Negotiation is an exercise in decision-making

Most people don't view negotiation as an exercise in decision-making. Yet, decision-making is at the heart of negotiation. At the start of any negotiation, each party sets objectives, consciously or unconsciously.  Setting objectives is where you negotiate with yourself, balancing off what you hope to achieve in the negotiation with the realities of what may be achievable.  This balancing stage involves decision-making from the get go.

Once you've set your objectives, you then decide on a strategy to use in the negotiation.  If  you very carefully set definitive objectives that reflect the likely trade-offs you will have to make to achieve the objectives, you will have taken a giant step toward developing a strategy.  Having vague objectives means having a vague strategy and having a vague strategy is a ticket to not achieving your objectives.

Developing a strategy is a major exercise in decision making. Strategy is a high level view of the path you intend to take to achieve your objectives.  However, it is often said that strategy is knowing not the exact path you will take, but knowing the terrain. It is also said that once you "engage the enemy," you will have to change your strategy to reflect the new information you learn upon the engagement.  But, a well thought-out strategy will take this into account with multiple possible paths to achieving your objectives built into your strategy.  So, developing a strategy is deciding among many alternatives given the imperfect information you are working with.

Strategy and tactics are a continuum.  There is no clear line when your plan of action shifts from strategy to tactics.  The difference between strategy and tactics is a matter of granularity.  As strategy shifts to tactics, the decisions become more detailed.  As your opponent reacts to your actions, you must adapt to these reactions. Hopefully, you have already predicted the actions your opponent is likely to take and can easily respond with pre-planned actions.  All of this requires decision-making.

So, much of the preparation for a negotiation involves deciding between many trade-offs right from the start and continues throughout the negotiation.  We should place more emphasis on the process of decision-making when preparing for an important negotiation.  If we consciously consider the decision-making throughout the negotiation process, we will have better outcomes to our negotiations.