Negotiating Styles and Approaches
Every person has a natural negotiating style that is often the part of their personality that they adopt when they are dealing with conflict. Age, race, gender, upbringing, mood on a particular day, the relationship you have with your significant other and kids, the relationship you had with you parents and siblings, and many other things play into how you negotiate.
Remember, you started negotiating as soon as you were born, and all of these experiences have made you who you are.There is new research showing that gender can have a large effect on negotiations. Harvard Business School reports that women don't negotiate their job offers like men for fear that the reputation damage they will face upon starting their new job will be much higher than if they were men. There is also data that seems to suggest that men are more comfortable with men who negotiate hard versus women and thus there can be socials costs for women who negotiate.2
We hope that by being as transparent as we can in this book about the terms, the issues, and the ways to negotiate, that we can break down some of these barriers. We'd encourage everyone to take an inward look at themselves before they engage with the other side, regardless of who they are, and make sure your biases aren't negatively impacting your approach to a negotiation.
As with anything, few people are great at several things. In the world of negotiations this means that most people don't have truly different modes for negotiation, but that doesn't mean you can't practice having a range of different behaviors that depend on the situation you are in.
Most good negotiators know where they are comfortable, but also know how to play upon and against other people's natural styles. Following are some, but not all, of the personalities you'll meet and how you might want to best work with them.