0:01

Hey. Guys, thanks for listening to Business

0:03

English Power the show for ambitious thing

0:05

students who want to level up their

0:08

business English skills and I've got a

0:10

great episode for you today. But before

0:12

we get into that, In

0:15

a lot of students recently been asking me

0:17

hey our what happened to episode fifty eight.

0:20

It's. Not in the listing. It's not

0:22

in the directory. And the reason behind

0:24

that is while I kind of lost

0:27

it in my files. And by

0:29

the time I found it, it was

0:31

too late to put it back into

0:33

the rotation. Onto the. Podcast.

0:35

List And so it and I

0:38

did find it and it is

0:40

one of the most powerful episode

0:42

of ever recorded and I really

0:44

feel way because it's all about

0:46

negotiations. Now. A lot

0:48

of you are in business sets of

0:51

course why we're listening to business English

0:53

Power but You're negotiations are definitely a

0:55

topic that a thing is a bit

0:57

higher level with something that a lot

1:00

of students want to know about. And

1:02

in this episode episode fifty eight I

1:04

talk about some really high level tactics

1:06

that you can use to help you

1:09

win negotiations. So. If you want

1:11

to get a hold of episode

1:13

fifty eight, head on over to

1:15

business English Power. Forward. Slash

1:17

Fifty Eight. Again,

1:19

That business English power.com/five Eight.

1:22

Just the numbers. Five Eight

1:24

and you can go and

1:27

get a hold of Episode

1:29

Fifty Eight: How To Win

1:32

Negotiations. Business.

1:35

English Power Episode Seventy One.

1:40

Lohan Welcome to Business English Power

1:42

the show for ambitious in the

1:44

students want to level up their

1:47

business English skills become global communicators

1:49

and international business leaders. My name

1:51

is Al also known as Al

1:53

Sensei here in the online world

1:55

also during my eighteen years spent

1:58

in Japan mostly in Tokyo, teaching

2:01

at any

2:03

kind of schools, conversation schools,

2:05

we have universities, and

2:08

of course, at the companies. I'm the corporate trainer

2:10

as well for 13 years. And

2:12

so I hope to bring some of

2:15

that wisdom and experience here to you

2:17

on the podcast. Thanks for listening. And

2:19

as always, I would like to ask you to

2:22

please hit the subscribe button if you are listening

2:24

in Apple Podcasts, or hit the

2:26

follow button if you are listening on any

2:28

other platform like Spotify, or

2:31

Podcast Addict, or Castbox,

2:33

or Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio,

2:35

or wherever you're finding business

2:38

English power, I appreciate a follow and

2:40

a subscribe. Thank you so much. So

2:43

we're going to talk about an important topic today,

2:45

which is negotiating with an

2:47

important business skill. We're going to talk

2:50

about three mistakes in

2:52

negotiating that you don't want to

2:54

make. Okay, so three things

2:56

to avoid while you're

2:59

negotiating. All right, now,

3:01

these tips come from

3:03

a couple of the world's best

3:05

negotiators. So first, of course,

3:08

is Stephen Covey, Dr.

3:10

Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven

3:13

Habits of Highly Effective People, one

3:16

of my favorite books of all time, of course. So

3:18

if you haven't read that one, definitely give that a read.

3:21

And from another world

3:23

famous negotiator, Chris

3:26

Voss, who was the former

3:28

lead negotiator for the FBI

3:31

in the US. Okay, so

3:33

I've kind of combined some of their wisdom

3:35

and put them together to

3:37

make three mistakes in negotiating.

3:39

All right, so let's

3:42

begin. What is the first thing? What is

3:45

the first mistake? Well, according

3:48

to Mr. Voss, one

3:51

mistake in negotiating is to

3:53

ask a why question. Okay,

3:58

a why question. Well,

4:00

why is that? OK, so that's a

4:02

good question for this. Well, there

4:05

are basically two types

4:08

of why question. Well, not two types, two

4:10

ways of looking at a why question. The

4:13

first way is curiosity.

4:17

And the second way is blame. Now,

4:21

unfortunately, in our culture, I'll

4:23

speak about the American culture. When

4:26

someone asks a why question, it

4:30

is almost always considered to

4:32

be a blame question. Like,

4:35

oh, why did you come home so late last

4:37

night? Or why are you doing

4:39

the dishes that way? Why

4:42

do you like this kind of

4:44

music? So often,

4:46

we kind of take that as a

4:49

blaming-type question. When,

4:52

in fact, sometimes we're just curious.

4:55

Oh, why do you like that kind of

4:57

music? Or why do you

4:59

listen to that band? Oh,

5:03

why do you do the dishes like that?

5:05

I was really curious. So as you

5:07

can see, there are two ways to

5:10

kind of receive why questions.

5:14

But again, as we said, unfortunately, in our

5:16

culture, the default way

5:18

is more on the blame side.

5:21

And if you want to mean

5:23

a curiosity-type question, you have

5:25

to really put that before. You have to say,

5:27

well, I'm just asking out of curiosity, but why

5:30

do you blah, blah, blah? And

5:33

really, it's not efficient or effective to keep

5:35

saying that over and over. So

5:39

it's best to avoid asking

5:42

a why question, because there are ways we can

5:44

get around that. Now,

5:46

if you want to know which questions

5:48

to ask, I'm going to save that

5:50

to the end of the podcast,

5:53

or this episode. So stay tuned

5:55

to the end if you want to

5:57

know more about Dua Dao for not using why questions

5:59

or why. what should we ask? But

6:02

that is the first mistake, because we're talking

6:04

about mistakes on this episode. So

6:07

avoid asking direct why

6:09

questions. Now,

6:11

number two, what's the second mistake

6:13

we make during negotiations? Well,

6:16

again, according to Mr. Voss, the second

6:19

mistake we make is to

6:21

hide things and

6:23

try to hide things, try to hide key

6:27

pieces of information and

6:29

perhaps negative information or that the

6:31

other side, the other party, would

6:34

view as negative. Well,

6:36

why is that? So why

6:38

is it harmful or why

6:40

is it bad to avoid giving

6:44

this information or giving these

6:48

things that are negative aspects?

6:50

Well, in

6:53

his view, it means that

6:55

there's a bigger risk that these

6:58

things will come out eventually. So

7:01

these negative things you're trying to hide

7:04

will either come out at the

7:06

end. So right before you

7:08

are about to agree on

7:11

the terms of the negotiation or

7:15

what's worse is for it to happen

7:17

afterwards. So if they find out this

7:19

negative information after the

7:21

deal is made, well,

7:23

what's going to happen to the deal then? So

7:27

it could really backfire and ruin

7:29

the deal and have even more

7:31

negative effect. And

7:34

so that is

7:36

something to avoid when

7:38

you're negotiating. Don't try to hide

7:41

these negative things. So

7:44

that is another key piece

7:46

of advice from Mr.

7:48

Voss. Now, this kind

7:50

of wraps up into number three, which

7:53

is a tip given by Mr. Ksavie. And

7:57

number three in terms of. mistakes

8:01

that we make during negotiations is

8:04

that we accept lose-win

8:07

scenarios. Okay? We

8:10

accept lose-win scenarios. Now,

8:13

of course, what do we want? Well,

8:15

of course, we want to go for

8:17

win-win scenarios. And

8:20

of course, that means both

8:22

sides win. Well, what happens

8:24

is, you know, if we

8:26

feel intimidated or we feel

8:28

a little bit nervous or

8:30

maybe a little bit of fear,

8:32

you know, trying to get

8:34

what we want on

8:37

our side of things, well, we

8:39

might just give in thinking, okay, well, at

8:41

least the deal is done because,

8:43

you know, we're giving up something that

8:45

we wanted. So you

8:48

know, but the deal is complete. So

8:51

that is a win, right?

8:53

But in actuality, you sacrificed

8:55

or you gave up some

8:57

things that you wanted, which means if the other

8:59

side got what they wanted, it is

9:01

a lose-win scenario, right, because

9:03

you lost something and

9:06

you didn't truly gain what you

9:08

wanted. But you feel

9:10

that is a win because the deal was

9:12

completed. However, if

9:14

you had gotten what you wanted, well,

9:16

and they had agreed, there

9:19

would have been a win-win scenario, much

9:21

more powerful deal. Okay?

9:23

So we want to avoid that

9:26

because, yes, it is easier, of course,

9:28

in the moment to concede, as

9:30

we say, to concede or give in

9:33

to complete the deal. But,

9:37

yes, it is much harder to

9:39

go for that win-win because

9:41

it creates more challenges

9:44

in terms of thinking, right? Because

9:47

when we go for a win-win, yes, it requires

9:49

some effort, it requires some thinking. What

9:51

are we going to do for both

9:54

sides to come out on the winning

9:56

side without necessarily giving up things

9:58

that you would have done? have

10:01

otherwise. All right. Now

10:03

another possibility that Mr. Kabi talks about

10:05

is a no-deal scenario.

10:08

So if you just can't agree,

10:11

well of course win-win is the best

10:13

but the second best is a no-deal.

10:15

So instead of

10:17

a lose-win outcome you just say

10:19

well let's

10:21

agree to disagree

10:23

agreeably. Yes, that

10:26

means a no-deal. So maybe this time we're not

10:29

going to come to a deal

10:31

but because we agreed

10:35

to disagree or come to a no-deal

10:38

and we did that agreeably, well that leaves the

10:40

door open for the next time where

10:42

we may come together on a different deal.

10:45

Okay, so no deal is actually not

10:47

a bad outcome. It is definitely better

10:50

than a lose-win outcome. So

10:52

that is again another piece of

10:54

advice from Mr. Kabi. So

10:57

those are the three mistakes that

10:59

people make in negotiating. Now

11:01

let's recap just to make sure. Number

11:03

one is

11:05

to ask direct why questions. The

11:08

second mistake, number two, is

11:11

to try to hide information,

11:13

particularly negative information.

11:17

And number three is

11:19

to accept a lose-win deal.

11:23

Okay, so those are three things to

11:25

avoid in negotiating.

11:28

Now as I mentioned earlier, well

11:30

what are the tips then? What

11:32

can we do to

11:34

improve our negotiating skills? Well,

11:37

so I actually recorded an

11:39

episode all about this and it was

11:41

called How to Win Negotiations and

11:44

it was going to be released as episode 58. However,

11:46

I recorded

11:49

the episode, I lost it and

11:51

finally I found it but it was too late to

11:53

put back into the feed because I had already recorded

11:55

it as 58. So in order to get

11:59

that, You can still get it. No

12:02

charge. Just go and check

12:05

out this link. It

12:07

is businessenglishpower.com.com. Again,

12:13

businessenglishpower.com.com. That'll

12:17

take you right to the page where

12:19

you can download this

12:21

episode of Business English

12:23

Power, Episode 58. Get

12:26

your hands on that. It is a

12:28

great episode. We'll talk about the other

12:30

side, not the mistakes, but how to

12:32

win negotiations. Check

12:35

that out. I look forward to seeing you over there. We're

12:38

going to wrap up this episode of Business English

12:40

Power. Thanks so much for joining me as always.

12:44

Please consider leaving a five-star review

12:46

if you felt this episode was

12:48

worthy of it. The

12:50

podcast in general is worth it. I

12:52

do think so myself, but I want to hear

12:54

from you. Also, ask me

12:57

any questions that you may have. You can

12:59

always email me, al.at.businessenglishpower.com. I'd love to hear

13:01

from you there. All

13:03

right. Until next time, we are going to sign

13:05

off, but I just want

13:07

to leave you with the message to always remember

13:09

to level up your

13:11

learning and level up your life.