Negotiation Skills Training Courses
With
over twenty-five years of proven industry experience, the
Negotiations
Training Institute of America is the recognized leader in negotiations
training, consulting and performance coaching. Through public open
enrollment courses and private on-session training sessions, we
have helped leading corporations, non-profit organizations and governmental
agencies improve their ability to
negotiate
better outcomes for their constituencies.
First-time
negotiators as well as those with the greatest
competitive
drive and amount of first-hand experience and
negotiations
wisdom can benefit from our time-tested courses. Whether focusing
on
negotiating
a contract with a vendor or jumping in to the often-stressful
car buying process to
deal
with a dealership, our courses provide useful skills, proven techniques
and various classroom role plays to help you
become
more aware of negotiations that you must face on a daily basis.
For more information on our negotiation skills training courses please
contact us.
Mind Games: Power, Personality and Emotion In Business Negotiation Training Courses
Most of us think of negotiation as a purely rational exercise. The reality is just the opposite. Personality, emotions and strategic moves play a large role in most negotiations and can be responsible for the success or failure to reach agreement. Mind games can also play out behind the scenes so that negotiating your relationship with the other side, including your legitimacy and credibility, can play as large a part as what is going on in the main negotiating event. Thus is it important to learn how to “hold your own” in difficult negotiations and with “difficult people”.
Below are set out just some of the ways to become a more successful and effective negotiator when dealing with mind games.
Preparation. Studies show that in 75% of all negotiations both parties wait to see what the other party will do before they decide what to do themselves. Anyone who is prepared has an enormous advantage in the negotiation. Learn to prepare in a way that allows you to anticipate how the negotiation will go, where obstacles will arise and what information you need from the other side. Such preparation will allow you to be flexible during the session, have a mastery of the facts, select the most appropriate strategy and know which strategic moves to use.
Increased Awareness. This includes being aware not only of how you react to conflict but also how the other side reacts. Awareness of how you approach conflict is very important. This helps you to understand not only how you normally respond to conflict but also when other responses are more appropriate. In addition to knowing about your preferred response to conflict, it is important to know how you take in information, how you listen (or don’t), how you make decisions, and what makes you uncomfortable during a negotiation. Once you understand your own preferences you will better be able to guess at what others’ preferences might be. The importance of this is that you will be able to convey information to other persons in a way that suits them, predict what will frustrate them during the negotiation, and generally be better able to understand their interests and goals. People are much more willing to agree with you when they are feeling comfortable. If you understand their personal preferences you will be able to create a “comfort zone” for them and for yourself.
Strategies. Not only is it important to know what types of negotiating strategies are available, you also need to know when to use them. Thus an evaluation of the negotiating circumstances as well as the negotiation goals is a must prior to each negotiation. If the relationship is more important than outcome, then certain strategies are better than others. If outcome is everything, then the best strategy is competitive as when the goal is getting the most of something, whether it is money, holidays, or budget. It is also important to know when to negotiate a win/win solution that not only gets you what you want but usually enhances the relationship with the other side. What happens when different negotiation strategies meet is also important to know. Of course, selecting the most appropriate strategy is the first step, knowing how to implement it is the next.
Effective Communication Skills. Often negotiations break down due to communication problems. After all, what is negotiation but strategic communication? By communication skills we mean not only what we say and what we ask but also, and perhaps more importantly, how we listen to the other side. Knowing the elements of successful communication such as the structure of the message, delivery style, the type of language used, body language, impressions and biases, will greatly assist you in negotiating better. The skill of listening almost seems to be lost in the contemporary world where attention spans are shortening. This is a skill that if learned well and practiced often will pay for itself many times over. It is also useful to know and understand the different aspects of communication that come into play during different stages of negotiation.
Emotions. In some negotiations, especially in a bitter dispute, feelings may be more important than talk. Emotions on one side tend to generate emotions on the other side and this may quickly bring a negotiation to an impasse or an end. For this reason it is important to be aware not only of your own emotions but also those of the other party. This awareness is the hallmark of emotional intelligence – the best known predictor of success in life. It also means that an effective negotiator needs to deal with the emotions that arise during a session in an appropriate way. And sometimes dealing appropriately with the emotions once you are aware of them is best achieved by not bringing them into the negotiation session – that is, by maintaining emotional distance from whatever is being discussed. There are many techniques for mastering emotional distance. However, in other circumstances, it may be best to make the emotions explicit and acknowledge them as legitimate in order to deal with the emotions and hence the negotiation effectively. Thus dealing with emotion in negotiation is not a simple thing but by becoming more aware of what you are feeling and then learning when it is appropriate to either distance yourself from, or acknowledge the emotion, you will become a more effective and successful negotiator. Also, it will then be much easier to deal with difficult negotiations and difficult people.
Difficult People and Heavy Subjects. Everyone has dealt with at least one negotiation from hell. There are different ways and techniques of dealing with difficult people depending on the problematic behavior. Whether it’s the bully boss, the person using the “take-no-prisoners” strategy, or the passive aggressive co-worker, each one requires knowing how to stay in control and conscious of what you are doing to avoid automatically reacting to the other side. It is equally important to know the techniques and attitudes that are essential to make such dealings easier.
Tactics and Strategic Moves. There are a lot of tactics that can be used during negotiation and many books have been written about them. Most tactics are based on manipulation and used with competitive strategy. However, almost all of them are ineffective once they have been exposed. Strategic moves are more complicated and are not based on manipulating the other side or putting them at a disadvantage. Using empathy, stepping to the other side of the table, active listening, and reframing are all strategic moves that enhance the chance of a win/win agreement and do not harm relationships.
Hidden Agendas. It is important to understand that there are a whole array of hidden attitudes and agendas that drive the negotiations as much as the explicit differences over the issues. Before you reach a good agreement these masked assumptions and unvoiced views must be brought to the surface so these assumptions and views can be revised. This is of particular importance for women since gender is one of the triggers that set unvoiced expectations in motion in a negotiation. Women often negotiate the hidden agendas without being aware of them – often to their detriment. Culture is another area where hidden agendas arise. By learning more about, and becoming more conscious of these hidden agendas and the masked assumptions that are just “behind the scenes” in many negotiations, you will become a more effective and successful negotiator.
Source: Delee FrommLink
For Negotiation
Skills Seminar information please
contact
us.
Related:
Negotiation Training Courses
|