Consider your Opening Statement in a Negotiation

You will not find me complimenting politicians on their negotiating skills very often, but the recent negotiations between the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats were interesting and I propose coming back to them from time to time during the next month. For now, I want to consider the "opening salvo" on 7 May 2010, the day after the UK General Election.

For those who do not follow politics in the UK, the country woke up to the first "hung" or balanced parliament (it depends on your political persuasion which adjective you will want to use!) for thirty years and, for a short while, there was relative silence from our politicians. There were those who argued that this was a blessed relief after four weeks of relentless campaigning, but in truth, moves needed to be made in order to form as stable a government as was possible under the circumstances.

Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, had made it clear that, in the first instance, his party would have talks with the party that had won most seats in the General Election and, for the first time since 1997, the Conservatives were in that position.

David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, moved to seize the political and negotiating initiative by holding a press conference - a conference at which, significantly, he took no questions. He wanted his message to stand as delivered; he wanted there to be no possibility of a muffled soundbite in answer to a throwaway question; he wanted to appear in control and statesmanlike. His statement was therefore prepared in advance, rehearsed and delivered without falter.

Whether you agree or not with the Conservative party's policies is not the issue here; I believe that there are lessons for the commercial or indeed HR negotiator to be learned by studying his speech. Yes, it was delivered to the British people live on national television, but in reality, it was aimed at the leadership of the Liberal Democrats and them alone. It was, in effect, an opening statement in which he did a number of things very effectively.

• He set out and described the background to the negotiations
• He outlined clearly what his objective was - "Britain needs strong decisive government..."
• He set an agenda for the talks and, in so doing structured the Liberal Democrats expectations with this key phrase - "it is reasonable to expect that the bulk of the policies in our (the Conservatives) manifesto should be implemented..."
• He made it clear what the Conservatives "must achieves" were, but also offered olive branches to the Liberal Democrats on their important issues
• He kept his own constituents on message by outlining to them exactly where there would be no negotiation on principle
• He set the tone for future meetings in the style of his presentation.

Negotiators should think about how they open their meetings. It is a critical time in any negotiation and a rehearsed opening statement can set the tone and background to the negotiating process. Your rehearsed statement should not just be tried out on the mirror - try it out on your colleagues first. They will soon tell you how good or bad it is!