Overcoming Barriers to Win-Win

The ultimate aim in any deal is for both parties to walk away feeling satisfied. A situation is otherwise known as win-win.

This applies to anything in life, whether it is choosing a new sofa, buying a house or completing the acquisition of an entire business. In all instances, both the buyer and seller hold the position they ideally want to maintain. If either is made to move too far from that position, they will become dissatisfied and the deal will likely fail.

In more complex deals, skilled negotiators are employed by both sides to manage the difficult task of ensuring that both parties get what they want.

Negotiation techniques can be crucial to maintaining momentum in a deal process, influencing the other side to consider a particular viewpoint. These techniques range in style and nature from employing expert teams, to exhibiting specialist knowledge and they can also be subtle, such as the use of humour to defuse tension or varying the tempo of correspondence. The actions of negotiators can also be responsible for killing deals, particularly if egos or emotion become involved.

The job is difficult but made harder in a cross-border situation where cultural differences throw another element into the mix. Seemingly innocuous actions or comments can prove fatal to a deal if viewed through the optic of a different culture. Certain cultures will prefer negotiators that take a calm, straightforward approach, while others will be receptive to more elaborate methods.

The one thing that does seem to resonate across the globe is the need to build trust through face-to-face negotiation and to approach deals in an open, honest fashion.

This Virtual Series taps the expertise of experienced cross-border negotiators used to getting complex deals over the line under pressure. They share their knowledge of the most effective negotiation techniques they use and expand on the actions and attitudes that are least useful.

They also discuss tried and tested ways of overcoming obstacles in the path of deal completion, explaining why those techniques work and the lessons they have learnt overcoming difficult situations.

Finally, our experts will also share deal anecdotes from either end of the success spectrum, demonstrating how easily things can go wrong if barriers to win-win become insurmountable.

We will hear from IR Global members in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany, USA, Spain, Belgium, New Zealand, Finland and Italy.

Conseillers contributeurs