Negotiation Training

Mastery of negotiation is a life skill in that we all negotiate every day with colleagues, bosses, domestic partners, friends, clients and many others. We negotiate when we need something from someone else, when we want to coordinate different preferences and priorities, when we seek to influence other people’s actions or ways of thinking, and when we want to resolve conflicts. 

The typical negotiation workshop is intended to help people become effective negotiators who obtain better deals, improve their joint decision-making and teamwork skills, become respected leaders and resolve conflicts more quickly and amicably. The individual topic areas (negotiation) covered in a longer negotiation workshop can be isolated and combined as desired by the client in shorter formats.

Negotiation Workshop

A typical negotiation workshop explores critical negotiation theory such as competitive versus collaborative approaches and identification of motivating interests to improve both approaches to negotiation and the quality of outcomes. These sessions also cover the essentials of thorough preparation for a negotiation including setting specific targets, identifying sources of influence and defining the point of walk away with reference to a methodical alternatives analysis. While building this negotiation framework, we usually define and practice critical communication and influencing skills and we outline a practical framework so that participants have a clear map of an effective negotiation process. Participants leave these workshops with a solid foundation for more principled, persuasive and successful negotiation in a variety of contexts.

Individual Negotiation Training Topics

  • Understanding the real motivators on your side and theirs
  • Managing the tension between competition and cooperation
  • Planning for success
  • Principal and agent preparation for negotiation and teamwork in negotiation
  • Making the most of your negotiation style (and theirs)
  • Enhancing creativity and creating value
  • Managing the money dance and claiming value
  • Becoming a master of persuasion
  • Dealing with tactics
  • Designing process to prevent impasse and promote collaboration
  • Conducting an alternatives analysis (BATNA)
  • Critical communication skills
  • The art of listening
  • Grace under fire – managing difficult negotiators and communication
  • Overcoming Impasse
  • Ethics – fairness, integrity and deception in negotiation
  • Gender issues in negotiation