0019 Tough Negotiations

0019 Tough Negotiations.pdf
0019 Tough Negotiations.mp3

[start of story]

I'm not what you would call the world's best negotiator, but sometimes it's necessary to engage in a tough negotiation. Take, for instance, the time I had to renew the lease on my apartment. This was back in college, when I was renting a small studio in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. When my lease was up, the landlord and I sat down to hammer out the terms of a new lease.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," he said. "I'm going to give you a break on rent if you sign a two-year lease instead of just a one-year lease."

"Well," I said, "I don't know. What sort of break are we talking about here?"

"I'll give you a 5% rent increase instead of a 10% increase in exchange for you signing a two-year lease. It's a win-win situation: you get a cut in rent, and I get the security of a two-year lease."

At this point, I decided to make a counter-proposal. "How about this," I said, "You give me a one year lease with a six percent increase."

"No, I can't make that sort of deal," he said. "But here's what I can do, and it's my final offer: I'll pay for your electricity for the first 6 months of the lease, along with the other terms I mentioned before."

"You drive a hard bargain. Okay, it's a deal," I said. I guess I could have tried to bargain him down a bit more, but I was happy with our agreement. Now all I had to do was sign on the dotted line.

[end of story]

Today we’re talking about negotiations. Negotiations are when you have to try to reach an agreement on something with someone, either in business or in your personal life. Tough negotiations are difficult negotiations, negotiations that require a lot of effort or work.

I started by saying that “I’m not what you would call the world’s best negotiator.” Someone who negotiates is called a “negotiator” (negotiator).The phrase, “I’m not what you would call,” means “No one thinks that I am very good at this” or “I would not be called by someone else (this thing).” We often use it as a way to be humble, to not brag or boast about yourself. So, when I say “I’m not what you would call the world’s best negotiator,” I’m saying I’m not very good at negotiating.

When you use this phrase about someone else, it is a criticism. If someone is a very bad singer, you could say, “He’s not what you would call the world’s best singer.” People say that about me all the time.

I said in the story that “sometime it’s necessary to engage” – to take part – “in a tough negotiation.” Then I said, “Take, for instance, the time I had to renew the lease on my apartment.” Take, for instance means simply “For example” or “As an example.” “The time I had to” here means “When I had to.”

I said I had to “renew the lease on my apartment. “To renew some agreement or contract” means to extend it, to make it go longer. So, when you have an agreement and you renew it, you’re committing to a longer period of time. You are promising to do what the contract says for a longer time.

I say that I’m trying to renew my lease. A “lease” (lease) is a rental agreement, a contract between two people where one person owns something and the other person pays to use it. A lease is a contract to rent an apartment or some other building. You can also use the term “lease” for a car. If you’re leasing a car, you’re just paying rent on the car. You are using someone else’s car by paying them money.

For an apartment in the United States, typically you sign or agree to a one-year lease. After one year, you can usually renew your lease.

I said that the tough negotiations that I was part of were back in college. We use that expression “back in” to mean “when I was” or “at the time of.” For example, you could say, “Back in the 1920s, people liked to dance to jazz music.” That means that in the 1920s, people enjoyed dancing to jazz music.

I said “I was renting a small studio in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles.” A “studio” apartment is a one-room apartment. Everything is in one room: your bedroom, your bed, your kitchen, your clothes. You just have one room. If you have a separate room for the bedroom, that would be called a “one-bedroom” apartment. But this was just a studio apartment. The “Miracle Mile area” is just a part of Los Angeles, in the middle of the city of Los Angeles.

I said that my lease was up. When a lease is coming to an end, we can use the expression “was up” or “is up.” We also use that with the word “time.” “Time is up” means there’s no more time or the time is over, the time is finished. If you have students who are taking an exam and the teacher says, “Time is up!” she means, “Stop working on your exam, the time is over.”

In the story, my lease was up, so the landlord and I sat down to hammer out the terms of a new lease. A “landlord” (landlord) is someone who owns a building and rents part of the building to someone else. I said I was sitting down or meeting with my landlord “to hammer out the terms of a new lease.” “To hammer out something” or “to hammer something out” means to negotiate, to figure out, to come to a solution. “Terms” (terms) in a negotiation are the specific points that you are negotiating about. So, for a lease on an apartment, the terms would be how long the lease is, how much you pay for rent, whether you pay for gas, electricity, and water, and so forth.

I then used a couple of expressions that are very common in negotiations, whether it’s a personal or business negotiation. One of them was, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” This is an expression that we would use before we give someone our proposal, our ideas for an agreement we are negotiating. The idea here is that we are going to give the person a good deal, a bargain, perhaps a low price.

I said that the landlord told me he would give me a break on rent. A “break” (break) here means a reduction, when you make something less. The expression is “a break on something.” “I’m going to give you a break on the price of a new car” means “I’m going to reduce or lower the price for you.” The landlord said he would give me a break on rent if I signed or agreed to a two-year lease instead of just a one year lease.

I responded to the first proposal by my landlord by saying, “What sort of break are we talking about here?” The expression, “What sort of (something) are we talking about?” means “What exactly are the details?” For example, my friend wants to go on a trip, and he wants to go camping in a tent out in the middle of the desert. So I say, “Well, what kind of tent are we talking about here?” meaning “Give me more information about it.” By the way, I would never go tenting or camping in the desert. In fact, I’d never go tenting anywhere. I’m not a camper.

Anyway, back to – let’s return to – our story: I said that the landlord proposed only increasing my rent 5% instead of, or in place of 10% in exchange for signing a two-year lease. “In exchange for” is a common negotiating term. It means: You give me something, I give you something. We exchange or give each other something of value.

My landlord says this is a “win-win situation.” “Win-win” means “You win and I win” – we both benefit or gain something from the negotiation. The landlord said I would get a cut in rent. A “cut in rent” is the same as a “break on the rent,” a reduction in the rent.

Now, I wasn’t happy with the landlord’s first proposal, so I made a counterproposal. A “counterproposal” means after someone proposes or give his ideas, you reply with or give your own ideas. We even use that word “counter” as a verb: “He countered my proposal with another proposal.” Instead of counterproposal you can also say “counteroffer.”

I introduced it by saying, “How about this?” and then I gave him my idea. That expression “How about this?” is used before we are about to give someone our views or ideas about how the contract or the negotiation should be. You can use this expression when you’re trying to come to an agreement with someone about what to do about any situation. For example, you could say, “You want to go to the movies. I want to go to the beach. How about this? We go to the movies first, and then the beach.” That is how we use “How about this?”

I said, “How about this?” and then gave my counterproposal: “You give me a one-year lease with a six percent increase.” He responded by saying, “No, I can’t make that sort of deal.” A deal is an agreement.

He then said to me, “But here’s what I can do, and it’s my final offer.” There are two expressions here: “Here’s what I can do” and “final offer.” “Here’s what I can do” is what you would say in a negotiation when you are not agreeing completely with the other person, but you’re willing to compromise in the negotiation. To compromise means you give up something and the other person gives up something.

The other term my landlord used was final offer. When someone says, “It’s my final offer,” they mean “That’s all I’m willing to do or to give.” The person is not going to compromise anymore.

My landlord’s final offer was that he would pay for my electricity – my electrical bill – for the first six months of the lease, “along with,” or in addition to, the other terms he already mentioned.

I ended by saying to my landlord, “You drive a hard bargain.” A “hard bargain” is a difficult bargain or difficult agreement. The expression “to drive a hard bargain” means that the other person is a very tough negotiator, that the negotiations are very difficult. I then say, “It’s a deal,” meaning “I agree to your terms.” I accept your proposal.

I say that “I could have tried to bargain him down a bit more.” “To bargain someone down” means to get them to reduce their price or to compromise more. I did not try to bargain my landlord down because I was happy with or satisfied with the agreement.

After I agreed to my landlord’s terms, I said that “All I had to do was sign on the dotted line.” “All I had to do” means “The only thing I had to do.” The “dotted line” in a contract, is where you put your signature indicating you agree to the contract. This is a common expression in English, “to sign on the dotted line.” It means you are going to sign a contract agreeing to something.

Culture Note
Murphy’s Law

Murphy’s law is not really a law or a scientific theory. It is an old “adage” (saying) that says: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” It’s not clear who “came up with” (started using) the term Murphy’s law. Some people claim that it was an “engineer” (a person whose job is to design and build machines and other things), while others say it was a scientist.

Regardless of who came up with Murphy’s law, Americans mention it all the time. Here’s is a typical “exchange” (conversation):

A: “I can’t believe it! This is the third time this month the tire on my bicycle has gone “flat” (with no air in it).”

B: “Murphy’s law. I’d walk from now on, if I were you.”

People don’t usually say, “It’s Murphy’s law” or “Murphy’s law is at work here.” They often simply say “Murphy’s law” and the other person knows what they mean: if something hasn’t gone wrong yet, then at sometime in the future it will. It’s “inevitable” (it will happen and it cannot be changed).

Although the original Murphy’s law is simple — “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” — people have come up with “variations” (different forms) of this saying, often to be funny. Here are few:

• If anything “simply” (absolutely) cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
• The buddy system is essential to your survival; it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot at.

(“buddy system” – often used at school, in which a person chooses or is “assigned” (given) a partner, and the two people do school tasks together and take care of each other)

• Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.

(“dominated” – with the most control or influence over something)

• Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch it to be sure.

[故事开始]

我不是你所说的世界上最好的谈判者，但有时有必要进行一次艰难的谈判。例如，我不得不续租我的公寓的时候。那是在大学时代，当时我在洛杉矶的Miracle Mile地区租了一个小工作室。当我的租约到期时，房东和我坐下来敲定了新租约的条款。

"我会告诉你我要做什么，"他说。"如果你签了两年的租约而不是一年的租约，我就给你减免租金。"

"嗯，"我说，"我不知道。我们在这里谈论的是什么样的折扣？"

"我给你增加5%的租金，而不是增加10%，以换取你签署两年的租约。这是一个双赢的局面：你得到租金的削减，而我得到两年租约的保障。"

在这一点上，我决定提出反建议。"这样吧，"我说，"你给我一年的租约，增加6%。"

"不，我不能做这样的交易，"他说。"但我可以这样做，这是我最后的提议。我会支付你前6个月的租约电费，以及我之前提到的其他条款。"

"你开出的条件很苛刻。好吧，就这么定了，"我说。我想我本可以再跟他讨价还价一番，但我对我们的协议感到满意。现在我所要做的就是在虚线上签字。

[故事结束]

今天我们讨论的是谈判。谈判是指你必须尝试与某人达成协议，无论是在商业上还是在你的个人生活中。艰难的谈判是指困难的谈判，需要付出大量努力或工作的谈判。

我一开始就说，"我不是你所说的世界上最好的谈判者"。谈判的人被称为 "谈判者"（negotiator）。"我不是你们所说的，"这句话的意思是 "没有人认为我很擅长这个 "或 "我不会被别人称为（这件事）"。我们经常把它作为一种谦虚的方式，不吹嘘或夸耀自己。因此，当我说 "我不是你所说的世界上最好的谈判者 "时，我是说我不是很擅长谈判。

当你对别人使用这句话时，它是一种批评。如果某人是一个非常糟糕的歌手，你可以说，"他不是你所谓的世界上最好的歌手。" 人们经常这样说我。

我在故事中说，"有时有必要参与"--参加--"艰难的谈判"。然后我说，"比如说，我不得不为我的公寓续租的时候。" 举例来说，意思是简单的 "例如 "或 "作为一个例子"。"我不得不 "在这里是指 "当我不得不"。

我说我不得不 "续租我的公寓"。"续签一些协议或合同 "的意思是延长它，让它走得更远。所以，当你有一个协议，你续签它，你就承诺了更长的时间。你是在承诺在更长的时间内做合同规定的事情。

我说，我想续签租约。租约"（租赁）是一种租赁协议，是两个人之间的合同，一个人拥有某样东西，另一个人付费使用它。租约是一份租用公寓或其他一些建筑物的合同。你也可以对汽车使用 "租赁 "一词。如果你是在租赁汽车，你只是在支付汽车的租金。你是通过付给别人钱来使用别人的车。

对于美国的公寓，通常你签署或同意一年的租约。一年后，你通常可以续租。

我说，我所参与的艰难谈判是在大学时。我们用这个表达方式 "回到 "是指 "当我在 "或 "在 "的时候。例如，你可以说，"回到20世纪20年代，人们喜欢随着爵士乐跳舞"。这意味着在20世纪20年代，人们喜欢跟着爵士乐跳舞。

我说 "我在洛杉矶的Miracle Mile地区租了一个小工作室"。一个 "工作室 "公寓是一个单间公寓。所有东西都在一个房间里：你的卧室、你的床、你的厨房、你的衣服。你只有一个房间。如果你有一个单独的房间作为卧室，这将被称为 "一室 "公寓。但这只是一个单间公寓。"Miracle Mile地区 "只是洛杉矶的一个部分，在洛杉矶市的中间。

我说，我的租约到期了。当租约即将结束时，我们可以使用 "was up "或 "is up "这样的表达。我们还可以与 "时间 "这个词一起使用。"时间到了 "意味着没有时间了，或者时间结束了，时间结束了。如果你有学生正在考试，而老师说，"时间到了！"她的意思是，"停止考试工作，时间到了"。

在这个故事中，我的租约到期了，所以房东和我坐下来敲定了新租约的条款。房东"（landlord）是指拥有一栋建筑并将该建筑的一部分租给别人的人。我说我坐下来或与我的房东见面，"敲定新租约的条款"。"敲定某事 "或 "敲定某事 "的意思是谈判，弄清楚，达成一个解决方案。谈判中的 "条款"（条件）是指你正在谈判的具体要点。因此，对于一个公寓的租约，条款将是租期多长，你支付多少租金，你是否支付煤气、电和水，等等。

然后，我使用了几个在谈判中非常常见的表达方式，无论是个人谈判还是商业谈判。其中一个是，"我告诉你我要做什么"。这是一种表达方式，我们在向别人提出我们的建议、我们对正在谈判的协议的想法之前会使用。这里的意思是，我们要给对方一个好的交易，一个便宜的交易，也许是一个低价。

我说，房东告诉我他会在租金上给我一个突破。这里的 "休息"（break）是指减少，当你把东西做少了。表达方式是 "在某件事上休息一下"。"我打算在新车的价格上给你一个突破 "的意思是 "我要为你减少或降低价格"。房东说，如果我签署或同意两年的租约而不仅仅是一年的租约，他就会在租金上给我一个优惠。

对于房东的第一个提议，我回应说："我们在这里谈论的是什么样的突破？" "我们谈论的是什么样的（东西）？"这个说法的意思是 "具体的细节是什么？" 例如，我的朋友想去旅行，他想在沙漠中间的帐篷里露营。所以我说，"好吧，我们在这里谈论的是什么样的帐篷？"意思是 "给我更多关于它的信息"。顺便说一下，我永远不会去沙漠里搭帐篷或露营。事实上，我永远不会去任何地方搭帐篷。我不是一个露营者。

总之，回到--让我们回到--我们的故事上。我说，房东提议只给我增加5%的租金，而不是，或代替10%的租金，作为签署两年租约的交换。"作为交换 "是一个常见的谈判术语。它的意思是。你给我东西，我给你东西。我们交换或给予对方有价值的东西。

我的房东说这是一个 "双赢的局面"。"双赢 "的意思是 "你赢我赢"--我们都从谈判中受益或获得一些东西。房东说我将获得租金削减。削减租金 "等同于 "减免租金"，即减少租金。

现在，我对房东的第一个提议并不满意，所以我提出了一个反提议。反建议 "的意思是，在某人提出或给出他的想法后，你回复或给出你自己的想法。我们甚至把 "反 "字用作动词："他用另一个提议来反驳我的提议"。你也可以说 "counteroffer "来代替counterproposal。

我在介绍时说："这个怎么样？"然后我给了他我的想法。这个表达方式 "这样如何？"是在我们准备给某人提供我们对合同或谈判应该如何的观点或想法之前使用的。当你试图与某人就任何情况下的做法达成协议时，你可以使用这种表达方式。例如，你可以说，"你想去看电影。我想去海滩。这样好吗？我们先去看电影，然后再去海滩。" 这就是我们如何使用 "这样如何？"

我说，"这样如何？"然后给出我的反建议。"你给我一个为期一年的租约，增加6%"。他的回答是："不，我不能做这样的交易。" 交易是一种协议。

然后他对我说："但这是我能做的，这是我最后的提议。" 这里有两种表达方式。"这是我能做的 "和 "最终报价"。"这是我能做的 "是你在谈判中所说的，当你不完全同意对方的意见，但你愿意在谈判中妥协。妥协意味着你放弃了一些东西，而对方也放弃了一些东西。

我的房东使用的另一个术语是最终报价。当有人说，"这是我的最终报价"，他们的意思是 "这是我愿意做的或愿意付出的全部"。这个人不打算再妥协了。

我的房东的最后提议是，他将支付我的电费--我的电费--在租约的前六个月，"连同 "或除此之外，他已经提到的其他条款。

我最后对我的房东说："你在讨价还价"。一个 "艰难的讨价还价 "是一个困难的讨价还价或困难的协议。讨价还价 "的意思是，对方是一个非常强硬的谈判者，谈判非常困难。然后我说，"一言为定"，意思是 "我同意你的条件"。我接受你的提议。

我说，"我本可以试着和他多讨价还价的。" "与人讨价还价 "意味着让他们降低价格或作出更多妥协。我没有试图跟我的房东讨价还价，因为我对协议很满意或很满意。

在我同意了房东的条件后，我说 "我所要做的就是在虚线上签字"。"我所要做的一切 "意味着 "我唯一要做的事情"。合同中的 "虚线"，是指你把你的签名放在那里，表示你同意该合同。这是英语中一个常见的表达，"在虚线上签字"。它的意思是你要签署一份合同，同意某事。

文化说明
墨菲定律

墨菲定律并不是一条真正的法律或科学理论。它是一个古老的 "格言"（谚语），它说："任何可能出错的事情都会出错。" 目前还不清楚是谁 "想出"（开始使用）墨菲定律这个词。有些人声称是 "工程师"（其工作是设计和建造机器和其他东西的人），而其他人则说是一位科学家。

不管是谁提出的墨菲定律，美国人一直都在提到它。下面是一个典型的 "交流"（对话）。

A: "我不敢相信! 这是我的自行车轮胎这个月第三次 "爆胎"（里面没有空气）了。"

B："墨菲定律。如果我是你，从现在开始我会走路。"

人们通常不会说，"这是墨菲定律 "或 "墨菲定律在这里起作用"。他们通常只是说 "墨菲定律"，而另一个人知道他们的意思：如果某件事情还没有出错，那么在未来的某个时候就会出错。这是 "不可避免的"（它将会发生，而且无法改变）。

虽然墨菲定律的原文很简单--"任何可能出错的事情都会出错"--但人们已经想出了这个说法的 "变种"（不同的形式），往往是为了搞笑。这里有几个。

• 如果任何事情 "简单"（绝对）不能出错，它还是会出错。
• 伙伴系统对你的生存至关重要；它使敌人有其他人可以射击。

("伙伴系统"--经常在学校使用，一个人选择或被 "分配"(给予)一个伙伴，两个人一起做学校的任务并互相照顾)

• 技术被那些管理他们不理解的东西的人所支配。

("支配"--对某物有最大的控制或影响)

• 告诉一个人宇宙中有3000亿颗星星，他就会相信你。告诉他一张长椅上有湿漆，他就得摸一下才能确定。