already covered some of the basic, basic ideas which is negotiation is very

normal. It happens in many different ways, in many different places, not just

business, but also in family, everyday life. We've also covered that in negotiation

you need to have a goal. You need to make your goal clear. So if you have a goal,

then what do we look at next? And the next thing we need to look at is this

idea of how to implement that goal, how to make that goal actually happen. So

when we talk about how to make a goal happen, what we're talking about is this

idea of making a plan, making a plan. Now, In business we talk about plans, don't we?

We have a business plan. When we talk about finance, we have some kind of cash

flow plan, how are we going to generate cash flow for the next year. So in

business, we're very used to making plans. It's very normal. However, in negotiation, I

think we often skip over that idea of making a plan. We often just jump into

negotiation because we're always thinking, "I want to get the best. I want

to get more. I want to get a lower price." But if you have a goal, it's very clear.

Now, you need to think how to get from the beginning to the end of that goal,

very important in a business negotiation. And it can help you in a social

negotiation also to understand this idea. Now, it could be a little bit complicated

because maybe you had a business class on strategy before. Maybe you've studied

strategies, a very popular business topic. And there's a lot of thick books, and it

can become very complicated. Well, in this case, I think we're very lucky because

it's not very complicated luckily. So let's go ahead and look at this idea of

making a plan and creating a strategy and executing tactics. So a plan is a way

that you you know get your ideas together, you formalize. Of course, it's

best when you make a plan to discuss with your team members, and to write

things down, so you get clear, and you get unified. Now, for the

plan, you're going to have two basic parts of the plan--your strategy and your

tactics. And remember strategy. Strategy is that overall big picture, the big idea

the big thing you're going to do. And tactics are how do you execute that

strategy. What is the.. what are the behaviors you actually do to accomplish

that. So strategy is the bigger part. Tactics are the specific, smaller part. So

strategy is a kind of plan and it emphasizes, you emphasize this during

your negotiation, but, of course, it's only useful if everyone on your team is on

the same page, and you all know the same strategy. If everybody's mixed up and have

different strategies, it's not going to work. Tactics are the behaviors. And again,

you want to share this with your team because you want your team all to be

using tactics that are helpful. It doesn't mean everyone uses the same

tactic, so that's an interesting point. Of course, everyone's working on the same

strategy, towards the same goal, but then the tactics may differ because different

team members execute different tactics to achieve things or they may be good at

different tactics. Or different players, different, in our game, players, different

negotiators on the team could actually be helping each other by using different

tactics. For example, we say good cop bad cop, right? One person acts tough, one

person acts friendly. That's one kind of way to do it. Okay. So let's think about a

simple example like a child. So, of course, everyone knows this. When you are children,

if you have a brother or a sister, you know that you often have a conflict with

your brothers or sisters. And what do you do? You, of course, appeal to the parents.

you go to your parents and you try to Get what you want from your parents. Now,

how do you do this? Well, your strategy may be emotion. That is a child will use

emotion. And then the tactic may be for example saying, "I love you mommy. Can I

please have this new toy?" So this strategy is the big idea. It's emotion.

And how do you execute it? one is to go tell your mommy you love her so

much or maybe to clean the dishes, wash the dishes and say, "I clean the dishes.

Now, I deserve a reward." So that is a way to execute that strategy. Now in

negotiation, we're quite fortunate that there's a very simple idea here that we

can use. And this is really quite amazing and quite powerful. In negotiation, there

are four basic strategies, and I want you to pay attention because when we

have our RPGs, you need to sit down and think in your group, which one of this is

for you. You can only have one. You can only choose one of these four strategies, and

the beautiful thing is there's only four. So let's take a look at the four core

strategies. Accommodation, collaboration competition, avoidance. So let's take a

look at each one of these very quickly. Accommodation-- so what are we talking

about when we're doing accommodation? Accommodation, of course, means that you

just give in whatever the other side wants. You give it to them. You go ahead

and you give in. Why would you use accommodation? Well, maybe there's some

kind of special situation in accommodation, where if you give in now,

you'll get something later at a different negotiation. Or maybe your

position is just so weak, that you're really not going to gain much or this

negotiation is not very important so you go ahead and give in. Anyway, there are

many reasons. We'll talk about in a minute, but accommodation is one of the

strategies. You give in. The next one is collaboration. Collaboration-- now

collaboration is a way to work together. And it's often, very thought of, very

close to the word cooperation, like cooperation, collaboration, working

together. Avoidance-- of course, avoidance means you don't negotiate at all, and that's

different than collaboration because collaboration is working together. It's

different than accommodation, which means you just give in. And then the last one

is competition, where you try your best to win. So let me see if I can highlight

these. I got a little bit mixed up here, come back here. So we've got

accommodation, you give in. Competition-- you fight for everything you can get.

Collaboration-- you work together, and avoidance-- you just walk away. You don't

negotiate. All right. Let's look at these a little bit closer. Now, the great thing

here is it's actually not hard to figure out. You have two questions to ask. If

you ask these two questions, and you answer them honestly in your team, with

your team members, looking at your company's position, what's our beginning

position? If you answer these questions, you'll have your strategy. There's four

possible answers, right? So four strategies. Let's look first at question

number one. How important is the negotiation outcome to your team? So that

is how important is the outcome? This negotiation, right now, the result of this

negotiation, how important is it? Now, usually, when you work in a company, this

is not up to you. This comes from your boss, from your managers. And they'll tell

you this negotiation is very important. And when we play our RPG, each

negotiation, for each group, is going to have an importance level. So let's say,

for example, this negotiation is just not important. Your company's already making

a lot of money doing something else. This is a small cookie, small potato. It's not a

big deal. So your boss tells you, "I want you to go do this negotiation." But he

does not emphasize this is important or key to the company, so the outcome of

this negotiation is maybe not that important. On the other hand, if the

negotiation is very important because maybe the company is on the verge of

bankruptcy, it's out of money, something's going wrong, so this negotiation is very

important. We have to make money on this negotiaon. The importance is very high. So that

outcome importance is the first question. And you can break it into, you know, just

high or low. It's very important, high or it's not so important, low. Now then

question number two. "How important is it to keep a good relationship with your

counterpart, with the other side" you're negotiating with. How important is that

relationship? So in this case, again, very simple question. I'm negotiating with you.

WWe have a relationship. In the future, are we going to have a relationship? and in

the future is that relationship important? Now, of course, you may think

yes. And I may think yes or you may think no and I think yes or you may think

yes, and I think no. There's all possible combinations, but right now, I'm

just asking myself, my team, how important is this relationship in the future? How

important is this relationship in the future? very important? not important? So,

for example, I'm going to buy from you one time, but there's many suppliers. I

can buy from many, so you know if our relationship is not good, not a big deal.

I'll find another seller that I can buy from. On the other hand, maybe your

product is very special, or has some kind of patent or copyright, and I need to get

it from you. And it's very important to my business. So therefore, I must have a

good relationship with you in the future. So I'm going to do everything I can to

create a good relationship, so that would be high. So we're looking at two

fundamental questions, so simple, so easy. Question one: how important is the

negotiation outcome? question 2: How important is the relationship? You ask

these two questions, and you're going to have your strategy. I'm going to talk

more about that when we have a follow-up. Thank you!