What is your definition of negotiation?

How we define things is important because our definitions govern our behavior.  If you define success as being rich, all your behaviors and decisions will focus on making money.  If your definition of success is feeling fulfilled everyday of your life, then your behaviors would obviously be quite different.  This example is a relative one, so consider an objective one – one that anyone in business has to confront multiple times in a career (sometimes including getting the job in the first place).  Consider the definition of “negotiation.” For most, it’s a conversation or series of offers aimed at reaching an agreement between two or more parties.  But what if there was a different, better definition that could lead to greater success (regardless of how you define success).

I had the honor of spending a day with William Ury, author of Getting to Yes, The Power of a Positive No (among other best sellers) and co-founder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation.  Ury is the guru of negotiating theory, having lead negotiations between companies and nations.  He knows more than anyone what it takes to have a successful negotiation and it starts with how you define the word.

“The purpose of negotiation is not to reach an agreement,” says Ury, “it’s to discover if you can satisfy your intentions with the opportunity at hand.”

Ury’s definition is so simple and its impact profound.  So often in negotiations, we sit down with a set of things we want and some we’d be willing to give up to “make the deal.”  Such a vantage, more often than not, creates an adversarial or competitive dynamic.  A series of pushes and pulls.  Offers and counter offers.  Though a deal may be reached, how much trust was exchanged? Any opportunity that requires “negotiation” should be treated as an investigation rather than a barter.

When Ury talks about “intentions” he’s talking about your Why – the purpose, cause or belief that you and/or your organization exist to champion. Not until two parties know their own Why and can establish that their intentions are the same (which has nothing to do with making more money or growing the business - those are results), can a negotiation achieve it’s best potential.  In fact, a successful negotiation may result in a decision to do business together another day.

I’ll share a personal example:

My Why, my intention as Ury calls it, is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them – this factors into any negotiation I have.  To start, I prefer to do business with people who share my intention.  It means we're at the negotiating table for the same purpose.  For me to fulfill my intention, I want to have access to people – lots of them – to share my message, to inspire.   I’m completely open to how I can fulfill that intention (speaking, press, blog, book, writing and so on).  This is the reason I negotiate in the first palce - to hear the ideas and offers others may have on how they can help me and how I, in turn, can help them.

Recently, a company wanted to hire me to help them find their Why.  We have flat rates for such a service, but they wanted to "negotiate."  They offered me use of their yacht in exchange for a reduction in the cost.  It was an easy negotiation, we rejected the offer outright.  A boondoggle on a yacht for a weekend does nothing to help me advance my cause, certainly not more than the fee that could be reinvested in the cause.  On another occasion, a non-profit with a small budget invited me to speak to a room of 400 business owners and press.  It was an easy negotiation.  I did it pro-bono.  In this case, the opportunity was a perfect vehicle to help me fulfill my intention – to live my Why.  To inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

Only because I use every negotiation to evaluate if the opportunity will help advance my cause have I been able to actually advance my cause.  If I had focused on the money or perks alone, I would have missed out on some amazing opportunities.  In fact, if it was just the money and not the cause, I would have missed an opportunity to work with an organization that shares my intention that ultimately lead to the introduction to William Ury...a man whose intention is to connect people and civilizations, step by step, so that we can create a more peaceful world to live in.  And that's pretty inspiring.