Have you ever haggled with a car salesman over the price of a vehicle? Have you ever been involved in buying or selling a home? Do you ever find yourself arguing with your spouse or your children in an attempt to motivate them to do something you want? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then consider yourself a negotiator. The fact is that everyone is a negotiator at one time or another during the course of their lives. Herb Cohen, a renowned negotiator, states it best by saying "Your real world is a giant negotiating table, and like it or not, you're a participant" (15). People who are aware of this fact and improve their negotiation skills will find themselves ahead of the game. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key ingredients involved in good negotiation. We will study why they are important and how they can be applied to negotiate more effectively.
             Let us first ask ourselves, what is negotiation? A common misconception is that negotiations only take place in smoke filled rooms where millions of dollars are at stake. In reality, negotiations are happening everyday and in all aspects of our lives. A negotiation can be thought of as a process to arrange for or bring about by discussion a settlement of terms. It can also be described as any communication in which you are attempting to achieve the approval, consent, or action of someone else. If you reflect on this broad definition you will realize that you do, in fact, negotiate all the time both at work and in your personal life.
             In order to be a good negotiator, a person must first be resolved to the idea that almost everything is negotiable. This is an important concept because there are so many things in life that appear to be concrete or unchangeable. For example, I can remember a time when my wife and I were negotiating the purchase of a new car. The salesman was working very hard to make a sale but we were not quite...