Negotiation Essentials

We negotiate every day. Whether you are responsible for “capital N” negotiations around a table or “lower case n” casual negotiations in the hallway or at home, you are likely to be constantly negotiating for the terms, resources, deadlines or cooperation you need. To confidently get what you need while also nurturing relationships with your counterparts requires some understanding of how people make the decision to comply with you and some frameworks to help you prepare effectively for these important conversations.

This course will equip you with the most useful techniques to manage a negotiation and to persuade and influence others to be open to your ideas. You will engage in role-play to trial these new techniques, and reflective discussions to discover your negotiation style and which persuasion methods work for you.

The course takes a relationship-focused approach, so that while you are ensuring you get what you want, you will also be focused on building trust and maximising gain for the other party. You will be challenged to uncover new value with creative solutions, explore for best case outcomes and learn how to read the other party. We will explore research-based best practices for pre-negotiation groundwork and planning, negotiation management and post negotiation reflection.

Be prepared to challenge what you know about negotiation and persuasion, to share your experience, have a laugh and gain a real confidence boost.

Course benefits and learning outcomes

Participants will:

·         Be empowered to negotiate with certainty, clarity and confidence.

·         Have a negotiation planning template to use in all future negotiations.

·         Understand what is driving your counterparts, be able to apply techniques to understand them and create common understanding.

·         Know how to set goals for your negotiations and how to measure your negotiation success.

·         Be able to model and coach others to prepare for important conversations with frameworks from the course.

·         Have the tools to steer a conversation towards optimal outcomes for both parties.

 Your organisation will:

·         Improve negotiation culture with an alternative, relationship-focused, method of resolving conflict and making agreements.

·         Improve relationships with external stakeholders – clients, subcontractors, partners, councils or shareholders.

·         Improve relationships and communication standards internally – between departments, between team members, between levels of seniority.

·         Increase likelihood that people will share ideas, voice concerns, ask for what they need to do their work to the best of their ability.

·         Empower staff to deal with issues on their own rather than escalating the issue to a higher level.

Course structure and topics covered

Day One: 

·         Persuasion approaches: what persuades and in what circumstances?

·         Decision making: How are people motivated? Under what conditions will they agree with me?

·         Learning to read the other party.

·         Setting negotiation goals: What do I need and what do I want?

·         The Sheer Negotiation model: A 3-phase model to structure your conversation.

·         Maximising value and creative solution-finding.

·         Role play simulations. 

Day Two:  

·         The narrative: How does the other party see me?

·         Designing a new narrative.

·         Influential language: Framing.

·         Persuasion tactics.

·         Fast tracking trust.

·         Rapport building for optimal negotiation.

·         Role play simulations.