Negotiations are pivotal events between business partners, setting the course of future collaborations and, potentially, the success or failure of either business. Electing the right representative to lead your company during negotiations is vital, and it’s why many hungry mid-level executives might relish the opportunity to prove their value to the business.
But how do you convince your seniors that you’re the right person to lead high-stakes talks?
“There are four bands of skills [you should exhibit],” says Mark Gough, PwC U.K.’s negotiation strategy group leader: “understanding the process of negotiation, having the soft skills to actually execute it, knowing the content of the negotiation, and then also having agility in decision making.”
Negotiation process can be long affairs, often stretching on for 12 to 18 months. Of that, usually six months are spent in a preparation phase, Gough says, when the negotiating team is not only doing research on its counterparty but also coming to grips with what its own objectives for the negotiation are.
Gough says that final point—knowing your own objectives—often becomes corrupted as more people engage in the negotiation process, inserting new biases guiding the company away from its original target. “We need to laminate our objectives,” Gough says.
The negotiation lead might need to be elected before the preparation stage begins in full. But since the preparation stage is a long, thorough process—involving dozens of stakeholders—the aspiring mid-level exec won’t need to have started on that work before approaching their superior to take the lead on negotiations.
“If they’re asking to be the one to go and do the negotiation, they probably won’t have already invested months of preparation, because they don’t know if they’re the one who’s going to go do it,” Gough says.
Instead, proving capability is an ongoing affair that the mid-level exec has to demonstrate before approaching to take the lead. Gough suggests a senior can facilitate this by regularly checking in with their juniors during other operations, asking for their input and observations on how best to proceed.
Yet that’s not to say the decision is already made when the junior approaches their boss to ask for the reins. To be convincing, and inspire confidence, the hopeful lead will need to be clear with their superior about what they think the opportunity is in this project or negotiation, as well as what steps they’re going to take over time to achieve those goals and who they would take on their team to get it done.
“I’m trying to give that superior confidence that they can rely on me to deliver against the outcomes of that negotiation,” Gough says. “Through me demonstrating my understanding, which is hopefully in line with their understanding, that will give them confidence.”
Eamon Barrett
eamon.barrett@fortune.com
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