Walking through the door

No matter how sleep-deprived, harried, or down-in-the-dumps you may be, always enter the negotiating room with assertiveness. Establish confidence and control from the opening moment. That moment sets a tone for the entire meeting. This fact is true even if you are not officially in charge of the meeting. These guidelines can vault the most junior person at a meeting to MVP status almost immediately.

Never forget the pleasantries. If the last negotiating session ended on a bad note, clear that away first. Otherwise, you run the risk that unrelated matters may ignite the controversy all over again. If you can resolve the situation up front, you can move forward unfettered. Ignoring such a situation just leaves the ill-will hovering over the negotiating table. I call it the “elephant in the room.” The bad feelings creep into and influence every conversation. The negativity taints all the proceedings until it has been cleared away. As your hand is on the door of the negotiating room or as you dial the phone number of your counterpart, put on your attitude.

Take a beat and lift yourself up to the occasion. Grandmother was right — “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” Toss your head back — literally. Smile, inside and out. Focus on your immediate purposes. Have your right hand free to shake hands with whoever is there. If the meeting requires you to wear one of those awful name badges, be sure to write your name in large letters and place the badge high on your right side so people can easily read it. Improving your attitude just before the session begins can be one of the most valuable moments you spend in a negotiation.
Here are some tips in case you are in charge of the meeting:

• Make sure that all participants are present and ready to listen. If someone is missing, you face the first dilemma of a meeting leader: to start or not to start the meeting. Follow your gut and the culture in which you are operating. If you are always prompt and you have a roomful of folks whose time is valuable (whose isn’t?), proceed and educate the laggard later. If the missing person is the boss, well, again, the culture is important. Some bosses would be annoyed that you held the meeting for them.
• State your purpose for having the meeting. This is like the opening paragraph of a term paper. If there is not a written agenda, outline the important points you will discuss. Knowing what is going to happen helps keep everyone focused.
• If there is a written agenda, be sure everyone has one and take a
• moment to review it. Put time restraints on each agenda item. Doing so keeps you from lingering on a subject longer than expected and not giving enough time to others.
• Make a clear request for agreement on the agenda and procedure.
• Gauge how the other party feels about your agenda. This is an important step on the road to closing a deal. This is your chance to build empathy and start things off with something on which everyone is in agreement.
• Acknowledge the participants’ attitudes and feelings as they relate toyour purpose. Your objective is to close the deal. To do this, you need to establish empathy from the beginning of the meeting.
• Begin according to the agenda. If you deviate from your plan at the beginning of the meeting, you will have a very hard time gaining control later on You’ve opened the meeting and presented your agenda. You’ve taken the first step into the negotiation process. Breathe.