In negotiating diplomacy, extracting insights from commercial transactions is useful. As one who has been involved both in business and in diplomatic negotiations, however, I find that similarities are far more foundational than differences, even given obvious differences in context. Executives rarely think of themselves as diplomats engaged in international diplomacy, yet business negotiators frequently see that both fields share negotiating skills and techniques. As a result, the art of negotiating offers invaluable tools to all business negotiators, who are in the business of creating and managing relationships between companies. All business negotiators are creating relationships–whether or not they see it as diplomacy, or even as a common objective. [Sources: 1, 4]
After all, diplomacy is the art of creating and managing relationships between nations, while the art of negotiation is the art of establishing relationships by agreeing. In diplomatic negotiations, countries’ teams negotiating usually adhere to a set of unwritten rules and conventions that guide parties from vastly different backgrounds and goals to reach agreements. To achieve an agreement, countries negotiating teams will bring additional elements to the table to generate potential tradeoffs. Diplomatic negotiations sometimes involve years of preparation, and usually start with an agreed-upon framework that has the two parties (or all parties) roughly in line. [Sources: 0, 1, 3]
You might also like
This moving the goalposts phenomenon or negotiating objectives is very common in American diplomacy. In international relations, countries with large diplomatic corps, like the United States, enjoy a leg up in such situations because they usually have multiple experts on a topic within the team that negotiates, which allows them to cycle individuals in and out during several days of intensive negotiations to prevent fatigue. Business leaders frequently fail to achieve an agreement or extract the most value from negotiations because one or both sides does not effectively prepare for the meeting. A business agreement of any meaningful length is an ongoing negotiation between parties, who have to apply their agreements to contingencies and tailor their relationships to the continually changing environments in which they operate. [Sources: 1, 3, 6]
Both before and after signing the agreement itself, negotiators, as diplomats, should consider the agreement in relational terms, developing strategies and marshaling resources that will make it easier for them to negotiate further. To improve outcomes and reach our goals, it is critical to think through the process of negotiations and build relevant negotiating skills. If American officials are to function effectively over the coming decades, negotiators at every level of government must complement their utilization of political, economic, and military resources with greater care for building relationships with officials from the governments in question, and greater self-awareness of American negotiation characteristics as they affect diplomatic encounters. Negotiations are becoming increasingly, not less, important as an instrument of American foreign policy, and the nature of international negotiations is changing rapidly in response to globalization, the rise of problems requiring a collective response, and the weakened nation-state system and the collective organizing of international action. [Sources: 1, 6, 7]
For business negotiators, the following are a few of the general tactics and strategies diplomats from the United States and elsewhere routinely deploy, which may prove useful tools in the business world. While economic diplomacy is focused on brokering between states to negotiate the best possible institutional structure for domestic firms engaged in a particular market, business diplomacy is focused on managing, and ideally mitigating, business risks in cases in which firms are operating in weakened institutional environments, or in cases in which the security and access to local institutions are unreliable. While economic diplomacy focuses on brokerage between states to negotiate the best possible institutional framework for national firms engaged in a specific market, business diplomacy is aimed at managing and preferably reducing corporate risk where firms operate in weak institutional environments or where security and access to local institutions are not guaranteed.2 Even though at times business diplomacy definition is confused with the myriad concepts such as corporate diplomacy, statecraft, corporate social responsibility, or public relations, Jennifer Kesteleyn, Shaun Riordan, and Huub Ruel insist that the key difference is not between actors, but rather the diplomatic mentality, attempting to situate the geopolitical risks in coherent, longer-term strategic settings. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge asked James C. Sebenius how to put the business at risk in the world. [Sources: 2, 3, 4]
One of our goals in writing Henry Kissingers The Negotiator was to mine his remarkably sophisticated negotiations for lessons that could be applied both in diplomacy and business. Before and during critical negotiations, Kissinger would simultaneously zoom into his larger strategy and zoom into individual counterparts, seeking to combine strategy and personal relationships to promote his central interests. No negotiation is ever going to be perfect, particularly when you and your counterparts are from different cultures or work sectors. When we are negotiating, we have to take into account all of the perspectives of different parties, and by actively listening, we can gain an appreciation for how important these perspectives are. [Sources: 0, 1, 4]
We all know individuals who are adept at talking their way out of sticky situations or are most likely to succeed at negotiations. While some degree of luck can be attributed to isolated incidents, long-term success relies on solid communication skills, planning, self-control, trust, and emotional intelligence. Always aim for win-win outcomes, so that you increase the chances that a difficult situation can be successfully resolved, and all parties can feel good about whatever compromises were made in the process. In a way, international diplomacy is the purest manifestation of the art and science of negotiations, because those who conduct negotiations are rarely doing it for themselves, but for the government decision-makers they are working for. [Sources: 3, 5]
Sources:
[0]: https://www.ie.edu/university/resources/learning/the-diplomatic-keys-to-successful-negotiation/
[1]: https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/dealmaking-daily/the-art-of-deal-diplomacy/
[2]: https://brill.com/view/journals/dipl/2/1/article-p20_20.xml?language=en
[4]: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/henry-kissinger-s-lessons-for-business-negotiators
[5]: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/tact-diplomacy.html
[6]: https://www.usip.org/publications/american-negotiating-behavior-questions-and-answers
