How do you negotiate?

We heard a little story the other day about two business women who were looking to take on bigger premises together and at the negotiation stage with their prospective landlord. They are already successful and confident business women and still, the idea of playing hard ball on the rent and lease agreement with one of the city's most notorious property tough guys did not fill them with glee. Years of experience in corporate life had taught them the rules of negotiation - don't show your hand too soon, go in low, be prepared to walk etc etc. So they were ready for the fight.

And somewhere along the line during the meeting it got interesting. It was exactly at the point where it was all going a bit pear shaped. Mr Tough Guy was not budging and our savvy ladies were running out of options. They were in tune enough with each other to know that it was probably the time now (according to the text books) to stand up with studied calm and bid farewell on an opportunity lost - hoping that the bluff would pay off. But that's not what they did. Instead one of them looked Mr Tough Guy smilingly in the eye and spoke from the heart. Something like...

"We could all play this game for hours but we don't enjoy it. We love the space and we think we would have a great landlord/tenant relationship. This is what we want to afford (£x) and we trust that between the three of us we can work out how to make this happen. How do we move with this now?"

The energy in the room changed instantly. It wasn't the words exactly and it wasn't that the appeal was a particulary feminine approach (this isn't really a post about male/female gender styles in negotiation). It was more that the place the words were coming from was truly heart based. One human being to another, in the spirit of curiosity, and trusting that there was a solution. It stopped being a fight and became a co-operative creation. And Mr Tough Guy picked that up right away, whether he was conscious of it or not. From mountain-like immovabaility there was then a sudden shift towards a solution that suited all parties.  

So how do you negotiate? In your careers, and in your personal relationships? Where are you speaking from the heart and trusting that the rule book will fend for itself? How can you turn struggle and conflict into co-operation by shifting the energy? Change really does happen in a heart beat...