Successful Negotiation Skills

Frequently line managers, team leaders, key executives, function heads and human resource professionals fail in negotiations because they have limited or no grounding in the basic skill set associated with effective bargaining practices. This training course is designed to remedy such a deficiency, enabling all parties to negotiation to ‘get to yes’.

Successful negotiations are the bedrock upon which successful individuals successful organisations and successful economies are built. When engaged in negotiations – where your skill as a negotiator can prevent losses, increase gains or enhance circumstances for you and your members\constituents \organisation – it is crucial that you get it right. The cost of failed negotiations is often too costly to contemplate.

Allied to this is the fact that we are negotiating almost all of the time. Whether with or as workplace representatives, trade union officials, business partners, clients, suppliers, colleagues or family members, the success of our endeavours depends entirely on our understanding of the negotiation and communication process. However frequently line managers, team leaders, key executives, function heads and human resource professionals fail in negotiations because they have limited or no grounding in the basic skill set associated with effective bargaining practices. This training course is designed to remedy such a deficiency, enabling all parties to negotiation to ‘get to yes’.

The programme is designed for all those involved in the negotiation or bargaining process, regardless of role or context e.g. workplace representatives, trade union officials, business executives, salespersons, suppliers, line managers, team leaders, function heads, human resource management professionals.

Programme Outline

The following range of issues shall be addressed:

• Effective planning for successful negotiations.
• Using assertiveness to get the best deal.
• Identifying and deploying the right bargaining strategies and tactics.
• Adopting a collaborative approach to ensure trust, rapport and long term gains for both parties.
• The ‘unwritten rules’ of the negotiating process.
• The key criteria for successful negotiations.
• Getting the stages of negotiation right: preparing, opening, bargaining and closing.
• The skill set or attributes of an effective negotiator.
• The key roles in the negotiation team
• How to distinguish win:win from win:lose and lose:lose negotiation situations.
• Negotiating styles and strategies.

Programme Methodology

The programme shall be conducted on a highly interactive and participative basis, including the active involvement of the participants via a case study for the negotiation of a ‘disciplinary procedure’.

Whilst this course will alert you to some negotiating shortcuts, tricks and techniques, it will also enable you to gain a deeper insight into how the person or people across the table think and (re)acts. With this insight you’ll gain the benefit of proven techniques to effectively deal with every phase of the negotiating process. So delegates attending this one-day workshop style training course will benefit from the following range of learning outcomes:

• Proper Planning: How to plan the negotiation encounter. This phase will help you to identify the issues hidden ‘underneath the table’ – including the make-or-break expectations that must be met before a successful outcome is possible. You’ll be alerted and encouraged to experiment with effective probing methods, body language, signalling, contingency plans and ‘what if’ type scenarios, which enable you to craft a solid strategy before the actual bargaining begins.
• Self-Awareness: Understand your own personal negotiation style and its impact. What you need to do to adapt your negotiating style. You’ll begin with a self-assessment. From there, you’ll learn styles appropriate for different scenarios. Just as importantly, you’ll learn how others tend to negotiate, and you’ll discover the hidden meaning behind their body language and approach.
• Win:Win: How to create a win:win situation when all appears lost. The conversion of confrontational lose-lose situations into win-win solutions. Using ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, you’ll exercise your ability to quickly recover from sticky situations and put derailed negotiations back on track.
• Assertiveness: You’ll discover how to be assertive without being aggressive. You’ll ensure that your viewpoint isn’t simply stated – it’s actually understood and respected by your counterparts. By mastering the art of assertiveness, and applying it at the right time, you’ll avoid being steamrolled or across as imperious and impossible.
• Questioning Techniques: How to get past the superficial issues to pinpoint the deal makers. With good questioning, you’ll separate the chaff from the wheat, enabling the creation of a win-win outcome. You’ll practice the various types of questioning used to dig-up buried treasure, securing the optimum deal for you and your organisation.
• How And When To Declare Success: You’ll learn how to bring continuous-loop negotiations to a successful conclusion, how to avoid open-ended scenarios and how to walk-away from fruitless negotiations without slamming the door on future possibilities.