terms of choice of timing and location) to crush our enemy. It’s not the case in negotiation.

On the other hand when we negotiate we are not debating with a friend. We usually debate to demonstrate we are right sustaining a thesis, and to do that we actively use a multiple range of arguments. It’s not the case in negotiation.

When we negotiate we are facing somebody whom we want to “buy” or accept something from us. And he needs us, as we need him, to find a balance between what we are offering and what he would accept from us. The proper name of this guy is a customer. We face potential customers every day in our life, even if we often do not realize it.

What we need in negotiation is to open at its best a strong and unattackable bi-directional communication channel. Therefore the relations’ “mood” should be based on reciprocal trust – respect, listening and understanding others’ points of view. Distrust, suspicion, contempt, fear, and overall deafness are banned.
There’s a simple technique to follow, which is resumed in the following..

12 golden arrows in negotiation

1. Get informed on your customer
2. Let the customer feel at ease
3. Highlight the customer’s assets
4. Ask, ask, ask and explain why you are asking
5. Ask open questions
6. Let the customer speak as long as neede
7. Manage extending positivity
8. Manage avoiding negativity
9. Focus with the customer on his needs
10. Let the customer feel you’re the right person to face his needs
11. If agreement goes right fix immediately the agreed keypoints
12. If agreement goes wrong always leave an open door for next time

[Jamie Palisades]

What a great contribution, Symo. Thanks again for raising the point and offering to be a resource.

CDS is a democracy, and one that operates with some interesting aspects and challenges: it operates remotely across global timezones & cultures; it's a volunteer organzation; and it has whatever special issues of communication, nonverbals, etc. arise due to the Second Life venue. And as virtual worlds go, we're one of the older governments that exist. We ought to lead, and be a testbed and exemplar for good practices, where we can.

I hope we'll be able to find some more acute ways to leverage your suggestions and expertise, and look forward to talking about it again. Cheers JP