'Do Not Get Your People Trained Before Considering these 4 Critical Points'

1.    Think about negotiation as an organisational capability.

The most common mistake made by companies and organisations is to only think about the development of the negotiation skills of individuals. If your organisation, division or team relies solely on the negotiation skills of individuals it means that you will always be subject to the risks associated with the movement of people. What happens when your best negotiator is promoted or decides to join your competitor or supplier?  

Your organisation, division or team's overall ability to negotiate successfully is dependent on 4 things: 

1. Your organisational, divisional or team negotiation strategy (or lack thereof).                
2. Your organisational, divisional or team negotiation process.
3. The negotiation skills of individuals in your organisation, division or team.
4. The negotiation support environment surrounding your organisation, division or team.

Whilst the development of individual negotiation skills is clearly a critical component of your company's negotiation capability, you will be making a serious mistake by investing in negotiation skills training without having considered the 2 steps that should precede negotiation skills development namely organisational negotiation strategy definition and organisational negotiation process design / redesign. 

Investing in a negotiation skills development initiative without having considered the organisational, divisional or team negotiation strategy & supporting process can be compared to investing in the training of troops for battle independent of the overall strategy for the war. You may be equipping them with fantastic infantry skills but this may well be useless if the war is to be fought at sea….

The second big mistake is that companies will invest in the development of the negotiation skills of individuals but will then not create an environment that supports the deployment of these negotiation skills in their everyday business environment. Using the war analogy this would be like training soldiers in the use of their weapons and then not supplying them with the ammunition and materials needed to keep the weapons serviceable in action.

If you are thinking about investing in a negotiation skills development initiative and you are not prepared to: 

1. define or refine your organisational, divisional or team negotiation strategy,
2. design or redesign your organisational, divisional or team negotiation process, and
3. create a best practice negotiation supporting environment

then I would like to suggest that you invest your money elsewhere as you are likely to receive a better return on your investment!

One of the things that often holds people back from defining an organisational, divisional or team negotiation strategy & process and creating a best practice negotiation supporting environment is the perceived expense and complexity associated with these steps. The minute most people hear the words 'strategy' or 'process design/redesign' they don’t walk away – they run away!

Consulting organisations like to sell their time and as such would love to propose a 3 month project to come up with suggestions for an organisational, divisional or team negotiation strategy & supporting process…

Here's some good news - coming up with a robust organisational negotiation strategy & process is a simple and easy exercise that can be completed within a day and it is a standard part of our engagement process and included in training approach.

It is the single most important step that will ensure a positive return on your negotiation skills development investment.  

2.    Ensure that your negotiation training initiative engages participants at an individual level rather than just doing group based negotiation exercises.

An individual’s negotiation capability is made up of 3 things:

1. Their competence (that which they are able to do)
2. Their preferences (that which they like to do)
3. Their behaviour (that which they actually do)

Contrary to popular belief, the biggest influencing factor on your negotiation behaviour is not your competence but your preferences. Think about it, if your ability to do something was simply dependent on your competence to do it, then nobody would smoke, we would all eat 5 fruits and vegetables daily, we would all participate in exercise on a regular basis etc...

The simple truth is that you tend to behave in negotiation (as in life) according to your preferences. You could therefore say that your preferences in life have a far bigger impact on your behaviour than your competencies.  It follows that one of the biggest mistakes made by companies in recruitment and negotiation assessments is to test the competence of individuals without gaining an understanding of their preferences.

In other words, the fact that  you are able to do something doesn’t mean that are actually going to do it. In the context of negotiation skills development this means that it is essential that each individual understands their own preferences with regards their approach to negotiations in addition to their competencies and equally, that they are made aware of the fact that different people and different cultures will have varying preferences when it comes to negotiations.

3.    Equip participants with a ‘Negotiation Preparation Toolkit’.

You can liken the art & science of business negotiation to golf. Like golf, negotiation is complex. If you were asked to hit two shots in succession off a golf tee, it is very unlikely that the result of both shots will be exactly the same outcome.

This is due to the fact that there are many factors influencing the outcome of the shot. It is therefore not useful to approach golf as something that is linear, sequential & complicated.

Many providers of negotiation skills development programmes approach business negotiation as something that is complicated rather than complex – in other words, they advocate an approach to negotiation that is sequential & linear (advocating for instance that there are a certain ‘number of steps’ involved in all negotiations).  

This kind of ‘complicated’ & linear approach will empower individuals & organisations with the tools to survive in simple & one dimensional negotiations but will leave them seriously exposed in multi-party, multi-issue, complex negotiations.

Golf is one of the few games where the world’s best players only end up winning a few times every year – largely due to the complexity of the game. To be a complete golfer, one needs to have mastered all the elements of the game.

You should have a strong ‘long game’, ‘short game’, putting ability and the skill to get out of trouble. Additionally, one must have the ability to perform under extreme pressure.

It is fair to say that most professional golfers are able to hit almost all the shots under normal circumstances, however, it is only the truly great golfers that are able to perform time and again under extreme pressure. Professional golfers all make use of the services of coaches.

It would be a good bet that almost all the professional golfers are better golfers than their coaches. Why then do they employ coaches?

Because it is almost impossible to analyse ones own game objectively. When at the top level of golf, as in any game, we understand that the margins between success and failure can be very small indeed. We learn through this partnership that the professional golfer’s coach understands that his 'master’s' game is mostly excellent.

It is by paying attention to the small things that step changes in results are obtained.

Business negotiation is similar to golf in many ways. To be a rounded business negotiator, one needs to have mastered all the key elements that constitute leading practice in the field of negotiation.

A complete and rounded approach should be pursued that covers the four key elements of all negotiations: Vision, Value, Process & Relationship. As in golf, it is key that we first understand how we respond in our negotiations when under pressure, before we learn to deploy new skills.

Research proves that only 5 – 25 % of the information shared during a negotiation training workshop will be retained by participants. So as to ensure the application of negotiation best practices in the workplace it is critical that individuals should be supplied with a ‘negotiation toolkit’ that serves to:

1.    Provide them with a standardised negotiation preparation check list (ideally customised to support the organisational, divisional or team negotiation strategy & process).

2.    Give them easy access to all the negotiation strategies, tactics & techniques that are useful to support their negotiations.

You should ensure that you don’t invest in an academic training course that has little practical application within your environment. At the same time you don’t want to invest in the equivalent of a ‘street fighters’ negotiation course that is only focused on tactical negotiation ‘tricks & techniques’.

It is best to find a course that combines sound academically researched and validated principles with proven practical credentials. Needless to say, you will find that there are few providers able to meet this requirement.

4.    Create a best practice negotiation supporting environment.

What happens after the training intervention? This is a really important question.

Will you provide the participants with one on one coaching to help them apply the best practice principles to their vocational negotiations?

Will you be running short follow up sessions at regular intervals to reinforce the learning?

Will you create a negotiation knowledge base so participants can access experience & information already in the possession of the organisation?

As you can see, in many ways the training engagement is only the beginning of the process. To ensure maximum savings in time, reduction in expenses and increases in profits, it is essential that you develop and instil a best and leading practice based negotiating culture within your team, division or organisation.

To Your Success!

Jan Potgieter

To obtain a free report on the current negotiation capability of your organisation/division or team, please click here.

This free, no obligation report will give you a clear indication of the immediate steps that can be taken to  improve the negotiation capability of your organisation/division or team.

*This report will not tie you in any way to Business Negotiation Solutions and you are free to use it as in input to generate a request for proposal for the development of your business negotiation skills to the general marketplace.