The-Negotiation-Society-Magazine-The-Change-Issue

NEGOTIATORS
AND RETAILERS
WOULD LIKE TO GET
TO KNOW YOU WELL
Serena Fallahi Tittl has candid conversations with two
retail experts about the commercial value of knowing
and understanding what customers are thinking.
S
ocrates’ famous pronouncement about
self-awareness - “To know thyself is
the beginning of wisdom” – has been
analyzed and critiqued by philosophers,
economists, and thinkers past and present.
While debate in such circles may continue
for evermore about what precisely Socrates
meant, and indeed how his advice can be
implemented, a contemporary updating of
the quote for negotiators could be argued
to be, “The most skilled negotiators are
those who understand their counterparty
better than their counterparty understands
themselves.” Because it’s only by truly getting
inside the other party’s head (never mind
their own!) that a negotiator can craft and
offer the most value-creating proposals.
A lawyer friend of mine once recounted
a story to me in which he was asked to
assemble a case brief for a certain defendant.
Being new in his career and eager to make
an impression with his boss, he labored over
the brief, spending late nights and weekends
compiling it. Upon presenting the finished
result to the chief counsel, his leader looked
it over and commented, “This is good. Now
that you so clearly understand the defendant’s
view, you’re adequately prepared to write the
case brief for our client, the plaintiff.” Since
this encounter, my friend has never lost sight
of the importance of getting inside the head
of the other party.
This behavior and skillset are not limited
to negotiation, however. They are also coveted
in the sophisticated and modern area of
consumer insights. As in negotiation, there
is a focus on interpreting the meaning behind
the words and actions in order to understand
consumer behavior. Keen for the opportunity
to dig deeper into this fascinating area,
I sat down with two leaders in the consumer
insights field: Mindy Dempsey and Vaughan
Ryan. Both provided me with expert analysis
of how data impacts the consumer experience,
predictions for the near-future, and also a
reveal of how data insight and analysis share
a core philosophy with the tenets
of negotiation.
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