What You Will Learn In Negotiation Skills Training

Negotiation skills training helps you and your team create greater value for your organization.

Leaders and managers often think that negotiation skills training is only important for sales teams and power negotiators in the organization. The reality is that no matter where in the organization you are, you are negotiating on a daily basis in order to complete your work. Many managers fail to consider that negotiation situations include internal negotiations as well as external ones.

Developing the skills in leaders and managers to successfully negotiate in all negotiation situations is the key goal of an effective negotiation skills training course. Here is what you and your team can expect to learn from a negotiation skills training class.

Define Negotiation & Know When You Are In A Negotiation Situation

What do you think of when you hear the word “negotiation”? Maybe you think of buying a car, negotiating a raise, or negotiating with a potential new vendor.

Leaders and managers negotiate every day. Negotiations happen when working with a colleague or another department to get multiple projects and priorities done on time. They happen when one of your employees asks for a raise, and when a customer calls and wants a discount. Negotiations happen when you leave the office and negotiate with your partner or spouse to figure out who will do which chores and when.

While negotiation is a large part of managers’ daily lives, many tend to shy away from negotiation skills training. Many either feel uncomfortable in negotiation situations, or they mistakenly think that negotiation skills training does not apply to their position. In truth, managers with strong negotiation skills enjoy the ability to show the most direct bottom-line impact to their organization as a result of their activities. Therefore, it is as important to your own professional career to develop your and your team’s negotiation skills as it is to the overall success of your organization.

Negotiation Skills Self-Assessment

Any negotiation skills training course should begin and end with a negotiation skills self-assessment. This allows you to determine those areas that are your greatest opportunities for improvement over the course of the class. Re-taking the self-assessment at the end of the class shows you what you have learned and improved upon, as well as those areas you need to continue to develop.

Make no mistake, no negotiation skills training will make you a master negotiator by the end of the class or course. You need to personally commit to applying those skills and concepts you learn in class to your daily work and life in order to truly develop them and become a great negotiator. Take this opportunity to assess your negotiation skills seriously and keep your post-class assessment somewhere where you will be reminded daily to practice your negotiation skills and techniques.

Negotiation Model

Learning and following a negotiation model will help you follow a clearly defined process for successful negotiations. Any negotiation skills training class is incomplete without defining a process and preparing students with a negotiation model. You should also have the opportunity to practice the steps involved in the negotiation model during class.

Crestcom’s negotiation skills training introduces our 5 Disciplines Negotiation Model which includes (1) Prepare, (2) Know, (3) Create, (4) Give & Get, and (5) Conclude. Leaders and managers learn how to balance creating value while building the relationship throughout each of the five disciplines by learning the characteristics of great and poor negotiators and practicing negotiation tactics during a role-play simulation.

Negotiation Tactics

If there is one constant for all negotiation skills training classes, it is that you will learn negotiation tactics. There is A LOT of information freely available regarding “proven” negotiation tactics online and elsewhere that you can consume to learn more about successful negotiation, so what is the value of taking a negotiation skills training class or course to learn them again?

Continued practice and accountability is the key to any skills development, and negotiation is no exception. Simply reading about negotiation tactics does not make you a great negotiator—or even a good one. You need to practice applying those tactics to simulated negotiation situations, then make a habit out of using them in the real world. Negotiation skills training doesn’t just provide you and your team the ability to learn new or proven negotiation tactics, it also provides a place for practice, a community for accountability, and a formal framework to help you and your team create a habit out of following a negotiation model.

Negotiation Simulation

There is a healthy (and sometimes heated) debate around the benefits of role-play simulation in the adult learning industry. Our position is that simulation learning does have a place in leadership development, and negotiation skills training is one of those places.

Learning negotiation models, tactics, etc. alone does very little good without practicing those skills in a safe learning environment. Negotiation simulation provides you and your team with a place where you can apply and practice techniques without worrying about how it is going to impact your business. It is an opportunity for you to learn from others while receiving and providing feedback. Yes, role-playing does make many training participants a bit uncomfortable at first. But that’s OK. It’s good to get out of your comfort zone, to interact and learn from others, and to build on your negotiation skills in order to continually develop yourself as a leader and a manager.

Yes, role-playing does make many training participants a bit uncomfortable at first. But that’s OK. It’s good to get out of your comfort zone, to interact and learn from others, and to build on your negotiation skills in order to continually develop yourself as a leader and a manager.

Successful internal and external negotiations are critical to creating value for your organization.


About Crestcom International, LLC.

 

 

Crestcom International, LLC is an international leadership development organization, training more than one million leaders for 25,000 businesses in over 60 countries across the globe. Crestcom achieves this through a blend of live-facilitated multimedia video, interactive exercises, and shared learning experiences. Crestcom implements action plans and coaching accountability sessions to ensure measured development in key leadership competency areas. For more information, please contact your local Crestcom representative found here.