I’ve been thinking about negotiations. In the business world, negotiation is an everyday part of life. I come from the contracting world, where companies will contract their services to a customer. In my experience, it has been provate companies contracting to the government for Information Technology services. In a general sense, the process goes as follows:
- Customer puts RFP - Request for Proposal - “on the street” which says “I’m soliciting offers on this job”.
- Company review RFP and determine if they are qualified under a, usually, strict set of requirements listed by the customer, equal opportunity, small business, percentage of “well” qualified people for specific jobs, retention of key personnel in existing positions, etc.
- Company write and submit initial proposals including proposed SLA - Service Level Agreements.
- Customer makes proposed mods to the proposals and SLA and return to company for their review.
- Customer reviews mods and writes them in to a second proposal along with any stipulations or extra requirements for customer. They then submit a second proposal to the customer.
- After sometimes months of negotiations, a contract is awarded by the customer to a company who has submitted a proposal that best meets the customers goals on a financial, efficiency, and hard-item goods level.
Likewise, in a Parliamentary system, negotiation is a key tool in an effort to shape and form government. In fact, the saying goes that politics is the fine art of compromise because compromise is the essence of negotiation.
Sometimes in the process of negotiation, it becomes apparent that one side is unwilling to yield an ground on a sticking point. Sometimes that sticking point is really a minor issue in the scope of the whole agreement. Sometimes, in Congress, it is seen in Congressmen getting little bits of an extra something in there for there home district, thus essentially “buying” or securing that man’s vote.
Sometimes, however, two sides can’t agree on a sticking point, and in those cases, negotiations fail because it becomes obvious that neither side is willing to make the deal without their own interests being preserved.
Negotiations are a tricky thing because, by engaging in them, the parties involved extend themselves. Sometimes they over-extend themselves in a figurative high-stake game of poker by attempting to “bluff” the other side. That’s how they get burned.
So on this Saturday, I guess negotiations are my hot topic. It’s a fine art but it takes two sides willing to come to the table and find out what compromises serve them best and reaching a deal that is not only good for them, but for everyone involved.
