The Art of Storytelling in Software and Cloud Negotiations

We will explore how you can tell a compelling story when negotiating any kind of contract. We'll specifically talk about software and cloud contracts, but this will work for any negotiation, whether it's in the tech industry, for a new house, a new car, or anything else, basically.

Because there's nothing that beats a good story! We will discuss how this approach can help you build rapport and trust and ultimately secure a better outcome. The way I see storytelling in negotiations is really like writing a great book or reading one.

The Importance of the Opening

I want you to imagine for a moment that you're picking up a new book. Those first pages are crucial, aren't they? They set the tone, introduce the characters, and give you a sense of the journey ahead. In many ways, negotiating a software or cloud contract is no different. The initial moments of your discussions are like the opening pages of a great, compelling book.

They lay the foundation for everything that follows. In a negotiation, just like in storytelling, the beginning is where you establish the framework for the entire process. It's where you build rapport, set expectations, and create a shared understanding. How you start a negotiation can, and probably will, determine the outcome.

Just like how the opening of a book will either keep you compelled or you'll put it down. It's exactly the same. Just like when you start a new movie, if you're not caught in the first five minutes, you're going to go to another movie. It's exactly the same with negotiations.

You need to catch the reader's interest, or in this case, your counterpart. If you capture your counterpart's attention with a compelling story that's rooted in shared goals and mutual understanding, you're not just setting the stage for a productive negotiation, you're paving the way for success.

On the other hand, a rocky or disconnected start can potentially lead to misunderstandings, mistrust, and, ultimately, a less favourable outcome. So watch out for that intro! Think about it. I'd actually sketch it out. What do you want to achieve?

Negotiators as Authors

I want you to look at yourselves like authors. And just as an author crafts the first chapter of a novel, I want you to craft and think about the first stage of the negotiation by thoughtfully considering how you introduce the characters. Yes, there are characters, just like in a book, just like when telling a story.

What's the setting? Think about the shared journey. If you have all of those components (and we're going to talk about each one), you will reach a successful resolution. What I want you to keep in mind is that you have an aligned goal with your counterpart. It's actually the same goal. You both want an agreement and want to leave the negotiation table better off than at the beginning. And that's a common interest. When you think about it, as you start off your journey, you have a common interest.

You have a common interest with your counterpart: you both want to gain more, and you both want to be successful. So, what's the first step in building up that story? Before you can build up that really good, compelling story, it's essential that you do your homework. Research is really the foundation of your narrative.

Laying the Groundwork: Research

This involves not only understanding the technical and business aspects of a deal but also diving deeper into the personal and organisational stories of the people across the table. There are two aspects: personal and business.

Personal Research

Let's start with personal research. Take the time to learn about the individuals. It's usually individuals, not just one individual that you're going to be negotiating with. What are their backgrounds, their motivations, and their pain points? Understanding who they are on a personal level will allow you to tailor your story—a story that will resonate with them more effectively.

Business Research

On the business side, you need to understand the business context. Both your own (don't forget this!), you've got your own, and you've got theirs. What are the company's goals, challenges, and strategic initiatives? How does this negotiation fit into the bigger picture for them and you? When you align your narrative with their business objectives, you can craft a story that not only meets your needs but also advances their interests.

Cultural Considerations

I also want you to think about cultural differences when you start crafting that story. That's a crucial aspect of storytelling in any negotiation in general, and it's overlooked more often than I can even think of. I'm surprised each time that it's overlooked. Culture can deeply influence how people communicate, make decisions, build relationships, and build rapport.

Think about the difference between countries within Central Europe, of course. I'm not even talking about the difference between West and East—huge cultural differences that will impact the narrative of your story. It's about how you build rapport. It's about understanding if the cultural background is similar to or different from yours.

And there are a number of crucial points that I want to drop in here. This is not the main subject (we can talk about cultural differences in a different session), but I just want to mention some crucial points you must consider.

Communication Style

One is communication style. There are cultures where the communication style is direct and to the point, and there are others, like in the eastern side of the world—China, Japan, and others—where it's more nuanced. You need to read between the lines or "read the wind," as they say. It's really indirect. Understanding this can help you tailor your message in a way that will resonate with your audience.

Authority and Hierarchy

What about authority and hierarchy? Again, this is different between cultures. There are specific authority cultures where it's viewed as top-down, whereas in others, it's bottom-up. You need to be aware of that. Who are you negotiating with? You need to be conscious of how the decision process is driven. Is it a team decision or an individual decision?

That will help you when you craft your story to pinpoint who you're telling the story to. You might have to have multiple stories for multiple people—for different individuals within the company. Of course, there are areas like feedback, decision-making processes, and much more.

Global Negotiations

Every negotiation today is a global negotiation. Even if you're negotiating with your local representative from AWS or Microsoft, they work for an international company. That international company has very specific cultural aspects to it. You need to be aware that you are negotiating with two different cultures: your local representative's culture and the company's global culture.

So keep that in mind. I highly recommend you read Erin Meyer's book The Culture Map. Google it up: The Culture Map. It's highly recommended and a fantastic book.

The Role of Emotions

What about emotions when you tell a story? Every story is about emotions. Negotiations are crafted around emotions.

Negotiations are sometimes (and incorrectly) seen as purely rational processes, but the truth is that emotions play a significant and key role. Stories in negotiations are powerful because, ultimately, they appeal to emotions as much as to logic. So, you need to understand the emotional triggers.

Different people respond to different emotional triggers. Some people are motivated by fear, others by loss, potential gain, and pure respect or recognition. Understand the triggers and build them into your story.

Building Rapport and Trust

What's the first stage? The first stage of a good story is building rapport and trust.

Start by sharing your story. Begin with your background and your personal experience. It's about you, first of all, and relating it to the current negotiation scenario. I love building up negotiations based on a personal touch. Build up how your personal journey aligns with the company's journey and the company's goals and values.

It will emphasise the shared goals. Rapport is really the cornerstone. If you open up correctly and share a bit about yourself, your professional background, and your experience, you won't believe the difference it will make. If you build trust, it will take you considerably further than if you don't.

Keep in mind: personal relationship, trust, rapport—making it personal. Make sure you connect your story with the company's story.

Emphasise Interests Over Requirements

Always remember that you need to emphasise interests over requirements. Most negotiators get hung up on requirements. It's crucial to emphasise interests over requirements.

Instead of focusing on ticking off a list of demands, concentrate on the underlying interests that both parties share. This approach will lead to more collaborative and more innovative solutions. It will turn the process into co-creation rather than confrontation. Find commonalities over differences.

In any negotiation (and we all negotiate, and you've been negotiating for years), it's really easy to get caught up in the differences—in what you want versus what they want. However, a successful negotiation is really about finding shared goals. You need to look at negotiations as a long-term journey where both parties are working towards a common destination.

Remember that when you think of negotiations, think of it as a story, a book, or a good movie.

I love the analogy of a book or movie because, in this story, each party is a character, and the backdrop is the market or industry landscape. By understanding the characters and the setting, you can shape the negotiation narrative in a way that will emphasise your common goals and values rather than the differences.

What's Your Narrative?

You're telling a story. In every story, there is a narrative. If you pinpoint and articulate the narrative, you have a winning story. It's like any good movie or any good story: if you don't have a narrative, where's the story going? Where are you heading?

The Five Key Elements of a Great Negotiation Story

There are five key elements of a great story.

Characters

I want to start with the first great element: the characters. Like in any great story, we have characters. So, you need to think about who the key players in the negotiation are. You need to understand their roles, their motivations, and their concerns. The characters are really going to drive the plot.

• Identify the Characters: So, in negotiations, the characters are yourself. Are you playing the lead role? Is somebody else playing the lead role? Who is the hero of the negotiations? Who is the sidekick? Who is your team? Because every good hero in any story works with a team. Who is your team? What are their roles? And how are they going to help you in the negotiation process?

• Understand Their Motivations: You don't only think about yourself; you think about your counterparts. Who are the characters in their story? Who are they bringing to the table? Each character brings their own experience, emotions, goals, fears, wants, needs, and requirements.

• Tailor Your Story: The better you understand that, and when you build your story, take into consideration the characters in the story that you are dealing with, the better aligned you're going to be. Then, you'll be able to tailor your story and address either one of the character's specific needs and concerns or maybe multiple characters' needs and concerns. That's understanding: in the research stage, the decision process, and then you build the narrative, and you build the story, or the stories, depending on the characters you're dealing with.

Setting the Scene

The second element: what's the setting? What's the backdrop to the negotiations? I like to look at the market conditions, the business environment, and potential external factors as the backdrop to the story. And they're going to influence the negotiation process.

Just as a story is influenced by its setting, so is a negotiation shaped by the broader context. And that is the business context, the environment context, and the requirement context.

• Market Conditions: Are you negotiating in a booming market or during a recession? It's going to change the story.

• Company Situation: Is your company going through a merger, an acquisition, or a divestiture? How crucial is this contract, this software contract, this cloud contract, for your company's health and future?

This will frame and help you frame the narrative and the context around the story.

Conflict

And then there's always a conflict, like in any good story. There's no good story without a conflict between the characters. So what are the challenges? What are the conflicts that need to be resolved? And there are conflicts, and there are challenges.

• Identifying Conflicts: You want a specific price. They want a different price. You want certain terms and conditions. They want certain terms and conditions. The duration of the contract. All that will determine and drive conflict.

• Addressing Conflicts: So you need to understand that. You need to build that into your storytelling. You need to identify the key issues at the start and address them, I believe, most of the time, head-on.

Every great story, remember, has a conflict that needs to be resolved. You need to thread that into your storytelling and build it into your narrative. This will set the stage for the future resolution.

Resolution

When the hero meets the villain in a story, and they're going to fight it out, you need to understand in advance how the story will end. What's the resolution? What's the endgame? You discuss and put this as part of the story.

• Envision the Outcome: You need to put it at the start of the negotiations—not verbally, step by step—but envision it and articulate to the other side what the end story looks like. Not the exact discount and terms and conditions, but how you're both going to be leaving the negotiation.

• Set a Vision: Set a vision. The vision will drive everything as you move forward.

Theme

What's the theme? That's the fifth key element. What is the underlying message or value, or your values, your company values, that should guide the negotiations? This could be ultimately a partnership, joint innovation, long-term success, or any other value that will align both parties. Now, the theme of your story is the overarching message that will tie everything together.

• Define the Theme: So think about it: if it's going to be building a long-term relationship, a partnership, achieving mutual growth, or creating innovative solutions, that basically is going to drive the framework.

• Reinforce the Theme: Now, this theme that you come up with as part of building up that story needs to resonate throughout the negotiation process, reminding both parties of the shared values and goals that brought everyone to the table in the first place.

So keep that in mind. The theme is repeated again and again throughout the negotiation. So, the story is not telling the story at the start; it's building up the story throughout the negotiation process. It's going back and forth, repeating it, moving it forward, and using it as a roadmap during the entire negotiation process.

Storytelling: A Strategy for Successful Negotiation

Storytelling is not just a tool for communication. It's a strategy that, I believe, is the key to successful negotiation. By crafting that narrative we spoke about, that compelling narrative, you will be building rapport, fostering trust, and guiding the negotiation towards a successful outcome.

Next time you sit down and prepare for a negotiation, don't think of the negotiation as targets and outcomes. Think about it as a story. How can you share it in a way that connects with your counterparts? How can you align your narrative with theirs to create a shared vision for success?

Remember that the story you tell from the beginning can and will set the stage for everything that comes.

I want to thank you for your time today. I hope you found this valuable and that you can apply it to your future negotiations; hopefully, this will leave you with a new way of thinking about negotiations.

It's been a pleasure being with you. Thank you, and see you at my next LinkedIn audio event.