By Lisa Hochgraf It's January and you want to vacation in Miami. Your spouse wants to vacation in Montreal. If you meet in the middle, you'll probably wind up in Maryland. And neither one of you is likely to be fully happy with that outcome. In negotiation, it often doesn't pay to simply split the difference, whether that's price or geography, Kathleen O'Connor told attendees at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange. Negotiation is a game of information exchange, not--as is often thought--of power, emphasized O'Connor, associate professor at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, Ithaca, N.Y., home to CUES' CEO Institute II. Instead of pushing the position of "We have to go to Miami," ask questions to learn more about the other side's interests, she advised. "If you want to know what people want in negotiations, you have to ask them," O'Connor said. Ask "Why Montreal?" and you might get "I want to do cultural tours." Ask "Why Miami?" and you might get "I want warmth and drinks with umbrellas." With that knowledge, the trip might wind up being to Puerto Rico rather than Maryland, with both parties having their interests satisfied. O'Connor proposed the "SHIFT" model for negotiations. Recall the last negotiation you had. How did it go? Now think of a negotiation you have coming up soon. Can any of the steps in the SHIFT method help this negotiation go better? Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.
