Assessing Your Negotiating Style*

To assess your negotiation style while preparing for negotiations, complete the following three
steps:

1. Complete the attachment to assess and understand your negotiating style.

2. Use the assessment to assess the style of the other side. This is especially important in
cross-cultural negotiations. Remember that there can be considerable variation in
negotiation style within a culture.
3. Do a gap analysis. Locate the major gaps between your style and the style of the other
side. Focus on these gaps when preparing for the negotiation.

Additional tip: After completing the gap analysis, try a role reversal exercise where you use the
style of the other side. This will enable you to better understand the other sides style.

*Thank you to Jeswald Salacuse, Henry J. Braker Professor of Law and former Dean of The
Fletcher School at Tufts University, for permission to reprint this assessment. For further
information, see Chapter 2, Determine the Type of Negotiation, in Negotiating for Success:
http://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Success-Essential-Strategies-
Skills/dp/0990367193/ref=sr_1_1?s=boo....
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/483669

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Assessing Your Negotiating Style

Instructions: Listed below are ten important traits of a persons negotiating style and approach.
Each trait demonstrates a wide range of variations, which can be organized along a continuum, as
has been done below. With respect to each trait, indicate with an X where your own negotiating
style and approach in business negotiation falls along each continuum.

1. Goal: What is your goal in business negotiations: a binding contract or the creation of a
relationship?

2. Attitudes: What is your attitude toward negotiation: win/lose or win/win?

3. Personal Styles: During negotiations, is your personal style informal or formal?

4. Communications: Is your communication style in negotiation direct (for instance, clear
and definite proposals and answers) or indirect (for instance, vague, evasive answers)?

5. Time Sensitivity: In the negotiation process, is your sensitivity to time high (for instance,
you want to make a deal quickly) or low (you negotiate slowly)?

6. Emotionalism: During negotiations, is your emotionalism high (that is, you have a
tendency to display your emotions) or low (you hide your feelings)?

7. Agreement Form: Do you prefer agreements that are specific (that is, detailed) or general?

8. Agreement Building: Do you view negotiation as bottom up (reach agreement on details

first) or top down (begin with agreement on general principle)?

9. Team Organization: As a member of a negotiating team, do you prefer having one leader
who has authority to make a decision or decision making by consensus?

10. Risk Taking: Is your tendency to take risks during negotiations high (for instance, your
opening offer to sell is extremely high) or low?
Checklist of Ethical Standards and
Guidelines
Perhaps more than any other human activity, negotiations raise challenging ethical dilemmas.
Some ethical standards are required by law; others are voluntary. Select one or more of the
voluntary standards or guidelines before you begin a negotiation. For further information and
examples, see Chapter 4, Decide How to Answer Ethical Questions, in Negotiating for
Success:

http://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Success-Essential-Strategies-
Skills/dp/0990367193/ref=sr_1_1?s=boo....

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/483669

Required by Law:
1. No Fraud. (Do not lie.)

2. Uphold your fiduciary duty. (If there is a fiduciary relationship with the other side, you owe the
highest duty of trust and loyalty.)

3. Dont act in an unconscionable manner. (When you are in a dominant position of power, try to
reach an agreement that is fair to the other side.)

Voluntary Ethical Standards and Guidelines:

1. Organizational standards. (If your employer has a Code of Conduct, does it provide standards for
your negotiations?)

2. Someone you admire. (What would someone you admire do in your situation?)

3. Family test. (How would you feel when describing to your family what you did during a
negotiation?)

4. Newspaper test. (How would you feel if a newspaper article in the local paper described what
you did during a negotiation?)

5. Golden Rule. (Treat others as you want to be treated. Keep in mind that fairness is very
important to the other side.)