Brexit Negotiations – What are the Needs of the Other Side?

So the UK has been through three months of Remain or Leave campaigning. What does it mean for the UK if we Remain? What does it mean for the UK if we Leave? We have been very own needs focused for these three months.

Now the result is declared the UK media has been fixated on – what does this mean for the UK? What should/could the UK do now? What impact is this going to have on us?

The continental European media has been focused on – what does this mean for the European Union? What should/could the EU do now? What impact is this going to have on the EU?

So we have all been influenced to be very “own needs focused”. I wonder how many of the influencers at the European meetings yesterday remembered the vital negotiation process step of “what are the needs of the other side? – WATNOTOS?” before going into those meetings? Did David Cameron and his aids sit in the chair of the EU leaders and ask themselves “what are their needs now? what are their personal needs? what do they have to be seen to be doing now? Where are their main pressure/pain points coming from? How do the timing issues impact on them? How can they look good coming out of all this?”. I don’t think Nigel Farage did! How many of the EU leaders sat in Cameron’s chair and looked at it through his eyes and heart?

When situations become stressful and/or important we are hard-wired to look at everything from our point of view. This leads to variance negotiation strategies.

To achieve our best possible negotiation outcomes we need to understand the Other Party’s views as well as we know our own. This is often counterintuitive and will separate the skilled negotiator from the reactive negotiator. Allowing negotiators to build common ground based strategies.

Watch in these EU discussions, how many of the influencers will only really start understanding the Other Parties’ needs when the emotions are dying down and positions have already become entrenched? Too late by then. They will have missed key influencing opportunities and huge gains from common ground strategies. Don’t get too fixated by the “content” of these negotiations – remember to observe the “process” too.