Negotiation can be unpredictable. Regardless of how much preparation and research you do, you can’t control how your counterpart responds. For this reason, you may struggle to manage your emotions during negotiation or avoid it altogether.
Yet, you can improve your chances of negotiating successfully. How you approach it and the tactics you use are essential to achieving your desired outcomes.
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DOWNLOAD NOWWhy Is Negotiation Important?
When thinking about negotiation, interactions with clients or suppliers to secure business deals may come to mind—but it encompasses much more.
You likely negotiate without realizing it. For example, you may engage in everyday negotiations by resolving a workplace conflict, asking a co-worker for support, or encouraging your children to get up in the morning.
Negotiation plays an enormous role in career advancement, too. Earning a promotion or salary increase often requires negotiating, making it a fundamental business skill in any role or industry.
Here are five tips for developing this highly valued skill to enhance your job performance and become an effective negotiator.
5 Steps to Becoming a Good Negotiator
1. Develop Negotiation Skills
It's vital to develop your negotiation skills. Doing so can help prepare you for uncertainty and remain adaptable.
“Great negotiators have keen analytic skills,” says Harvard Business School Professor Michael Wheeler in the online course Negotiation Mastery. “They assess the matter at hand and craft strategy that best fits those particular circumstances.”
The most important negotiation skills to develop include:
- Communication: Negotiation requires clearly communicating your desired outcomes, boundaries, concessions, and value propositions.
- Emotional intelligence: Managing your emotions by remaining calm and respectful while firmly holding your position is vital to negotiating effectively with difficult or unresponsive parties.
- Planning: Successfully negotiating requires balancing adaptability and preparation through research and practice.
- Strategy: Understanding effective negotiation tactics—along with knowing your role and goals, empathizing with your counterpart, and staying self-aware—is crucial to creating tailored strategies.
- Reflection: After each negotiation, reflect on your performance and outcomes to identify your strengths and areas for improvement.
These skills can prove invaluable and help you become a better negotiator.
Remember: Negotiation requires practice, and improvement comes with time. If your negotiations don't go as planned, don't be discouraged; learn from each experience.
Check out our video on negotiation skills below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!
2. Learn How to Create Value
It can be tempting to approach negotiation with a win-lose perspective—either you get what you want from your counterpart, or you don't.
However, negotiation doesn’t have to be a battle. The best negotiators don't just claim value; they create it for the other party, resulting in win-win outcomes.
Here are three tips for creating value in a negotiation:
- Build trust: Throughout the conversation, develop rapport by actively listening and showing openness to your counterpart's perspective. They should feel like you value their opinion.
- Find uncommon ground: Rather than solely searching for common ground, identify areas of disagreement that provide opportunities to trade.
- Be flexible: Know how to think quickly and adapt your negotiation skills to your counterpart's style. They may respond differently depending on your tactics.
By creating value during the conversation, you'll increase the chances of reaching your desired outcome.
3. Know Your Priorities
Before engaging in a negotiation, it's critical to know your objectives. What do you want out of it? What will you do if it fails?
“Weighing your own interests is an important part of preparation in any negotiation," Wheeler says in Negotiation Mastery. "It involves knowing in advance how much you're prepared to concede on one item in order to do better on another.”
While your goal should be to achieve the best possible outcome, there may be times when you're unable to. In those situations, it's important to know your best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA)—or the course of action you'll take if you can’t reach an agreement.
“Knowing your priorities ahead of time is far better than making hasty decisions in the heat of negotiation,” Wheeler says in Negotiation Mastery.
4. Master Negotiation Tactics
Multiple variables are at play during a negotiation. A pleasant conversation can quickly turn negative due to a misinterpreted or misguided comment.
To ensure that doesn't happen, focus on mastering negotiation tactics before approaching the bargaining table, such as:
- Maintaining an open mind
- Showing your cards
- Knowing your goals
- Turning anxiety into excitement
- Displaying confidence
- Knowing when to take a break
- Pausing before responding
Don't underestimate the power of patience. Thinking before you speak can help prevent a negotiation from failing, especially since the other party might not hold the same values.
“It's a good bet that you'll often negotiate with people whose values differ from your own," Wheeler says in Negotiation Mastery. "I'm not suggesting that you sink to their level. But, by the same token, don't count on others to live up to your own high standards.”
5. Pursue Training
Pursuing learning opportunities is a beneficial way to become a good negotiator. In doing so, you can develop new skills and prepare for uncertainty.
Opportunities worth exploring include:
- Online courses: Online learning is an effective way to obtain various business skills, including negotiation. For instance, taking Negotiation Mastery can help you learn how to maximize value in negotiations at work and in your everyday life.
- Mentorship: Find skilled negotiators in your company or community who can guide you. You can also use your network to find mentors.
- Study negotiation: Read negotiation articles and books. Learn from others' experiences by assessing what strategies succeeded and failed, then apply that knowledge to your negotiations.
Pursuing training and educational opportunities will go a long way toward developing your negotiation skills and business knowledge.
Ready to Become a Better Negotiator?
Growing your negotiation skills requires time and practice.
If you want to practice before approaching the bargaining table, consider Negotiation Mastery. It provides negotiation simulations to help you learn from others and bargain with peers.
Negotiation can be unpredictable, but you can be better prepared by pursuing learning opportunities to enhance your skills.
Do you want to become a better negotiator? Explore Negotiation Mastery—one of our online leadership and management courses—and download our free leadership e-book.
