The term “negotiate” derives from two Latin roots: neg, or “not” and otium, or “leisure.” Put them together and you get negotium, or “business.” (Or “not leisure,” which will strike a chord for all of you who find negotiating stressful.) The verb form of the Latin word is negotiat-: “done in the course of business.”
While this definition might seem a little broad, it fits our premise that negotiating lies at the heart of all business relationships, both between and within organizations.
In medieval France, traders and merchants were known as “negociants.” (The term is still used today for large-scale wine merchants who buy grapes or finished wines from a variety of growers, then combine and sell them under their own names.) It’s fair to assume that these early “negotiators” were people who led active lives in the economies of their day, in contrast to the more reflective pursuits of philosophers or religious orders. They were the doers, the dealers—the people who got things accomplished.
But the roots of negotiating reach back much further, into prehistory, when human social existence was first symbolized by exchanges within families or kinship groups. (Wedding rings entered the scene about 6,000 years ago, in predynastic Egypt.) These exchanges were linked to appropriate words and gestures—to performances that both led to the agreement (an advance-and-retreat that resembled dance or ritual battle) and then marked its completion (e.g. handshakes, initialed pieces of paper).
