Cornell Day 4: Let’s Bargain!

Some days I wonder how I was able to convince my beautiful wife to marry me.

I’ll tell you one thing, it sure wasn’t because I can bargain!

Our 4th day at Cornell was spent practicing the art of negotiation. Realistically, it reconfirmed a gap area of mine in which I quickly jump into things before I truly assess the important facts.

This remained true for my first opportunity for a 1 on 1 negotiation session where I quickly read my company’s assessement on purchasing a competitor that would bring great value to our organization that was possibly in some financial trouble. By not taking the time to note that I should be comparing my purchase price to a comparble offer of $225,000,000 for a similar out of country company, I negotiated a price of $325,000,000. In all fairness, I was not the highest purchaser in the class, and also a new facility would cost me $350,000,000 and the CEO gave me a blank check of $450,000,000 to buy what I needed. None the less, a noted weakness of mine was highlighted like a mistake on a 6 year old’s spelling test (miss my kids ☺)

As the day progressed, I got better…I think. To be honest, I don’t feel I am a great negotiator, other than when it comes to my wife (due to much practice), however, our learnings from the CUES program at Cornell today will help me improve. 

Today was a lot of interaction with my fellow classmates, in which I continue to learn so much from.

We all were also introduced to the acronym of SHIFT.

SHIFT is the way you think about negotiation, paving the way for wins. To SHIFT you need to:

Separate interestes from positions

Hear the other side

Invest in the relationship

Frame negotiation as a problem to be solved

Think creatively

What tactics do you use to support you in bargaining?  

Please share, I could use the help!

Devin