Course Outcomes

This negotiation course will:
 
  • Provide participants with an understanding of basic negotiation concepts.
  • Suggest a model for conducting negotiations.
  • Explore communication skills for building influence.
  • Offer responses to negotiation trips, traps, and tactics.

Course Overview

People who are prepared usually get better results from negotiations than those who rely only on their charisma, quick thinking, and ability to “wing it.” This negotiation skills course covers the fundamentals anyone who negotiates should understand. The interactive and fast-paced workshop addresses negotiation outcomes, when collaboration makes sense, a proven negotiation process, questioning and listening skills, and the tricks, tactics, and traps of which all negotiators should be aware.

Program Objectives

At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Explain well-known negotiation terms and vocabulary.
  • Choose a negotiation strategy based on their objectives, relationship goals, and time available.
  • Follow an eight-step negotiation process.
  • Use questioning and listening skills to their advantage.
  • Take five specific actions to increase their influence.
  • Prepare for tactics, tricks, and traps.

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).

Workshop Outline

Negotiation Goals: Making a Plan

This course begins with several questions around negotiation: what it is, what can be negotiated, what is typically negotiated in the workplace, and what’s difficult about negotiation. Following that introductory activity, participants will tackle a simple negotiation. That exercise will serve as a springboard for discussing negotiation outcomes and the importance of having a plan in place before a negotiation starts.

Reds and Blues: Collaboration and Win-Win Negotiation

This part of the workshop focuses on a variation of the prisoner’s dilemma. Working in groups, participants will attempt to accumulate as many points as they can while playing a card game. The activity serves as a springboard for a discussion around collaboration, communication, trust, and problem-solving opportunities. We’ll discuss each of these concepts and the extent to which they matter depending on a chosen negotiation strategy.

A Step-by-Step Approach: Examining the Negotiation Process

If they are followed, most recipes work. When a cook walks away from a proven recipe, however, he or she can find that the food just doesn’t taste as good as it could or should. This part of the program looks at the negotiation process and the importance of methodically following a system. We will explore eight stages of negotiation and what should happen at each. Following that introduction to the process, participants will try their hand at a case study.

Great Question!: Leveraging Communication in Negotiation

Skilled negotiators know the importance of listening and using a range of questions. This course component looks at communication’s role in the negotiation process. Working in teams, the group will participate in a range of activities. These exercises highlight the importance of questioning assumptions, reflective listening, benefits-first questioning, and other essential communication skills. During this module, we will also talk about communication mediums and the benefits and drawbacks of each.

The Power of Persuasion: Using Influence

This part of the program looks at influence and five specific actions negotiators can take to build their credibility and persuade others to act. Specifically, we will discuss being likable, giving to get, building a track record, using social evidence, and creating scarcity. 

Tricks, Traps, and Tactics: Being Prepared

No negotiator should enter a bargaining discussion without an awareness of the tricks, traps, and tactics the other side might attempt. This portion of the course introduces a range of actions negotiators take to give themselves an advantage and solutions for responding to those moves. By playing a matching game, participants will identify answers to a range of possible scenarios.

By the conclusion of this fast-paced negotiation workshop, participants should understand the importance of having a strategy and the steps they should follow to effectively negotiate with others.