Know your priorities and what you dont want in negotiations

It is unusual for any negotiation to have one single issue to bargain about. If there is going to be give and take, it implies that you have something to give in order to be able to take. Even if it seems at first glance that there is one single concern, there is usually also some hidden matter involved.

Take the example of pay bargaining. The issue involved is how much more pay are the workers going to get from the management this year. It looks simple. It usually is not. Other concerns involved in this negotiation might be tying pay to productivity, having an agreement which lasts more than one year, or establishing a formula for future pay negotiations.

Once you know your overall objective, you need to break it down into its constituent parts, then prioritize those parts. If you were negotiating a pay settlement, which would be your first, second and thud priorities? Which would be more important to you - to achieve the maximum increase this year, or to achieve a smaller increase now, with a guarantee of the same increase next year? Would you prefer to negotiate anew every year, or establish a formula? Would you be prepared to link pay to productivity if it gave you something you wanted in return? So the essential questions you must ask yourself here are: 'What is most important to me?' and 'What are the priorities in my desired outcome?'

Know what you don't want
Another useful question to ask yourself is: 'What would be totally unacceptable to me?'

There may be some conditions or demands which you would not be prepared to accept at any price. It may be that it just would not be worth your while to continue if you had to go beyond a certain point, or that you would compromise your colleagues, honesty or integrity. Most people have a limit when they negotiate, but many people have not thought out this limit very carefully.