Negotiating


Task 1

          horse-trading; goodwill gesture; disapproval; trade-offs; trade-off; to haggle

When you offer to change your position to one that is less favourable to yourself, you make a
concession. Perhaps this is in exchange for a concession from the other side, although there is no
guarantee of this. Your concession may be a 1. ______________= a concession that you make hoping
that the other side will see this as friendly and make a concession in return.

Even in a friendly negotiation, there may be 2.________________, with each side making a series of
concessions in return for concessions from the other side. (This expression is often used to show
3. _____________.) If you argue about something for a long time, especially about the price of
something, you 4._______________.

A series of concessions in exchange for concessions from the other side is a series of
5.________________. If you make a concession, you may not get anything back. If you make a
6._______________, you give something away and get something in return.





Task 2

PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE


       venue; fallback position; initial bargaining position; etiquette; negotiating styles;

                  to allocate; on neutral ground; on their ground; on home ground

Preparing to negotiate

Before negotiations begin, do the following:

A Get as much information as possible about the situation. If dealing with people from another
culture, find out about its 1._________ and 2. ____________= the way people negotiate, what they
consider to be acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and so on.

B Work out your 3. ______________= what are your needs and objectives. Decide your priorities = the
most important objectives.

C Prepare a 4. _______________= conditions that you will accept if your original objectives are not
met.

D Perhaps you are in a position to influence the choice of 5. __________= the place where you are
going to meet. If so, would you prefer to:

q  be on your own ground / 6. ____________ = in your offices

q  go to the other side 7. ________________= in their offices

q  meet 8._________________, for example in a hotel?

E If you are negotiating as part of a negotiating team, consult your colleagues about the mentioned
points and 9. ____________ roles and responsibilities.


Task 3



NEGOTIATING SCENARIO

Give the _ _ c _ _ _ _ _ _ _ to the negotiations. Talking about the situation is a good way of
reminding people of key fact and issues.

Then _ _ c _   _ _ _ the negotiations, perhaps by finding out more about the priorities of the
other side or talking about your own requirements.



Task 4



NEGOTIATIONS - DIFFICULTIES


to accuse; to make; to moderate; to concede; to negotiate from weakness; to negotiate from
strength; to negotiate under duress; bargaining power; adversarial; confrontational; bitter;
non-negotiable

Confrontation

Sometimes one side is in a stronger position than the other = they have more 1.__________________.
For example, during a recent strike at Lamda Inc., the company was in financial difficulty and the
public was on the workers´ side, so Lamda 2.____________________. The strikers´ union knew this =
they 3. _____________________ .  The union 4. ______ demands = objectives that were so important to
them that they were unwilling to change them. They wanted a 15 per cent pay increase. Later they
5.__________ these demands, and said they would accept ten per cent. However, their demand for a
week´s extra holiday was 6. ___________= fixed and not possible to change through discussions.

Lamda said they were being forced to accept something they did not want. They 7. ______________ the
union of making them 8.__________________ .

Eventually Lamda 9. ______________ most of the union´s demands and gave them what they wanted. The
media said that Lamda had backed down, climbed down and given in.

The feelings had been very strong on each side; the dispute was 10.____________, and the
negotiations were 11. _____________ and 12.______________.




Task 5



CONFRONTATIONAL NEGOTIATING TACTICS

Although using tricks isn´t recommended, there are negotiators who:

q  issue threats, _ i _ _ _  offers or _ l _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ = they say that the other side must
accept something, with very bad consequences for them if they refuse .

q  lie and b _ _ _ _ = they threaten to do something that they don´t intend to do, or are not able
to do.

Of course, you can always c _ _ _ someone´s  b _ _ _ _ = pretend to believe them, when you know
they are b _ _ _ _ _ _ _.