MANUAL TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

However, it should be noted that hasty agreements tend to lead to unbalanced agreements that may affect the performance of the agreement and future negotiations to be carried out. An unbalanced agreement is rarely of high quality.

In the following points, we will analyse some of the situations in which time usually plays an important role.

10.4.1. Deadlines

What happens when we have to stick to a deadline to close negotiations?

First of all, it is good to remember that deadlines tend to be self-imposed, perhaps because we started negotiating too late.

Secondly, we have to differentiate between objective and arbitrary deadlines. Objective deadlines are determined by circumstances, e.g. the end of a contract, a court summons, the expiry of a guarantee, etc. Deadlines arbitrarily determined by one side fall into a different category and have different implications. If our opponent says that the negotiations are broken unless we accept his terms by a certain date, we have a deadline that is negotiable. The pressure from the other party can be true, moderately true, or false. In most cases they are usually moderately true. It is not that our opponent wants to bluff; but possibly he sees that it is good to put pressure on us and that he can gain an advantage from doing so. In such cases, there is no need for alarm. Arbitrary limits come and go if they are handled carefully, without putting pressure on the other party and trying to ascertain, through questions and active listening techniques, the veracity of the pressure.

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