Laying the Groundwork for Successful Negotiation
Anurag Yadav, Director, AMR Data and Research Services, Global Research Partners and Global Production, at The Boston Consulting Group, engages in high-level deal-making around the world. After six years with the firm, he was confident with his business acumen but also recognized the need to hone his negotiation skills and enhance his knowledge of international cultures impacting this process. With the encouragement from his boss, he found the perfect opportunity to do both in the Strategic Negotiations program at Harvard Business School (HBS) Executive Education. He discusses his learning experience in the program and how it has influenced his daily work.
Why did you choose to apply to this program?
One of the critical aspects of my job at The Boston Consulting Group is to apply external business research and analytics capabilities to satisfy the evolving needs of businesses. Over the past six years, I have been leading vendor due diligence and selection in practically all major geographies across the globe. When I joined the firm, I already had an in-depth understanding of business, but it was people and culture that proved challenging for me in every new engagement.
Which aspects of the experience did you find most beneficial?
Several things contributed to the experience, including the overall structure of the program, the case study format, and the faculty. But most important was the class makeup. The highly diverse and experienced group in the classroom aptly represented the global market, and that greatly broadened my perspective. Because of the depth of experience among participants, there was no lack of creativity or best-practice sharing. We started with a very basic and straightforward negotiation exercise to agree on a price point, and we slowly graduated to much more complex 2-D and 3-D negotiations. All of the cases were derived from real-life negotiations, and that was particularly useful for evaluating and benchmarking outcomes from the various scenarios we experimented with in class.
How has the program influenced your view of negotiation?
When I entered the program, I saw negotiation as achieving a win-win solution for both sides. It was a revelation that this strategy alone does not guarantee the best outcome in most cases. The 3-D approach was eye-opening, as I learned that negotiation is an independent activity for creating maximum value and subsequently using tactics to claim and divide this value among different parties. The program has changed the very premise on which I approach and plan for future negotiations.
What learnings are you applying to your day-to-day work?
One invaluable lesson I learned is that deal set-up and design are the most critical and time-consuming aspects of any negotiation. Today I have a much better understanding of how these two steps help differentiate between value creation and value claiming, and why "winning" can't be about claiming the maximum value for myself alone. In addition, I now have access to a much more structured framework and tools, and these will ensure that I don't shortchange or overlook any important steps going forward.
How would you describe the value of the program to someone who's considering it?
Strategic Negotiations is tremendously useful for middle and senior management professionals, whether they engage in external or internal negotiations. It will teach you to comprehensively plan for a deal, and as a result you will be far more confident when you get to the table.