1. Assume you will be negotiating with this person again. Act accordingly.
2. Know your priorities and have a sense of theirs before the negotiation.
3. If the negotiation is complex, start with areas of overlapping interests where agreement should, in theory at least, be easier.
4. You almost always have time. Excessive pressure to make a deal is usually a warning sign of a bad deal.
5. When you reach an agreement, don’t gloat if it was great or squirm if it wasn’t. Why? See #1 above.
They Asymmetry of Human Communication
The fundamental asymmetry of human communication is this: Building good relationships takes time, but damaging them doesn’t.
The type of strong, thriving, and enriching relationships that we all desire can only be built slowly, over weeks and months and years. But we can seriously damage the very same relationships in seconds with ill-advised or emotionally charged words.
Because of this asymmetry, we should approach human communication with the utmost care and reverence. There is nothing more precious than our closest relationships. And we build, protect, and maintain our closest relationships through our communication.
Coping With Bad Relationships
It seems profoundly unfair, but it is reality: Good relationships get all the breaks and bad ones seem to attract every single problem that passes within a hundred mile radius. The very relationships that need help the most accumulate problem after problem while good relationships keep on humming along.
Keep Conversations From Escalating
The communication skill to learn before any other is containment.
Containment is the ability to prevent issues, problems, and challenges from escalating unnecessarily. And escalation is a grave relational threat that lurks just around the corner in almost every interaction.
Don’t Fall in Love With Your Message
Even the class clown knows that when a conversation is important, you prepare for it. Preparation is to effective communication like loud is to rock concert—it’s just plain obvious.
But something funny can happen during the preparation phase: We end up falling in love with our message. Once we get the introduction just right, line up our evidence perfectly, and conduct a few flawless rehearsals, we can end up falling head-over-heels in love with our message. U + message = luv 4 ever.