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The WHO & WHY of Quantum Negotiation

Harvey was an experienced baby boomer executive for a global manufacturer entering an important M&A negotiation with a digital software company. He had planned extensively around WHAT his targets, limits, and issues were. He put these in context of what he believed Kip, a millennial negotiator for the digital software company, would want. Harvey had always prepared for the Plan B or BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) in every negotiation not only regarding himself but also his counterpart.

On the day of their last negotiation to tie up the agreement, Harvey "lost his cool" and became very angry with Kip. Harvey's manufacturing company wanted to keep Kip on as a partner to integrate digitization for their global products. After many discussions, none of the "extremely generous" offers motivated Kip to sign the agreement to turn over his software company for integration into the manufacturing one.

Harvey was taken off guard by this young "upstart" and was offended that his financial offers were not valued. He had gone to great lengths to give Kip an offer-raising the salary and increasing bonuses for hitting digitization milestones. He made it clear to Kip that he was outraged by Kip's idea to create "happiness committees" around the integration process-he had never heard of such a thing and wasn't about to let his company get distracted by such nonsense. He couldn't believe that Kip was not at all motivated by an impressive substantial salary, financial security, or a new office and desk.

Harvey really needed this deal to work. The next best alternative was not very good and would be much too time consuming. He had to make this work with Kip.

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Anchoring Equilibrium and Achieving Buoyancy

As a sociocentric leader, a Quantum Negotiator leads and negotiates through human impact. The anchor and clarity of their self-interests in the context of their relationships allows them to have a clear understanding of shared needs. Though it may seem obvious initially, it isn't quite as simple as you delve into it. To know what you need and want, why you need it, and how to get it is to know WHO you are on a deeper level.

Quantum Negotiators prepare themselves on five dimensions of their full human experience:

1. Cognitive Dimension: Thinking
2. Emotional Dimension: Feeling
3. Social Dimension: Behaving
4. Physical Dimension: Performing
5. Spiritual Dimension: Believing

The path to anchoring ourselves is grounded by awareness of these dimensions. The ultimate goal is to find equilibrium among all five human dimensions in order to be clear about our own and our counterpart's self-interests and to be buoyant enough to style-shift.

Cognitive

Preparing yourself on the cognitive level requires improvement of your analytical thinking skills and enhancement in your evaluation of competing interests and issues in a negotiation. The emphasis is on the ability to identify your goals and to cement your strategies prior to entering into a negotiation by asking the right questions of both yourself and your counterparts. Quality systematic preparation is key to getting what you want.

Emotional

The ability to identify and manage both your own and your counterparts' emotions effectively during a negotiation is indispensable. Proficiency in the emotional dimension not only allows you to identify and understand your own feelings and motivations during a negotiation, but it also helps you to better manage those of your counterparts. This enhanced understanding allows you to predict and defuse potentially detrimental situations. Taking the time prior to the negotiation to ground yourself and deal with any anxieties will go a long way, and will help you to best communicate what you want and to understand your counterparts.

Social

The social dimension requires discipline and preparation regarding your behavior with others. The skills associated with this dimension also include how to enhance and protect your reputation as a professional by working with your counterparts-not against them-to achieve a mutually beneficial solution. This reputation for trustworthiness and cooperation is a key quality of a Quantum Negotiator, who is mindful of coercive tactics and how ineffective they are in the context of complex relationships.

Physical

Physical preparation is as important as mental preparation for the negotiation process. Negotiation requires a significant expenditure of emotional and physical energy to get desired results, thus a healthy lifestyle is essential to negotiation effectiveness. Working out, eating well, and getting regular sleep are part of the discipline and practices of a Quantum Negotiator. Quantum Leaders understand that these practices can improve negotiation performance.

Spiritual

Getting what you want from a negotiation means nothing if you use tactics and behaviors that run contrary to your values, beliefs, and sense of purpose. Quantum Leaders are able to recognize the broader purpose and meaning that a negotiation has for them. They understand that classic coercive tactics are not merely ineffective, but also not in alignment with their sense of purpose, meaning, and connectivity with others in their lives. Figure 1.1 illustrates the way clarity on all the human dimensions can anchor negotiators.

Figure 1.1 The Quantum Negotiation Anchor.

©2015 Quantum Negotiation

Buoyancy

Buoyancy is having the awareness and clarity about the needs of a negotiator in all five human dimensions. Being aware of and anchoring the five human dimensions ensures that the Quantum Leader has all the necessary skills and experience to meet challenges faced when sharing resources, creating new opportunities, and getting things done. When Quantum Leaders have anchored equilibrium among all five human dimensions, they can be buoyant and can style-shift to build trust with their counterparts. Leaders are in a negotiation when they have something they need and have to work with others to accomplish it. Leaders negotiate all the time under constant demands and limited time and resources.

The Quantum Leader is like a buoy designed for resilience; it is able to right itself in turbulence. Buoys function as markers-signs that help navigators get where they want to go by demarcating both safe and dangerous lanes of travel. The buoy, weighted at the bottom, is kept afloat by the force exerted upward by the weight of the water it displaces. With all its weight essentially concentrated in the bottom, the buoy becomes upended. It is designed to withstand environmental turbulence-wind, waves, tidal currents, the wakes of ships, and storms. The buoy is designed to right itself even during a period of extreme turbulence. It always pops back upright to serve its purpose and fulfill its function.

Quantum Leaders are buoyant. With each of the five human dimensions fully anchored and in balance, such leaders are not disrupted by turbulence and can right themselves after being tossed around, and steadfastly perform the job assigned. Quantum Leaders know the goal and how to reach it. They understand that they may potentially be intended victims of coercive or otherwise unfair tactics, but they know how to navigate this disturbance. If a Quantum Negotiator is off balance in one of the five human dimensions, successful negotiation is often unlikely. Therefore, mindfulness and reflection on these human factors becomes an important strategic requirement.

Why Does Negotiation Often Cause Such Strong Reactions within Us?

As soon as something becomes labeled as negotiation, powerful forces tend to get activated that are not otherwise activated.

When negotiating, we think very quickly about ourselves and our own self-interests. We start making assumptions about our counterparts' intentions-they are trying to take something away from us. As a result we start to feel vulnerable and get self-protective, and our focus turns inward. The instinctive "fight or flight" response is activated, and we either try to beat our counterparts, or avoid negotiation altogether. Filled with defensiveness and fear, our emotions can quickly boil over.

We feel vulnerable on multiple levels. On the physical dimension, our bodies can get stressed out. On the spiritual dimension, we may feel that our goals are being threatened. On the social dimension, we may feel a sense of alienation and conflict. These feelings add to the pressures that we can feel when negotiating, and cause us to behave in ways that we normally would not.

In fact, this response is what many negotiation courses exploit. They actually work with and feed that anxiety, essentially saying they'll teach you tricks and tactics and so on. This may temporarily work because they're exploiting the psychological state you're in when making snap assumptions about the other and become insecure about your own skills.

Leaders who understand how egoistic fear and negative emotions could drive them to accommodate, attack, or shy away from challenging situations develop reflection practices to prepare for stressful negotiations. By recognizing egoistic self-interest, Quantum Negotiators can manage the emotions, social...