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Collaborative negotiation style: an example (collaborative VS competitive)
Whenever I encounter people who do good work and with whom I see myself working again, I like to negotiate in collaborative mode.
Albeit it does not always and necessarily lead to better prices, collaborative mode can reach faster resolution, as well as setting up the foundations for longer-term win-win:
He is probably not used to this approach:
Cialdini says that giving concessions make for better negotiation results, and this is a way of starting with a concession (an emotional one).
However, negotiation strategies' effectiveness are not easy to measure.
It would be interesting to run an experiment with several hundred exchanges with the exact same sentences representing a collaborative approach, and a competitive one. And then see what are the average savings at the end of the experiment.
Ideally, the same could be done with the same subjects as well, in succession, since this experiment could be run in real life (if there is anyone from university with a research budget reading here, feel free to get in touch, happy to participate :).
It's certainly possible that the competitive approach might in the end lead to bigger savings -albeit I'm not convinced about that, as it also depends on how you phrase both approaches, and how many rounds you go for-.
What's not as easily accounted for, is the monetary value of the relationship.
For that, one should measure, say, 10 follow-up exchanges, and account for a lot more variables.
Things like:
- How more quickly will the people you collaborated with come through for you
- How more precise will they try to be with their work
- How long would they keep on working on tough issues before throwing in the towel
- How less often you have to call them back because they're not cutting as many corners
And as well, how less likely will be they be to try some shenanigans.
I guess the advantage there is heavily skewed in favor of the collaborative approach.
With the caveat, of course, that you're collaborative high-power.
Collaborative push-over would probably leave way too much pie on the table to make the two approaches even comparable, and might also invite abuse from less scrupulous folks.
Personally, I believe that in the long run the collaborative approach pays off.
LIFESTYLE APPROACH
Beyond "what would work best", which is a matter of academic curiosity, this is not just about maximizing self-interest for me.
To me, this a personal choice with which to relate to others, and to the world.
People who give great value deserve to be treated well, in my opinion, and they deserve their fair share of profit.
I'd probably stick to this attitude most of the times even if the aggressive "squeeze all the value" approach resulted in better monetary gains -because life is more than just monetary gains-.
