Shani Asaf - Negotiation Manipulation Moves: Smart And Acceptable Manipulation Tactics You Can Employ To Turn The Negotiation Odds In Your Favor

Negotiation Manipulation Moves

Smart And Acceptable Manipulation Tactics You Can Employ To Turn The Negotiation Odds In Your Favor

By Asaf Shani

Editor: Melissa Javellana

Copyright 2014 by Asaf Shani

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Books by Asaf Shani

Conflicts and Negotiations series

Leadership & management series

Children's books: Jade's Life Skills Series

Table of Contents

Foreword

This book is meant to make you a better negotiator by improving your negotiation manipulation moves.

Cards on the table: Manipulation implies trickery, unfairness, and exploitation and no one would like to conduct, or at least admit that he conducts, manipulative negotiation.

For this very reason I admit that after I finished writing this book, I struggled with the question: Should I include the word 'manipulation' in its title? Why, then, did I include it? Because I want to be honest about what this book contains, though dont be quick to judge. The manipulation I discuss here may be very different what you are used to thinking.

I thought about putting the word fair or ethical before manipulation in order to make the book more appealing but I decided against them because they sounded to me like "putting lipstick on a pig".

Because I am trying to create a paradigm shift regarding the way you perceive manipulation and, after all, the book is all about manipulation techniques used in negotiation, I finally decided to take off any make-up and call the book as I did. As my Polish grandfather used to say "vhat the hell".

In this book I claim, and try to demonstrate with real life scenarios, that not only that there is such thing as ethical or fair manipulation. We all use manipulation whether we like to admit it or not. Most importantly, manipulations are vital in the negotiations we face through life. 'Vital' because by cleverly using manipulation moves you'll be able to create long lasting solutions, solutions the other side can feel good with and hence bring stability and facilitate continuity to your relationship with the other side.

I will try to convince you in the book that the question is not whether you should use manipulation moves in your negotiations but rather a rhetorical question: Can you allow yourself not to use them?

As in most of my books, the whole discussion in this books revolves around human characteristics that lay dormant, hidden beneath our consciousnesses. These characteristics can be activated in the service of our psych in order to manipulate ourselves and then the people with whom we negotiate with.

My claim is that pondering the issue of manipulation, understanding what it means exactly and how it is used, will help you better define your ethical manipulation boundaries, arm you with understanding and tools to defend yourself against manipulations done on you and overall make you a far better negotiator.

My promise to you is that when you are done with this book, not only will your negotiation ability be sharper, enabling you to get what you want while keeping the other side satisfied more than you are doing now. You'll be a more ethical negotiator, more accurate in what you do in the course of your daily negotiations.

Manipulation Isn't It Bad?

Imagine you are in the following situation:

An important client calls you, asking you to take 5% off your product's price.

"It's been a tough year and we really need to cut our costs," he explains his request.

You have a long and intimate acquaintance with this client and so you were anticipating this call. You've done your homework and your manager already approved even a higher reduction rate of 7%.

What will you do/say to your client?

A) Give him what he asked a 5% reduction;

B) Light up the angel's halo above your head and tell him you can give him more than he asked, offering the 7% reduction; or

C) Offer him less than he wanted, say only 4% reduction?

I've presented this scenario in many of my workshops whether the workshop was on negotiation skills or on selling techniques, with a varied audience of businessmen, professionals and managers in organizations and all rejected the 7% option.

Most of them explained rejecting the 7% option by saying that their business is a business for profit and therefore there is no justification for cutting their profit margins for the sake of 'good deeds day'. "The client asked for a 5% reduction, so why give him more?' was the common remark.

Indeed, that's an acceptable point of view. Although, sometimes such counterintuitive generosity towards clients might pay itself off in the future tenfold (as it may trigger reciprocity or resonate as a positiv e emotional memory two manipulations that I'll discuss in detail later on), for now, let's regard this tactic in the current discussion.

Yet, there is a more valid reason for withholding the 7% option from your client, a reason that transcends whatever client compensation approach you hold, and that is retaining you client satisfaction.

Step into the clients shoes for a minute and notice how you feel when your account manager says to you, "You know, you are a valued client of ours and hence, we are willing to give you a higher reduction rate than what you asked we're offering to take off an extra 2% and give you a total of a 7% reduction!"

Pause for a second. Let what you've just heard echo inside your head and see how you feel. I bet that you would have been happy for about 5 minutes, perhaps even less, but then, the following annoying thought would have probably crawled into your head: "If they were willing to give me an extra discount, what does that mean about their marginal profit per unit? Doesnt it mean their profit is BIG, TOO big, if they are being so generous? Theyre ripping us off!"