In my line of work, I help people do it all the time. And they all do it differently.

Some of them boast that they’re good at it–but in fact know only one way to do it. Some will stick with the position they’re comfortable with. Some lack confidence. They worry they won’t measure up. Others lack experience.

But in the end, with the right motivation, I can often help them do it better. And do it until everyone’s satisfied.

I’m talking about negotiation.

Hey, what else did you think I was talking about?

If you want to reduce performance anxiety at the mediation table, consider the following things you can do to make the earth move–or at least to be a more effective negotiator at the mediation table and elsewhere.

1. Preparation.

It’s been said that for every hour of negotiation, a skilled negotiator puts in four hours of preparation. One of the biggest strategic mistakes I see people make is coming to the table too soon–when they haven’t done the necessary preparation in advance. Besides just crunching the numbers, you should give thought in advance to:

Your interests. What are your needs? What goal do you want to achieve and why? Why does settlement make sense? If you’re at the table representing a client, you need to spend time in advance making sure you understand fully your client’s interests–something every advocate should do whether they’re headed to mediation or not.

Consider the other side’s interests as well. If you know what they need, you may be able to meet their interests in a way that will be more cost-effective to you.

Your alternatives. What happens if you don’t reach negotiation? How good are your alternatives? What can you do to improve upon them so you can negotiate from a position of strength? Consider the other side’ alternatives as well–how do their alternatives stack up against what you might be able to offer?

Options. Think of as many different options that you can. What will meet your needs? What will appeal to the other side? Is there a way to meet your interests and theirs as well? Come prepared to be creative.

Objective criteria. How will you know that any deal you reach is fair? What about your demands? What objective criteria are they based on? How can you convince the other side that those demands are fair?

Your relationship with the other side. What kind of relationship do you want to have with them when the negotiations are over?

Communication. What do you want to say and how are you going to say it? If communication has proved troublesome in the past, what can you do to improve it?

2. Be receptive to new ideas.

Chances are you need no help to bargain the old-fashioned way. You know, the kind where one side begins with an outrageous demand and the other side responds with an equally outrageous counteroffer, followed by incremental steps toward each other until you both find yourself agreeing to a dollar amount neither one of you likes. A mediator can help you try something different that may help you create more value than traditional bargaining can produce. It’s all about expanding, not dividing the pie.

3. Become self-aware.

As Gustave Flaubert observed, “There is no truth. There is only perception.” And our perception is distorted by the cognitive biases that all of us who are human beings are prone to. What might you be missing? Here’s a shopping list of cognitive biases for negotiators to watch out for.

4. Listen more, talk less.

The more you listen, the more you’ll learn–and the less chance of saying something that you may regret later. Listen to educate yourself about their interests. And talk to educate them about yours.

5. Learn to negotiate.

If you’re likely to be a repeat player at the mediation table, then it makes sense to learn mediation from the inside out. Take a mediation training to learn about the theory and the techniques of a process that is designed to help people negotiate.

Build yourself a negotiation library. Some must-read books for negotiators include:

3-D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals, by David Lax and James Sebenius

Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People, by G. Richard Shell

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William Ury

The Negotiator’s Fieldbook, edited by Andrea Kupfer Schneider and Christopher Honeyman

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini

So be prepared for your next negotiation–or your next mediation session. Do your homework, get some training, read up on negotiation techniques.

The earth will be moving for you in no time.

There’s a story I tell when I teach mediation students how to ask effective questions:

A guy walks into a bar. He strolls up to the bartender and asks for a glass of water. The bartender looks at him–then flies into a rage, pulls out a gun from under the counter, and aims it straight at the guy’s head. The guy thanks the bartender and leaves the bar.

I instruct my students to figure out the ending of the story using only yes/no questions.

People start asking, “Did the bartender know the guy?” “Was the bartender out of water?” “Was the gun loaded?” “Was the guy a robber?” “Was the guy sleeping with the bartender’s wife?” “Was it a water gun?”

A dozen or so questions later, they’ve given up. All the yes/no questions in the world can’t solve the puzzle for them. So I tell them that I’ll give them one more chance. This time they can ask me an open-ended question to figure out the ending of the story. Someone will then ask, “Okay, so why did the guy thank the bartender for pulling a gun on him?”

Then I say,

Funny you should ask. The guy walked into the bar and asked for a glass of water because he had the hiccups. The bartender saw immediately what the problem was but knew that the best cure for the hiccups is to scare the pants off someone. So he pulled out the gun and aimed it at the guy’s head. That cured his hiccups, so the guy thanked the bartender and left the bar.

What usually follows is the sound of loud groans, laughter, and palms smacking foreheads.

The point of course is that you can waste time and work hard asking closed questions and never come close to understanding what’s really going on. On the other hand open-ended questions give mediators plenty of traction to draw out interests, elicit solutions, and address roadblocks. They get parties thinking–which is exactly what they’re designed to do.

(Unfortunately I cannot take credit for this story–which is really a lateral thinking puzzle. One of my mediator friends–and I can no longer remember which one since it was quite a few years ago–taught it to me. Now I pass it along to you in the spirit in which I shared a negotiation style game earlier this year. Fellow mediation trainers, please free to use it.)

Tim Stanley, a leading figure in legal cyberspace, and a really terrific guy, hosts this week’s excellent edition of Blawg Review, the weekly review of the best in law blogging. Tim is the founder of the well known legal web sites Findlaw and Justia.

(Dog lovers, take note: Tim, who writes at Justia’s Legal SEO & Marketing Blog, also publishes the photoblog, Little Sheba the Hug Pug. It’s the blog that makes you go “Awww!”)