My entire life I’ve been fascinated with how people build relationships. It’s actually why I’m a professional communicator and not a physicist (well, that and calculus). During my studies, my observations and my experiences the one skill that most determined successful relationship building was knowing how to negotiate.
That’s because relationships and negotiation have a direct correlation. The better you know someone (relationship), the more likely you will have effective negotiations. And the better you negotiate, the more likely you and whomever you’re negotiating with will have a joint favorable outcome, which builds better relationships.
Now, when I say negotiation, I don’t mean that one person gets their way while another doesn’t. I mean that both peoples’ needs or wants are met.
It’s not always easy. But it is simple:
1.Know your value
2.Know your needs and wants
3.Know others needs and wants
4.Consider all possible outcomes
5.Treat everyone with respect
We will look at each of these of these rules individually over the next few weeks, and then learn when negotiating doesn’t work. Let’s start with Know Your Value.
