Self Defense

When someone is offering you a gift at the negotiation table, do you humbly accept their generosity? Be careful, as theirs may be a proverbial 'Greek Gift' - i.e. they may be luring you into reciprocation, obliging you to give back something of greater value in return. So keep in mind the value of the item being given - the relative value to both sides. Make sure you don't give back something of disproportionately higher value in return. You also need to be careful that they are not an incompetent negotiator, making big concessions that jeopardizes the viability of their business, or agreeing a deal that their managers will later veto. If they go bust because they are giving away too much, you could both end up losing.

Avoid (I Lose - You Lose)

This is most often referred to as "passive aggressive". People who habitually use this style really dislike conflict. Rather than talk directly with you about the issue, avoid styles may instead try to take revenge without you knowing about it. The avoid style can be a typical reaction to high compete negotiators. Sellers will frequently call less often on high compete buyers (i.e. Avoiding Competitive buyers) - and may choose to invest marketing money and share their best ideas and prize promotions with buyers who make themselves available (those who are not Avoiding the sales person.

When to use?

When the value of investing time to resolve the conflict outweighs the benefit; or if the issue under negotiation is trivial (trivial to both parties). Sometimes there is just not enough at stake to risk a difficult conflict situation. If there is a lot of emotion in a negotiation, it's pointless pushing through and hammering it out. Better to allow people to calm down first, let the testosterone hormone leave everyone's system first so that reason and rationality can reappear. At that point an avoid style is likely the most pragmatic alternative - suggest a timeout of 15-20 minutes.

What to do when you're dragged into a negotiation unprepared? Under these circumstances, avoidance is probably the most sensible strategy. Either avoid the meeting, or avoid discussing the issues upon which you need to prepare.

What's the Danger?

Whoever has the greater urgency will usually end up with the short end of the avoidance stick. Stalling is a common sales tactics, when sales / the vendor knows that procurement needs their product or service yesterday. Conversely a buyer may hold out until the last day of the a quarter or month, knowing that the sales person needs to meet his or her target. So be careful about what information you reveal about the urgency of your need.

When communication channels are cut off, you leave the other side to fill in the blanks. They may believe you need more time, or may think that you're no longer interested in a business relationship with them, resulting in their approaching your competition, or contemplating downsizing. Mutual resentment is likely to build up - leading to frosty impersonal relationships. Paradoxically, avoid profile negotiators are frequently seeking to avoid conflict - and their avoid style instead lands them in more conflict. When differences are eventually aired, emotions and negotiation positions are often more difficult and fixed than they need be.