Arbitration & Mediation

Flourish in 2010 without Changing Anything Other than Providing Your Workforce with Negotiation Training

By Victoria Pynchon

Both of these images come from Improving Corporate Negotiation Performance, a Benchmark Study of the World's Largest Organizations (.pdf)

I've taught in-house negotiators and corporate executives negotiation skills and I can tell you that not a single participant thought they were too negotiation-savvy to benefit from the training.  This organization, Huthwaite International is as likely a good bet for negotiation training as many other companies offering it. 

Just let me say this.  It's not rocket science.  But not enough business executives and managers and not nearly enough lawyers know the basics necessary to get the best deal available to them.  If you want business to improve in 2010 without altering your business plan or laying off employees, get some first-class negotiation trainers to work with your people.  You'll make the cost of the training up on the first deal one of your dozens or hundreds or thousands of negotiators make.  There are no secrets in this field.  Everyone who has studied negotiation "gets it."  And your seasoned negotiators just need the "grammar" and a few additional insights to increase their performance dramatically.  I know because I've trained them.

Below, a decent one-sheet negotiation plan from Huthwaite.

When your people believe in their mastery of the basic negotiation skills, it doesn't take quite so much courage to say "no" in the way great negotiators say it - "yes with just few changes that will make the deal better for both of us."

Check out Huthwaite's study.  It's a good one.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on December 09, 2009 (boomark / email).