Introduction Negotiations are often held in order to achieve goals that exist in an environment of contention. This means that there has to be more that one party that seeks to take advantage of scarce or shared resources. The need to ensure that one gets the most out of a negotiation warrants the identification of a number of steps that have to be followed as well as a number of underlying issues that have to be identified and incorporated in the negotiation process. The main goal of following these steps as well as incorporating all the varied issues in the process does not necessarily lie in the achievement of a particular resource advantage over the other parties involved, but rather the sustenance of the entire negotiation process. Some of the most heated negotiation scenarios, which are identified to be quite common, are business transactions. These involve different parties that seek to acquire particular products at the lowest possible price while other parties seek to dispose of a product and gain the most in terms of the respective exchange resource identified (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall 37). The need to maximize the benefits reaped out of a negotiation warrants not only the identification of one’s stakes in the negotiation, but those of the other parties as well. Preparation While preparing for a negotiation it is important to identify a number of issues that are not only important in identifying one’s position in the negotiation process, but also the position that the other parties to the negotiation are. This serves to ensure that all the parties are aware of all the stakes involved so as to avoid a situation where one of the parties is blindsided or ambushed. This has been known to be quite detrimental to a negotiation especially where one of the parties decides to pull out after identifying that he or she may be getting the sharp end of the stick. The fact that one has to get into a negotiation while he or she is already aware of the underlying issues that are under negotiation means that there has to be prior debriefing where all the identified objectives of the negotiation are identified and communicated (Christie 31). These should be divided into a number of categories, which range from the most important to the least important, since this helps to identify the particular objectives that can be leveraged if the negotiation seems to be too stiff and the other parties seem to be unrelenting in making a balanced argument. Objectives The need to leverage one’s position in the negotiation also warrants an identification of all the priorities that the different parties to the whole negotiation process have. This should help in identifying the stakes that are held in the negotiation especially where the parties may have to make sacrifices so as to accommodate the demands of the other parties. It is obvious to assume that all the parties in every negotiation have a number of bargaining chips on the side, but this may not be the case all the time as the adequate preparation of all parties through a situational audit usually helps in identifying the situation that the other party is in (Krivis 82). This helps to identify just how far one can push the negotiation before the other party snaps or gives in. It is identified that pushing an individual who does not have much to leverage may result in negative outcomes especially where they may choose to pull out of the whole process after identifying