How You Negotiate Tells Me Everything.
Negotiation isn’t a personality contest. It isn’t a power move. It’s a decision process. And how you approach it, your negotiation style, shapes every outcome.
In any negotiation, I’m after three things.
1. Get what I deserve.
2. Don’t get taken advantage of.
3. Build or at least not damage the relationship.
That’s it. Those are the filters I run every move through. And the negotiation style that gets me the most out of all three is collaboration.
Why? Because when all sides bring something real to the table and work together, they uncover value that only exists when everyone is involved—value no one could create on their own.
That’s not theory. That’s reality. You can’t build something bigger if you’re playing alone. And collaboration is the only style that unlocks that kind of surplus.
That value, the kind that appears only when people negotiate together, is the goal. Most negotiators never even go looking for it. They settle for less than their potential because they come in with no plan, the wrong style or worse, no style at all.
Why Negotiation Style Matters
If you don’t understand the style you’re using or the one you’re up against, you’re gambling.
If you’re working without a system, you’re guessing. And that’s where most people lose value. Not in their offer. In their preparation and how they ask for and communicate decisions.
Here’s my break down of the five styles developed by Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann in 1974, (TKI®).
The Five Negotiation Styles
1. Competing
Competing-style negotiators want to win. It’s all about leverage, pressure, and control. They use false deadlines, tactics to get you to compromise unnecessarily, and intimidate. You’ve seen it. The person who throws down a number and threatens to walk. The counterparty who talks over every answer.
Even when this “works,” it doesn’t. You might get the deal signed, but the other side won’t deliver. They’ll comply at the lowest level and look for any loophole to exit.
You end up with a result that looks good on paper but fails in execution. You created a counterparty that will not work with you in the future and is likely to warn others of your bad behavior.
Competing kills long-term value. It might close today, but it burns tomorrow.
2. Compromising (Win-Win)
This one sounds fair. You get a little, I get a little. Win-win, right?
Wrong. Compromising means you show up expecting to concede before you know what’s even on the table.
You are in a competitive business. You have great products, and your list price is $10,000.
You think, “I need this sale to make my quota, maybe I’ll settle for $9,000. Worst case, $8,000.”
So, you start at $9,000 to play it safe because your competitor has offered $8,000 in the past. You offer $9,000 and they accept. You made your quota.
But you never asked what the other party values.
A few weeks later you learned that they needed product in three days to fulfill a high-margin $100,000 order for their customer. They were ready to pay $15,000 because your product and two-day delivery offer solve their big problem. Your competitor ran out of inventory and could not supply product.
But you’ll never know because you already lowered the bar. That’s what happens when you don’t use a negotiation system that forces you to discover the problem before you make decisions regarding your offer.
3. Accommodating
This style shows up a lot in high-trust environments. People confuse friendliness with effectiveness.
You try to be helpful and keep things smooth. So, you say yes. You can solve the problem, accommodate them and keep the relationship.
A longtime customer comes into your car dealership and says they need a blue SUV for work. You scramble because you don’t have one. You send them to a competitor who does.
But you never asked why they needed the blue one. Turns out, they just needed any working vehicle by tomorrow. They preferred blue, but it was not a requirement.
You had three cars that could have solved their problem. And now you lost the sale.
Accommodating without clarity is costly. That’s where the Desired Outcome model from the OmniLevel Framework saves you. It forces you to get clear on what they want, why they want it, and when they need it.
Only after discovery do you consider solutions of how to provide it and who to work with to get the job done. There’s no guessing or scrambling. Just control.
4. Avoiding
This negotiation style comes from fear. There is a fear of conflict, hearing and saying “no,” or being wrong.
Avoiders don’t ask. They don’t clarify.
Instead, they walk away from opportunity because they’re afraid of rejection, upsetting someone by saying no, taking a risk and being wrong. All of these make them feel guilty and uncomfortable.
Avoidance is not a strategy. It’s surrender. Even worse, it guarantees that you’ll miss value.
If you want to win, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable.
5. Collaborating
This is the negotiation style that pays off because it’s mutually beneficial.
Collaboration means working together to find value that neither side could get alone. You’re not splitting the pie. Instead, you’re making a bigger one.
But it only works if you’re prepared and have the knowledge about the subject you are negotiating. It only works if you have the skills to do it right.
Why You Need A System
You can’t walk into a negotiation and expect collaboration to happen by accident. You need a system that gives you control, clarity, and a repeatable process.
That’s what the OmniLevel Negotiation Framework gives you.
It’s built on three parts:
- Ten principles. These guide every decision you make during a negotiation.
- Six human behavior models. These help you understand how people think, react, and make decisions.
- Tools and checklists. These keep your process grounded and consistent.
The first principle is our definition of negotiation. Negotiation is the effort to create lasting agreements based on decisions all parties feel are acceptable.
Principle five is: You only control your own decisions. Everything else is variable and not in your control.
This is what keeps you grounded. It lets you walk into a room and hold the line, even if the other side tries to play power games.
Imagine you’re up against a competitor. They’re posturing. Pressuring. Trying to push you out of your position.
You don’t flinch.
You say, “I hear what you’re asking. But I’m not able to do that and still give you what you want. If you want to keep talking, we can. If not, I understand.”
There’s no bluffing, stress or games. Just clarity.
That kind of response doesn’t come from instinct. It comes from having a system.
How to Maximize a Collaborative Deal
Here’s the move.
Step one. Identify the value that only exists because you’re working together.
Step two. Use your system to understand what the other party needs to feel satisfied. Then, run the behavior models. Ask the questions. Get past assumptions.
Step three. Divide that value in a way that gives them just enough to commit and follow through—while keeping the terms right for you.
Let’s say the total additional value created by working together is $100. Surprisingly, they’ll be happy with $10. You don’t owe them $50 to be fair. You give them what they need, confirm it, and take the rest.
That’s not ruthless. That’s precise.
If the other party is underprepared, they may not even see the full value. And that’s fine. Your job is to make sure they understand what they’re getting, what you’re taking, and that everyone agrees with eyes open.
That’s what we call a lasting agreement.
The Real Risk of Not Knowing Your Style
When you don’t know your own style, and you can’t see theirs, you make bad calls.
You react, cave in and guess. You give up value without realizing it.
A system protects you from that. It gives you a way to analyze the situation, stay aligned with your principles, and keep control.
With the OmniLevel Framework, every move you make is based on a model of human behavior. Every decision is built on a principle. And every outcome is something you chose, not something you settled for.
Bottom Line:
Most negotiators don’t lose the deal.
They lose the follow-through. They lose the implementation. They don’t build rapport and trust, they lose it.
Because they walked in without a system and used a style that didn’t serve them.
The ones who get what they deserve don’t get taken advantage of and build relationships.
– They operate with principles.
– They know how to spot the other side’s style.
– They ask the right questions.
– They create value and walk away with the part they deserve and earned.
That’s what negotiation is.
That’s how we do it.
That’s OmniLevel.
If you’re ready to apply a repeatable process to your own deals, explore the Executive Negotiator Framework to see how it works in action.
