I fell into the trap.
It’s one we’ve all potentially fallen into at least once. The trap of 'just give it a go and see what happens’. For me, it was attempting to do some DIY work in our bathroom at home, instead of just getting a professional to do it.
The work required removing and fitting a new shower screen and resealing all around the bath. Reasonably difficult for me, easy for a professional. I gave it a go and, unsurprisingly, made a mess of it - the resealing bit - and ended up having to call a professional anyway, not only hurting my wallet but also my pride. And to add further insult to injury, the professional’s feedback was "I give you 4/10 at most for the effort”.
That 4/10 (at most) took me an entire evening to achieve!
Later (much later), when my pride had recovered, I thought about the experience from a negotiation point of view and how often we will ‘just give it go’ in a negotiation without having any sort of training or useful advice on how to go about it. Or worse, we’ll give it a go by failing to prepare effectively or even at all.
Giving it a go in a negotiation is extremely high risk because it makes it far more likely that value will be left unexplored, or worse, given away for free. Additionally, it’s far more likely that a Plan B for when things go wrong won’t exist, creative value-adding variables won’t be considered or included, and concessions will only be valued in terms of the cost, amongst others.
Sadly, it seems we’re expected to just know how to negotiate, but what’s not clear is where we’re supposed to have learned this. It’s not taught in school or further education (or at least, where I went to), nor is it always likely we’ll get training, or at least guidance, in our first career jobs. In the early days of my career, the only negotiation guidance I can remember receiving was to, first, try to bullshit my way through things as much as possible (spoiler alert, it doesn't work), and second, to work out what I thought the other side’s limits were and how that compared to mine, which is useful top-level advice but what was missing was how to go about doing this.
At no point was I ever told the important stuff, such as there's a structure to negotiating, and that, to a large degree, I could be in control of what's happening. And while I knew I needed to do some preparation prior to negotiating, I never knew or was given any good, practical advice on what exactly that should be - thinking specifically about what I'm trying to achieve and why, what my variables are, what my strategy is, how I will manage information, how I will frame the other side's expectations, and what might be important to the other side and how I will find this out, etc.
It goes on.
The point is, next time you or someone you know is required to go into a negotiation, ask yourself if there is a risk of ‘just giving it a go’ and that you or they are ill-equipped for the task at hand. If the answer is yes, at the very least, ensure there’s some preparation done. And if you need some proper help, consider getting input from a professional.
