MANUAL TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

understanding those of the other party, knowing our own desires and the needs of the other.

However, negotiation is a game in which there are neither winners nor losers. It is not a game of competition but a game of simulation, where the rules are yet to be defined and the relationships between the participants are built as the game progresses. A person who is uncomfortable with this kind of game should avoid it and not negotiate. Negotiation is understood as the process in which two or more parties, with a certain degree of power, with common and conflicting interests, come together to propose and discuss explicit proposals with the aim of reaching an agreement. We will analyse this definition in more detail, but it is important to point out two basic issues: • Negotiation is a process, which implies that there is prior study and planning, development and final conclusions. • Negotiation exists only when there is an interest in reaching an agreement.

If we observe that this is not the case, we are dealing with strategic or tactical processes of a different nature camouflaged under a form of negotiation.

9.2. The power of negotiations

One of the characteristics that any negotiator must have is a certain degree of power, otherwise there will be no negotiation at all, and in the best of cases, one of the two parties in conflict will simply order what is in the interest of the other party without the latter being able to do anything to avoid it. But what do we mean by power? A first approximation to the term would be to state it as follows:

"A HAS POWER OVER B TO THE EXTENT THAT IT CAUSES B TO DO A THING IT WOULD NOT OTHERWISE HAVE DONE".

Another more comprehensive definition is that the power of an individual (or

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