The First Rule in Negotiation: Adapt Your Negotiation Style

Competitive Negotiator

A competitive negotiator looks at a negotiation as a win-lose scenario and views themselves as the one who comes out on top—no matter what. We refer to this kind of negotiation as hard bargaining or a zero sum negotiation¹, and if you’re thinking you don’t really want to go up against a competitive negotiator, you’re not wrong.

In theory, being a competitive negotiator isn’t a bad thing. We all want to be competitive to a certain extent. Competitive negotiators are comfortable with high stakes and conflict, they’re enthusiastic and enjoy debating substantive issues, and they have a strong desire to win². However, when these good characteristics are turned up a notch too high, they change the entire makeup of a negotiation. Why? Because when the focus is on competition, there is nothing to be negotiated.

Competitive negotiators make up about 5-10%³ of negotiators and are known for seeking out weakness in the opposite party and using it to their advantage, rather than searching for an equitable resolution.

One great example of a competitive negotiating strategy comes the fictional Mattie Ross from Charles Portis’ seminal novel True Grit⁴. Ross is a 14-year-old girl in 1878 when she sets out to avenge the death of her father. She needs money to help facilitate her journey, but has no true means of attaining it. She needs to win, anything less would not help her journey. Early on, she engages with a cotton trader to buy back four ponies her father bought just before his murder.

When the trader tells her no, she doubles down and says she also wants to be compensated for the saddle horse that was stolen while in the trader’s care. Quickly, the trader becomes defensive. She threatens legal action from her lawyer, a man known to have won high-stakes cases in the past. By the end of the negotiation, she not only sells back the four ponies but also makes a deal to get her father’s saddle returned, then buys back a pony for less than she just negotiated their sale. It’s such a gripping scene, it transferred almost word for word from Portis’ book, published in 1968, to the first film in 1969⁵ and the remake in 2010⁶.

Cooperative Negotiator

In a business landscape, competition can be good but collaboration can be better.

A cooperative negotiator makes up about 25-35% of negotiators⁷ and is a win-win person, who wants a mutual win for both parties. Competitive negotiation may work in some situations, especially if there’s a chance the law may not be on your side, but, by definition⁸, people generally enter a negotiation expecting it to be settled, for an agreement to made and if one party is not willing to cooperate, the odds of a deal being agreed upon, are slim.

You may seek to understand⁹ your negotiation partner — the pressures they’re under and what they’re hoping to achieve. The more each party knows about the motivations of the other, the more ably they may be to offer higher value concessions. We know in integrative bargaining (the fancier name for cooperative negotiation), we’re often trying to negotiate multiple issues – primarily those internal motivations as they’re often at the heart of conflict¹⁰.

Having a cooperative negotiating style doesn’t mean you can’t still be competitive, it just means that a true win/lose is not your end goal. The best management courses and conflict resolution programs will show that despite your preferred style, adapting to your partner’s style – at least initially – can be an effective way to learn more about their motivation, figure out what both of you want out of the negotiation and start thinking creatively and strategically¹¹ about how to get there.

Identifying Other Negotiating Styles

Cooperative and competitive are just two of five general styles of negotiation. The other three are: Compromising, Accommodating, and Avoiding¹².

If competitive negotiation is I win/you lose and cooperative is win/win, the other three styles fall something like win some/lose some (compromising), You win, I’m indifferent (accommodating), and lose/lose (avoiding). It’s helpful to know that depending on where you look, there are any number of negotiating styles but essentially, and keeping with widely accepted Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)¹³, they all boil down to cooperative and competitive, or you’re either willing to work with your negotiation partner, or not.

Maybe you can’t imagine how any of these other styles would make sense – but it all depends on the negotiation and the person negotiating. Accommodating negotiation¹⁴ may seem incomprehensible on paper, but if you’re a vendor dealing with a client whose regular business keeps you afloat and who you’d like to appease, accommodating their demands can be an easy fix to conflict. Compromise is the likely outcome of a competitive negotiation¹⁵, outside of a lose/lose – both parties may come away with something but they may not feel very good about it, and it may not even address the true interests.

Adapting to Other Negotiating Styles

Ultimately, if you want to have your piece in any negotiation, you need to adapt.

It sounds easy enough to walk away from a negotiation but we don’t always have that option. If you are up against a competitive person, respond in kind. If they are being tough, be tough back. They want to win and you have the ability to make them lose by either walking away from the deal or by offering demands they find too difficult to accept.

In the example of True Grit, the cotton trader could have sent Mattie Ross away and thought nothing more. Even if she had a high-powered attorney, would the trader have lost as much as she demanded? Because Ross was a competitive negotiator, with no real interest in preserving a relationship with the cotton trader, she had nothing to lose.

Interestingly, studies have shown that when parties with different negotiating styles come to the table, they tend to subconsciously mimic one another’s behaviors¹⁶. It’s important to note this isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to negotiation, in fact, mimicry is often a device utilized to build a rapport with any individuals¹⁷, those embroiled in a high-stakes negotiation or not. Being conscious of this fact may help better negotiators guide even the most competitive negotiators back to a more workable middle ground.

At some point, however, both parties have to make a strategic decision. Do they want to go through the negotiation process and end up losing or will they flex so at least some progress is made toward resolution? Negotiations fail all the time¹⁸. If your job or livelihood depends on the outcome of a negotiation, you owe it to yourself to understand as much about the process and the person as possible.

It’s natural to feel nervous in the midst of a negotiation – you may be apprehensive about what you might lose or how this interaction might impact your relationship — and that’s where developing negotiating skills are going to be most beneficial¹⁹. If you find you tend to be more accommodating, seek out ways to be polite without being a pushover²⁰. If you’re negotiating with a more seasoned, confident partner, mimicking their behavior, and sticking to the merits of your position, can help prevent you from folding too quickly.

Knowing when to be competitive and when to be cooperative will always get the best deal.

Which Negotiation Style is Best?

Our natural negotiation styles²¹ are most often derived from our own personalities and dispositions. Some of us are more naturally inclined to sit back and listen before taking action, others of us prefer a strike-first approach, and the thing to remember is that both of these strategies get results – the differentiator is if they are the results you want.

And while our negotiation styles are derived from who we are, it doesn’t always dictate how we develop as effective negotiators. Negotiating is a skill. Whether you are negotiating a contract worth millions or negotiating your next car purchase, developing these skills will help you achieve win-win outcomes in every aspect of life.

Learn How to Negotiate with the Pros

The Lowry Group, LLC (TLG) is the outgrowth of almost three decades of experience helping organizations achieve their next level of success throughout the United States and around the world, including conflict resolution. TLG’s work began as an external consulting, systems design, and training resource composed of faculty from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law.

But TLG has moved beyond its academic roots to respond to repeated requests from corporate and government organizations for “real world” assistance. The TLG team has been chosen by scores of major organizations that must become more effective in negotiating sales, business transactions, client relationships and disputes.

What makes companies and individuals truly successful is the ability to ably manage negotiation. We created resources you need to identify, resolve and manage negotiation. From CEOs, to small business owners, and to anyone managing a team – developing the skills to navigate negotiations is not just important, it’s imperative. Managing negotiations is a cornerstone not only in conflict resolution but also in understanding the psychology of business relationships. Learn how to up your negotiation skills with the Negotiation Navigator Online Course!