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Negotiations.
Sep. 12th, 2008 04:37 pmOOC: Crossposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse from Sept 12, 2008.
Prompt 246: What are the five steps to a successful negotiation?
1. Know your opponent. Know what they want and what they are likely to give. It does you no good to go into a negotiation with someone where you're prepared to give them something totally reasonable in exchange for your own totally reasonable request, but they are totally unreasonable and hate you so much they'd sabotage themselves to destroy you.
2. Start from a position of overwhelming force. If that isn't possible, pretend you have a position of overwhelming force. Or if it's pretty obvious that you don't, start from a position of overwhelming rightness, so that anyone who opposes your just and reasonable demands is an idiot. If you have any doubts about what you want, *don't start negotiation.* Or at least put them out of your head.
3. Demand vastly more than you expect to get. That gives you the room to be negotiated down to slightly more than you wanted in the first place.
4. Do whatever it takes to win. Lie, cheat, rig the game? All's fair in love and war, and if a negotiation isn't a war, it's certainly quite close.
5. Stand your ground. When they undercut you to weaken your position, stay even more firm. Often I see people trying to conciliate, to sweeten the deal, because they understand that their position is weak. That's exactly the wrong way to go about it. When you're weakest is when you most need to pretend your strength is incomparable.
If you don't think you can do these things, don't start. You won't win. Taking less than you meant to get is a blow to your self esteem that will make it harder for you to win the next one. If you can't win, don't play; that saves your strength for the ones you *can* win.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG
theatrical_muse from Sept 12, 2008.Prompt 246: What are the five steps to a successful negotiation?
1. Know your opponent. Know what they want and what they are likely to give. It does you no good to go into a negotiation with someone where you're prepared to give them something totally reasonable in exchange for your own totally reasonable request, but they are totally unreasonable and hate you so much they'd sabotage themselves to destroy you.
2. Start from a position of overwhelming force. If that isn't possible, pretend you have a position of overwhelming force. Or if it's pretty obvious that you don't, start from a position of overwhelming rightness, so that anyone who opposes your just and reasonable demands is an idiot. If you have any doubts about what you want, *don't start negotiation.* Or at least put them out of your head.
3. Demand vastly more than you expect to get. That gives you the room to be negotiated down to slightly more than you wanted in the first place.
4. Do whatever it takes to win. Lie, cheat, rig the game? All's fair in love and war, and if a negotiation isn't a war, it's certainly quite close.
5. Stand your ground. When they undercut you to weaken your position, stay even more firm. Often I see people trying to conciliate, to sweeten the deal, because they understand that their position is weak. That's exactly the wrong way to go about it. When you're weakest is when you most need to pretend your strength is incomparable.
If you don't think you can do these things, don't start. You won't win. Taking less than you meant to get is a blow to your self esteem that will make it harder for you to win the next one. If you can't win, don't play; that saves your strength for the ones you *can* win.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG