combined with insight into the psychology of man.
With NegoLogic Peter has crossed the border where most of us will follow in the coming years, creating a greater understanding that we as human beings are irrational and business should be considered from a behavioural economics perspective rather than – as many are doing today – from an orthodox economics perspective.
If you are in sales or procurement, or just use negotiation as a part of your life, I recommend that you start using NegoLogic. It will save your day, make not only you, but also your opponent, happier and probably richer at the same time.
I am personally fond of the stories and anecdotes that Peter uses to clearly illustrate his abundance of experience and knowledge.
Keld Jensen
Associate Professor and Managing Director, Marketwatch
Teaches at Thunderbird University, Phoenix, Arizona, CBS EMBA, BMI EMBA, DTU MBA etc.
Author of 20 books on negotiation.
Member of the Financial Times Mastering Business Minds
Writer for Forbes Magazine online.
Can you afford to stay behind?
We can all agree that the difference between success and failure is based on making the right choices. The last ten years we have seen exciting developments regarding the decision-making process. It started as a whisper, and it is still only known to very few of us – that we are able to predict other peoples’ thoughts. And if we can in fact foresee, why not direct them?
Commercial Intercourse is better known by the name Negotiations. Surely you have heard of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Priming, Neuro Economics or Cold Reading. Maybe you have seen some examples on television, series like “Lie to me” and “The Mentalist” that made you wonder if those polished tricks had a basis of truth. In assuming this, you are not far off the truth but the answer is no as well as yes. There are ways of influencing each other that remain hidden from most human eyes, yet we can learn to read those signs by raising our Emotional Intelligence. It all starts with acknowledging the very existence of invisible communication.
The manner in which we make decisions can be analysed on a completely new basis. And what can we learn from that? That we are by no means the individuals we think we are – that there are some common denominators, rules of a mental nature, that we all react to.
While we like to assume that our every decision is a careful weighing of pros and cons, in fact the difference between yes and no is often much smaller than we assume and trying to push people around has the opposite effect.
Dr. Milton L. Erickson, the grandfather of Neuro Linguistic Programming, was already describing in the fifties how people, when pushed in one direction displayed the strange urge to go the other way. Their most inner thoughts became transparent: “You cannot make me!” This response is very prominent during negotiations and is one of the cornerstones of the NegoLogic training program.
This much newer development proves that people take important business decisions based on the overall experience instead of bare facts and figures. It isn’t just the details that make us decide, but the manner in which we reach the point of yes or no. In other words, it is the human interaction that plays a large role in NegoLogical thinking.
We are unlikely to separate impulses from decisions yet it is the impulse that often gives us the boost to decide. Because it is not generally accepted that you make important decisions based on an impulse – a hunch – we always look for a ‘valid’ explanation.
This explanation is one of the keys to open the lock to hidden fortunes. The Story2Tell others decide for us. If the story doesn’t add up, our decision is likely to be negative as well. If the story shows that we emerge as a winner, we are sure to agree. And what about the negotiation itself? Isn’t money all that matters?
Surprising as this may sound, the answer is no.
NegoLogic shines a new light on commercial interaction by taking advantage of the human predictability factor.
Doing business on any level means walking the high rope in a very natural balance. Every single person on earth is sensitive to the logic behind the deal. We can learn how to separate impulses from decisions, and why it is fruitful to plant an impulse inside the head of another person. It is possible to change the direction of our argument drastically, to trigger the right response from whoever is opposing us.
Once this door has been opened, it will become almost second nature to give negotiations exactly what is needed instead of just opposing each other in a predictable and often ineffectual manner. But there is more than that. You will not only balance the negotiation, but every single argument, proposal, and objective that you face.
The NegoLogic philosophy is a great asset for anyone who negotiates, because it begins where other methods end, with the realisation that interaction outweighs any result. This effect is known as ‘neuroeconomics’, which is just practical business psychology. Our aim is to reach exceptional results in one-to-one commercial negotiations, but some aspects can also be used for procurement and resolving conflicts. Every time you face someone of flesh and blood you will be able to use NegoLogic.
Here is the blueprint for the way issues are presented throughout this book. First we Focus on the problem or discovery, then we Elaborate its aspects and finally we bring the Solution. Just like the following:
FOCUS: Why do intelligent people turn into Pavlov’s dogs when they negotiate?
Who injected us with the “knowledge” to downgrade the position of the opposing party and blatantly upgrade our own, beyond all fact and reason?
ELABORATE: This “method” is ineffective because we cease listening to each other if we do not like the messages that reach our ears. Here is a matter of fact: any predictable attitude adds to the abyss we naturally have to bridge – our difference in value because if there is one thing we can bank on it is that buyers
