Thank Goodness It's Monday #355

HOW TO LINK ISSUES

AND REACH A CONSTRUCTIVE AGREEMENT

One step at a time is generally prudent advice. However … 

“Counterwork your rivals

with diligence and dexterity,

but at the same time

with the utmost personal civility to them:

and be firm without heat.”

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 

(1694-1773)

4th Earl of Chesterfield  

gave his son that advice

in a letter dated 

26 September 1752

Linking issues during a negotiation can often get you better results than you could achieve by treating them separately, one at a time.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Linking simply means tying together an agreement on one issue to an agreement on one or more other issues. 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: There a number of circumstances in which a “linking move” can improve your performance during negotiations and help you get a better deal.

Here are three simplified situations to start your mental wheels turning. 

● Linking can help you overcome areas of negotiating weakness.  Successful negotiators often link an issue on which they are weak to an issue on which they’re strong.

Example: Assume that a long-time customer is trying to negotiate a new contract with the supplier, and the seller has tried to strengthen his bargaining position by bringing up that the purchaser’s company was slow in paying the seller’s invoices over the past year.

To offset this, the purchaser might reply, “Since you’re bringing up the issue of my company’s slow payment, let’s also discuss why your company had such poor delivery performance and why there were so many backorders.”

By linking these issues, the would-be buyer moves his negotiating position from one of relative weakness to one of parity, and quite possibly to one of relative strength.

●Linking can force the opposition to deal with certain issues on your terms.  This approach was used by a woman who was being interviewed for a mid-level management position.

Case in point: She had an impressive track record, and the company made her an attractive job offer that she was eager to accept.  She knew, however, that her success with the new company would be determined, at least in part, by the operating budget she would be given to get the job done.

Rather than accept the offer an outright, she linked her acceptance of the job to the company’s acceptance of an operating budget she envisioned.  Management looked over her proposal and agreed it was reasonable. 

If she had tried to negotiate the budget after she accepted the job offer, her negotiating leverage would have been greatly diminished, and the results might not have been nearly as favorable. 

●Linking can force concessions from your opponent.  Another way of using linking strategy is to tie one issue to another, then claim that your opponent’s position on the issues, as a package, is not acceptable.

Example: A purchasing agent could say to a seller, “I can live with your payment terms, but not at that price.” If the seller wants the deal badly enough, he’ll concede on the payment terms or the price.

If, however, the seller holds firm on both issues -- but still shows signs of wanting an agreement -- the would-be dealmaker could then link a third issue to the other two and try to gain a concession.

He might say, “At that price and under those payment terms, you have to hold more inventory and I have to have faster delivery; then I might be able to agree. Is that doable?”

See the connection? Linking issues together in this manner is usually quite successful, because it provides a negotiation opponent with an opportunity to concede something and still feel good about the deal.

On the downside: Linking can also work against you. It can give your opponent an opportunity to use a minor disagreement on one piece as a means to force you to make a concession on any linked issues. If the issues aren’t linked, but are dealt with separately, an opponent can’t prevent agreement on one issue by objecting to another.

One last point: And maybe, if you’re on the verge of what you expect to be an intense negotiation, it should be --

Your first point: It’s prudent to agree that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That way all parties can advance in a negotiation with the expectation that, when they do make or gain concessions, those accommodations will have been made in good faith and will stick.

Wouldn’t you agree? (And in a linking move, if you do agree, you may stop reading this TGIM right after the Post Script.)

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S. “If you come to a negotiation table saying you have the final truth, that you know nothing but the truth and that is final, you will get nothing.” Finnish politician Harri Holkeri said that.