Tuesday 22 December 2009

Get What You Want Successfully, in a Dispute

1. Actively Listen

Being able to listen fully to what they are saying is the very first procedure you should take. It will show you care and are willing to negotiate and understand why they are reacting this way. Firstly you must seek to understand before being understood” as this is vital to the relation to the person and also to your argument. Since many people use emotion rather than logic in arguments, it’s best not to ask questions just to try and settle the emotions and bring them to your point of view.

2. Value their opinion

Wherever possible try and listen and talk with empathy especially in a personal dispute. One technique to use is to reiterate what they say and communicate that you understand what they are saying “but my point is…” this will leave them more open to think about your point since you are with theirs.

3. Try and Relate

There will always be something you can agree on no matter what. Finding common ground is a good way to sway the other person to your side, as they realise you aren’t droning on about what you want. For example I and a friend had an argument over the irony that rage against the machine got number one and beat a major corporation when they used Facebook (The biggest social site) and didn’t understand the hype. I agreed with him and said I could see the irony and that me myself is not a rage fan but there should be hype because people made a stand and stopped x factor getting number one, for the 5th year in a row.

4. Think Win/Win not Win/Lose

When you gruellingly get your point across even if you were right, you have upset the other person. This situation may be perceived as a win/lose situation but really it’s a lose/lose one, which will cause stress and negative emotions. The facts being you have destroyed your trust bank and respect from that person in a matter of minutes. A good negotiation is where both parties walk away happily and have each others interests in tact but most importantly the relationship.

5. Final Thing to Avoid…

After the dispute don’t gloat or do anything that makes it seem as you ‘Won’. It will make your task 10x harder the next time one opinion is raised against another. The only real win in a dispute as I mentioned earlier is one where both people come to an agreement and are happy, this is win/win.

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