In a time when everyone is trying to get the best from everything we often face situations when we have to negotiate better conditions on products and services. People play an interesting game that in the end can lead to a situation where both sides negotiating get something that is still not full. We are all in the same situation when trying to negotiate or re-negotiate contracts with mobile operators, when we buy or rent a car, when we try to change conditions on our mortgage, etc.
There is often a game of cat and mouse with the company representative we communicate, where one side wins and the other loses. There is also a third option where we try to give up something, just to balance with something else. In situations like the last one often both sides feel like winners, but often both sides are losing something valuable for them.
There are two different approaches to negotiation that can lead to an end result. In one of them, participants feel like an emotionally drained, without getting to something really meaningful.
People often mistake both – compromising and synergizing.
To compromise means to lose something in favor of the final decision.
People who meet to compromise meet to lose something. In mathematical numbers compromising can be expressed like
1+1=1,5
In real life when you plan to compromise you plan to give up on something small to keep the bigger part from what is left. A typical example of compromising is when you go to negotiate your next contract with a mobile operator. You have prepared yourself with the plan of your dreams, you have added “enough megabytes” to your internet plan, you have calculated as many minutes you can talk, and the only thing you don’t know is what is the real price for all that plan. But you still have a number in your mind. You walk confident in your operator office, sit in front of an office employee and start talking. And then, after a 5,10 or 15 minutes discussion you realize that you can’t get what you want, you have no other options, the employee at your operator office has offered something that is not exactly what you have expected, but still it is something more than the plan you have now.
How did you get here? – The answer here is simple – you have compromised. You were ready to give something up, just to make a small upgrade on your plan. You were ready to move ahead with something smaller than you have planned. And that happened because you weren’t ready to search for the best decision because you never thought about the question of what you really need, and was not ready to try to get it.
Remember, when you compromise on something you:
- Pay for something that is not fully answering your needs
- Get different product or service than the one you need
- Lose the value of what you didn’t get
- Build a fake attitude of a winner that makes you work less and get that willa smaller result than the ones you really have to get
- Show others that you can leave with what you have lost during the negotiation or discussion
- Build an environment where you are accepted as someone who is on the losing side in future negotiations or discussions;
That is why you need to change your attitude. There is a different way of thinking you can adapt. This type of thinking is the person who is searching for synergy.
Why is synergy different than the compromising?
When you try to synergy with someone you are actually trying to build that real win-win situation that will give you and the other side what you both need. A synergizer is someone who gets results, without impacting the other side opportunity to get what really makes it look like a winner. To search for synergy means to try finding the most winning solutions.
If you are a synergy seeker your approach with the mobile operator will not be to compromise, but to a for the best solution that will make you, and the mobile operator employee happy at the end of your interaction. The truth is that you won’t succeed from the first time when trying to synergy with a salesperson, because most of them are still thinking in the terms of “win-lose” and guess what, in their minds you are the losing side. You will have to find an employee at the mobile operator offices who understand the nature of the synergy and is ready to synergy with you. Then your discussion and negotiation with this employee will get approach with results you seek for, without hurting their sales goals.
Let me give you another example. Let’s say that you have a colleague at work that has to deliver results within a deadline. Short before the deadline you understand that your colleague won’t meet it and won’t deliver the final product you are expecting. In most situations like this one, people try to “renegotiate” the time frame or product they are waiting for. It happens that at the end of the deadline agreed, you get a product or result that is different then the one promised. Your colleague has put much effort into these results, but still it is not acceptable for you. But…you have to live with it, because you don’t have anything else. This is the compromise that you have internally agreed on because you thought from the beginning how you won’t get the full result. If you play the role of synergizer, your situation will look different.
You will need to start by presenting the task to your colleague and the beginning. And then move the hardest part. A person who tries to synergy with another must be able to listen and understand. Understanding other’s positions, beliefs, attitudes, and motivation is crucial to building a strong synergetic connection. Here you must not try, but be ready to move forward until you feel the synergy between you and the other person. The full synergy is only that achieved when both sides have the same understanding of the task, the final result or product impact and have built positive level of accountability on both sides – you and the person you are interacting with. Everything else, no matter how you call it is just a compromise.
Synergy with others is a crucial element that leads to several positive results:
- Defines roles in a complex process;
- Increases internal motivation for work;
- Engages the person in the process;
- Ensures positive accountability leading to results;
- Empowers both sides to find the best and most creative solution to an established situation;
IN CONCLUSION:
We are living in a world where we can make a free choice. Most people make the easy choice to compromise with results, opportunities, lives, work, etc. Still, compromising with something does not lead to the best solution, but to situation where you must live with uncomfortable elements in a form of unused opportunities.
The Human place 