MANUAL TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

will make the first offer or whether I will wait to find out the other's intentions.

There is a widespread belief that it is better to wait for the other side to make their initial offer, as this way we will know their intentions and can condition our tactics on theirs. In fact, this belief attempts to avoid the third assumption described in relations at the negotiation boundaries, in which one of the negotiation ranges is included in that of the other negotiator. This tactic is certainly advisable when we have to negotiate and we do not know the parameters within which we have to move, although in these cases we should inform ourselves before negotiating. For example, we need to hire marketing services in Bolivia and we do not know what are the prices in the Bolivian market and the most appropriate means to promote their products. On the other hand, it is more common for us to have well-defined negotiation limits and objectives. In this case, the most advisable thing to do is to make the first offer ourselves, so that if we manage to get the negotiation underway with our initial offer as a reference point, we will force the other party to ask for concessions and to modify our position, while the other party will not be able to offer us anything in return. In the same way that the amount of force to be used to avoid moving when being pushed is less than that used by the pusher, the negotiator who succeeds in making his position the focal point of negotiation will have less attrition. It is also very likely that, if the person with whom we are negotiating is not an experienced negotiator, he or she will make some concessions at the outset, without our knowledge, when proposing our offer.

For example, in the case mentioned above, where a supplier set his range between 200 and 125, while we set it between 90 and 150, if we go ahead and propose

134