How to Negotiate
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most of us negotiate in some form or other every day - whether it's about who walks the dog, how much screen-time the kids can have or when to visit the in-laws. But too often we treat it like a competitive sport, with only one aim: to win. Which can backfire, especially when you need co-operation later on. It's much the same in business - negotiating to win at all costs is unlikely to result in a long-term, sustainable business relationship. So how to achieve a win-win situation when both sides leave satisfied and ready to do business with each other again? Evan Davis and guests explore the skills that can help settle disputes between individuals, companies and even nations. They'll discuss when to walk away from the negotiating table and they'll find out what happens when doing a deal is literally a matter of life and death.
Guests:
Tim Cullen, Director, Oxford Programme on Negotiation, Said Business School
Bridie Warner-Adsetts, COO, Naylor Industries
Sue Williams, Hostage Negotiator
Producer: Sally Abrahams.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this program. In this edition of the bottom line, we're discussing the art of negotiation. |
| 0:07.1 | Hello and welcome to the program. In every walk of life, the ability to negotiate is a useful skill, personal, professional, political. |
| 0:15.6 | And it is not unfair to say that in business, most of what you do can be viewed as a form of negotiation. So it is |
| 0:22.6 | surprising, is it not, that so many people are really bad at it and make the most obvious of |
| 0:27.0 | mistakes. Well, we'd like to do our part in rectifying that deficiency by devoting this |
| 0:31.8 | programme to the art and science of negotiation. And I say science, because it is possible to think |
| 0:37.3 | about it in a formal way. It |
| 0:39.0 | really doesn't need to be all about bluff and bravado and back-slapping. So let's meet my three |
| 0:44.8 | guests who spend their lives negotiating or thinking about negotiations as intelligently as possible. |
| 0:50.3 | And first up, Tim Cullen, founder and director of the Oxford Program on Negotiation at the |
| 0:55.2 | Saeed Business School there, also chairman of TCA Limited, which advises companies on negotiation |
| 1:01.7 | outcomes. And Tim, you actually teach negotiation. You can teach negotiation. I do it all the time, |
| 1:08.4 | yes. And who are the clients? Last week, I was teaching the World Trade Organization, how to advise government |
| 1:14.9 | delegations how to negotiate the week before it was Danish advocates. |
| 1:19.8 | And the most interesting probably was a week spent in North Korea teaching the UN there |
| 1:24.5 | how to negotiate. |
| 1:25.9 | And your background, you've worked at, well, quite a number of places, but the World Bank |
| 1:29.4 | and Ford and... |
| 1:31.1 | Yes, actually, I mean, I got into this because I had been many years at the World Bank, |
| 1:35.3 | I'd been in loads of negotiations. |
| 1:37.4 | I thought I was fairly good, and then I was involved in a negotiation to try to get a better |
| 1:42.5 | agreement on whether to go forward with |
... |
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