For our coaching session, we sat on the bridge of his boat, a sedan bridge Sea Ray named Heavy Tiger (his squadron's call sign in Vietnam). Camp had been prepping me a bit through a clever Web-based feedback system designed to help one think through a negotiation. I flunked my first test in the Camp System when I articulated my "Mission and Purpose" as "increasing my fee" from one of my regular clients. Though I'd read Camp's book, which stresses that goals should be "set in my adversary's world," I'd immediately reverted to self-centered habit. Camp prodded me toward, "Provide my clients the highest caliber of writing talent to assure their long-term success. This will be done by placing great emphasis on my contributions."
An overeagerness to compromise, Jim Camp argues, is 'killing corporate America.'
When we sat down to talk about it, I started doing what I always do when a negotiation approaches: guessing all the reasons that the other side will turn me down. There's probably no money in the budget, my work is probably replaceable, etc. "Look at the assumptions you're making," Camp interrupted. Assumptions are another cardinal sin, and they are easily confused with preparation. He was right about that -- I did think I was preparing, cleverly getting into my adversary's head. But I hadn't collected any facts; I was just psyching myself into a compromise.
Next he helped me think through a fairly neutral e-mail I could send to my client that might yield information that I could use for the big moment, which would be actually making my case in person. When Camp suggested a few verbal lines of approach, he sounded great. I knew I could never carry it off with such aplomb and told him so. "You can make that part of what you say," he suggested. "Just start by saying, 'Look, I know this is all going to come out wrong." This is another one of his strategies, a willingness to come across as vulnerable or "not okay." You'd be surprised, he says, how often your adversary will bail you out, stepping into the awkward void to say something like, "No, you're going to do fine," and actually helping you get your message out.
And what if I get turned down flat? In Camp's view, that's no reason to panic, because "no" is a much better answer than "maybe." A maybe, he argues, is an evasion, but a no gives you something concrete to talk about. "That means the negotiation can start," he says. What I want to do, he continues, is not just roll over and accept it, but get as clear a picture as I can of why I've been rejected, then say that I want to think it over and get a commitment for another round of discussion. (Later, I tried out an online practice tool that Camp is making available to clients: I took the role of a computer programmer strategizing to get a raise, picking from multiple choices the best way to phrase, frame, and time my interactions with a distracted boss. I still made some wishy-washy decisions in this virtual process but overall showed some signs of improvement.)
There are a lot of variables here, depending on what gets said along the way, and of course, it will be up to me to find the fortitude to go through with any of this without Camp there to give me a boost and point out my missteps. And obviously it's much harder to find the right words in real time than it is to pick them from a computerized list in the comfort of my own home.
I don't know that my world was rocked, but the session helped me more than I thought it would, just by focusing me on exactly what Camp says is wrong with too many negotiators today: a weakness for compromise from the get-go.
Sidebar: Negotiating Tips From The Experts
If becoming a great negotiator takes more of a commitment than reading a book, then certainly no quick hit list of tips is going do the job, either. Nevertheless, many of us are so ill-prepared for negotiation that even a handful of highlights that recur in many of the most popular advice guides can seem eye-opening:
- Stay rationally focused on the issue being negotiated.
- Exhaustive preparation is more important than aggressive argument.
- Think through your alternatives. The more options you feel you have, the better a negotiating position you'll be in.
- Spend less time talking and more time listening and asking good questions. Sometimes silence is your best response.
- Let the other side make the first offer. If you're underestimating yourself, you might make a needlessly weak opening move.
- Some gurus advocate a bit of play-acting. Always seem put off at your rival's offer. Play up the importance of factors you don't care about so it'll seem like a bigger deal when you concede on them. Seem more befuddled than you are so your opponent will underestimate you.
Above all, if you're serious about becoming a better negotiator, don't believe that there's a quick-fix solution (like this list). Changing your mindset and behavior should be the real goal, and that's a major undertaking.
