At the end of the day, all negotiators want to achieve the same thing: a good deal. The question that we all face is just exactly how go about making this happen in our next negotiation. No matter what negotiation styles or negotiating techniques are being used in a negotiation, there is one skill that we all need in order to be able to make that good deal happen: tenacity.
What Is Tenacity In A Negotiation?
If we take a look in the dictionary in order to find out what tenacity is, they will tell us that its:
te•nac•i•ty təˈnasitē/ noun
the quality or fact of being able to grip something firmly; grip.
So what we’re really talking about here is your ability to hold on to something. In the case of a negotiation, that means that you want to hold on to the successful deal that you know that you can get.
The reason that you’re going to want to be tenacious in a negotiation is because you are in the process of trying to sell something to the other side of the table. You want to sell them on both yourself and your ideas. They may not initially accept either of these items. When that happens, it’s going to be your tenacity that will see you though.
Every negotiation has its own set of difficult circumstances. This can actually work to your benefit. When everyone else views a negotiation as containing insurmountable challenges, they won’t show up to participate in the negotiations. This can open the door for you. If you show up with determination and tenacity then you’ll be able to make your way through the difficult issues and will be able to make the deal successful.
How Can You Use Tenacity In A Negotiation?
Just deciding to be tenacious is a good first step. However, it’s not enough. The real trick to being tenacious is knowing when and how to use this skill. If you can master both of these aspects of tenacity, then you will have developed a skill that you can use in every negotiation.
Tenacity should be used in a negotiation when one or more of the parties involved starts to doubt that a deal can be reached. The reasons for this can be many – all of a sudden the open issues will just start to appear as though they are unsolvable. When this happens, many negotiators will just give up and call it quits. If you have tenacity, then you’ll be willing to make the investment that it’s going to require to move through these issues and reach a deal with the other side.
How to use tenacity is something that often is unclear to negotiators. What has to be done is that the negotiations have to be expanded. This includes expanding both the amount of time and the amount of effort that you are willing to invest into the negotiations. What you always need to keep in mind is that in order to make this deal happen, you always need to be selling both yourself and your ideas.
What Does All Of This Mean For You?
All negotiators want the same thing – a good deal to be the result of any principled negotiation. In order to make this happen, we need to have the ability to stick with a negotiation no matter how difficult it may appear. What we need is tenacity.
Tenacity is the ability to hold on to the deal that you want to achieve no matter what else is going on in the negotiations. We need to realize that in every negotiation there will be a set of circumstances that show up that can make reaching a deal look impossible. Using your tenacity you’ll be able to stay with it and keep working towards the deal that you know is possible.
In order to use tenacity in a negotiation you need to understand where it is best used and how to use it. The best place to use tenacity is when things look the darkest. Tenacity is best used when it looks like there is no way that both parties are going to be able to bridge the divide that exists between them. In order to use tenacity you need to be willing to expand the negotiations to include more time and effort.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™
Question For You: How can you use tenacity to speed a negotiation up and reach a deal faster?
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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
We often spend time talking about the negotiation styles or negotiating techniques that should be used in our next negotiation; however, we rarely ever spend any time talking about .how fast the negotiations should go. Should you next negotiation be a fast negotiation or a slow negotiation?