{"id":13035,"date":"2025-08-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotwork.com\/nz\/blog-nz\/myth-busting-collaborative-negotiation\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T00:00:00","slug":"myth-busting-collaborative-negotiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotwork.com\/nz\/blog-nz\/2025\/myth-busting-collaborative-negotiation\/","title":{"rendered":"Myth busting: collaborative negotiation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One of the conversations that crops up regularly on our programmes revolves around the styles in which negotiations are conducted. Broadly speaking, there are two distinct approaches: collaborative, or competitive.<\/p>\n\n

Rather than analysing the characteristics of each, I\u2019m more interested in the tendency (for many of us, at least) to view collaborative behaviour in the abstract. Namely, that it\u2019s nice\/friendly\/accommodating and so on. I can appreciate why the association exists \u2013 there is, after all, plenty of overlap between indicators such as trust, transparency and pursuing mutual benefit and ideas of being nice to each other. On the other hand, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s helpful for negotiators to view collaborative negotiating behaviour exclusively as \u201cnice\u201d \u2013 far from it. Why? I think it risks missing out on obtaining incremental improvements in negotiations. Not all of us are lucky enough to like everyone with whom we have to negotiate \u2013 but if I\u2019m only collaborative with counterparties who are \u201cnice\u201d, I am very confident that the probability is I\u2019ll be missing out on value where the atmosphere is more tense or less friendly. Equally, if I\u2019m collaborative in a negotiation based on my counterparty\u2019s behaviour alone, I may miss the broader context that a more competitive approach might yield a better outcome. In other words, I ought to be focused on understanding how I can obtain the best outcome \u2013 the mood music is simply background noise.<\/p>\n\n

Along with the unhelpful idea that collaborative behaviour is \u201cnice\u201d, there is frequently the accompanying abstract that co-operating with your counterparty is \u201csoft\u201d. Having taken part in and observed countless negotiations, I can understand why this view resonates so widely. However, in the event that you ever find yourself wondering whether an agreement was \u201csoft\u201d, my view would be that a review of the preparation, in particular the objective setting, would be a better idea than to fixate on the behaviour in the conversations that led to the deal. You\u2019re likely to find causation in an audit of the preparation, whereas the behaviour is far more likely to be correlation.<\/p>\n\n

If you\u2019re still not convinced, a recent example of how collaborative behaviour can be shared between enemies occurred in the Middle East. Following the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, the Iranians were bound to respond \u2013 and they had a number of options. The one they chose was interesting: a missile attack on a US airbase in Qatar. However, the attack was flagged in advance to the Qataris (and by proxy, the US) \u2013 which meant casualties could be avoided with relative ease, and the missiles were also likely to be intercepted by US air defences (which happened). In other words, an objectively collaborative approach which led to mutual benefit: both the US and Iran could claim victory having demonstrated actual sanction power through military action. But was it \u201csoft\u201d? I don\u2019t think the use of lethal force fits in that category. And are the US and Iranian leadership \u201cfriendly\u201d with one another? Again, the idea of Trump and Khamenei sitting down for a cosy chat over a pot of tea isn\u2019t one that springs to mind. Collaborative negotiations, where they are in our better interest, most certainly shouldn\u2019t be limited exclusively to our friends. Nor do we have to don our finest kid gloves when we are being co-operative.<\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the conversations that crops up regularly on our programmes revolves around the styles in which negotiations are conducted. Broadly speaking, there are two distinct approaches: collaborative, or competitive. Rather than analysing the characteristics of each, I\u2019m more interested in the tendency (for many of us, at least) to view collaborative behaviour in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":13036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_legacy_url":"blog-nz\/2025\/myth-busting-collaborative-negotiation\/","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMyth busting: collaborative negotiation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"World leaders in business negotiation training and consultancy with experts across 120 countries, with negotiation courses taught in 29 languages.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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