Accommodating, compromising, competing, collaborating or avoiding. Which approach will work the best in negotiations?

Thomas Kilman, the eminent psychologist, identifies five different personality types that resolve conflict. These are: accommodating, compromising, competing, collaborating and avoiding. All of us use all five but in very differing degrees. Any individual is likely to adopt one or more of these more readily than the others. As in all personality profiling none of these are right or wrong. They are merely appropriate or inappropriate given a set of circumstances.

In the list above, you are likely to feel a greater affinity with some of these words than others and this will start to give you an indication of the style/s you are more likely to adopt. Usually it is our previous experiences, values, beliefs and capabilities that determine our preferences. However, the skilled negotiator will adapt their style to the substance. All have advantages and disadvantages.

Accommodating behaviour will mean you move further than the other party. You will gain but they will gain more. This is appropriate where they have more power and the long-term benefits dictate that short term losses may be sensible strategically.

Compromising behaviour is where both parties agree to meet somewhere in the middle. This is appropriate when the power is balanced and there is no scope for creative value-adding solutions, but a deal is preferable to no deal. In this situation you both win and lose evenly.

Competing behaviour can return a beneficial outcome where you have the greater power. This is appropriate when you want to utilise this power to extract greater value in the short to medium term.

However, this behaviour can elicit competitive behaviour in return and may threaten a successful outcome.

Collaborating behaviour is usually appropriate where the balance of power is even or against you. Here you work together to create value by trading low-cost issues for high-value issues. You need to be open with information sharing and have high levels of trust. Generally a collaborating style will allow for win-win outcomes for both parties. However, if this trust and openness are exploited they can be used against you.

Avoiding behaviour is when you determine that the cause of concern can best be addressed by doing nothing. To defer or refer the issues elsewhere will mean the problem is likely to subside and may even evaporate in time. Usually this is appropriate with a relatively even balance of power and tends to produce no incremental benefit - it merely prevents incremental loss.

The ability to recognise all five approaches as having value and flexing your style between them is a key attribute in negotiation.n

Graham Botwright is a Partner with The Gap Partnership specialising in commercial negotiation consultancy and development solutions.