Tactics for the Negotiation Process

Tactics are a critical element of the negotiating process. But tactics are often not apparent because if they were, the other side would anticipate them and they would not be resourceful. Tactics are more commonly used in distributive negotiations and when the spotlight is on taking as much value off the table as possible.

Commonly used tactics.

• Auction: The bidding process is designed to create competition. When multiple parties want the same thing, pit them against one another. When people know that they may lose out on something, they will want it even more.
• Brinksmanship: Brinkmanship is a type of “hard nut” approach to bargaining in which one party pushes the other party to the “brink” or edge of what that party is willing to accommodate.
• Bogey: Negotiators use the bogey tactic to pretend that an issue of little or no importance to him or her is very important. Then, later in the negotiation, the issue can be traded for a major concession of actual importance.
• Chicken: Negotiators propose extreme measures, often bluffs, to force the other party to chicken out and give them what they want. This tactic can be dangerous when parties are unwilling to back down and go through extreme measures.
• Defense in Depth: Several layers of decision-making authority is used to allow further concessions each time the agreement goes through a different level of authority.
• Deadlines: This method uses the time to apply pressure to the other party. Deadlines given can be actual or artificial.
• Flinch: Flinching is showing a strong negative physical reaction to a proposal. Common examples of flinching are gasping for air or a visible expression of surprise or shock.
• Good Guy/Bad Guy: The good guy/bad guy approach is typically used in team negotiations where one member of the team makes extreme or unreasonable demands, and the other offers a more rational approach. The “good guy” will appear more reasonable and understanding, and therefore, easier to work with.
• Highball/Lowball: Depending on whether selling or buying, sellers or buyers use a ridiculously high, or ridiculously low opening offer that will never be achieved. The theory is that the extreme offer will cause the other party to reevaluate his or her own opening offer and move close to the resistance point. A danger of this tactic is that the opposite party may think negotiating is a waste of time.
• The Nibble: Nibbling is asking for proportionally small concessions that haven’t been discussed previously just before closing the deal. This method takes advantage of the other party’s desire to close by adding “just one more thing.”
• Snow Job: Negotiators overwhelm the other party with so much information that he or she has difficulty determining which facts are important, and which facts are diversions. Negotiators may also use technical language or jargon to mask a simple answer to a question asked by a non-expert.

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