'Why Individually Filmed & Debriefed Negotiation Simulations is the Most Effective Way to Instantly Improve Your Negotiation Skills'

Whether you know it or not, you already are a professional negotiator. You have negotiated yourself a career, a salary, a budget for your department. You have negotiated a mortgage or rent, you've negotiated transactions with buyers or sellers....As you can see, it is not really about learning how to negotiate but rather about improving the way that you are already negotiating. 

Your Negotiation Capability

Your negotiation capability is made up of a combination of your competencies (or skills), your preferences (what you like doing) and your behaviours (what you actually do when negotiating).

It is possible for us to understand what your preferences and competencies are in the context of negotiation through the use of surveys & individual profiling (we use 2 survey tools in this regard) but the only way to establish what kind of behaviour you deploy when negotiating is to put you through a buy side, sell side or executive negotiation simulation with 1 of our expert negotiators. We capture this negotiation on film and then debrief it with you individually.

Why Business Negotiation is Complex and not Complicated

We liken the art & science of business negotiation to golf. Like golf, negotiation is complex. If you were asked to hit two shots in succession off a golf tee, it is very unlikely that the result of both shots will be exactly the same outcome. This is due to the fact that there are many factors influencing the outcome of the shot. It is therefore not useful to approach golf as something that is linear, sequential & complicated. You have to be able to vary your approach to allow for changing conditions and you have to use a whole array of tools (golf clubs) to achieve your goal.

Many providers of negotiation skills development programmes approach business negotiation as something that is complicated rather than complex – in other words, they advocate an approach to negotiation that is sequential & linear (advocating for instance that there are a certain ‘number of steps’ involved in negotiations).This is almost like suggesting that golf should be played sequentially - you should first hit the driver, then the 5 wood, then the 3 wood, then the 1 iron and so on......rather than first assessing the weather conditions, the 'lie' of the ball, the distance left to the green etc. before deciding what club to use.

This kind of ‘complicated’ & linear approach will empower individuals & organisations with the tools to survive in simple & one dimensional negotiations but will leave them seriously exposed in multi-party, multi-issue, complex negotiations.

Individually Filmed Negotiation Simulations Allow Benchmarking of Performance

Equally, whilst there is some benefit to be gained from participating in group based filmed negotiation simulations, there is limited value to be derived at an individual level due to the presence of significant complexity represented by 2 dynamic sides in the simulation which precludes the use of benchmarking that is made possible by having 1 constant and 1 variable such as during a 1 on 1 filmed negotiation simulation between you and 1 of our expert negotiators.

Golf is one of the few games where the world’s best players only end up winning a few times every year – largely due to the complexity of the game. To be a complete golfer, one needs to have mastered all the elements of the game. You should have a strong ‘long game’, ‘short game’, putting ability and the skill to get out of trouble.

Additionally, one must have the ability to perform under extreme pressure. It is fair to say that most professional golfers are able to hit almost all the shots under normal circumstances, however, it is only the truly great golfers that are able to perform time and again under extreme pressure.

Professional golfers all make use of the services of coaches. It would be a good bet that almost all the professional golfers are better golfers than their coaches. Why then do they employ coaches? Because it is almost impossible to analyse one’s own game objectively. When at the top level of golf, as in any game, we understand that the margins between success and failure can be very small indeed. We learn through this partnership that the professional golfer’s coach understands that his player's game is mostly excellent. It is by paying attention to the small things that step changes in results are obtained.

Business negotiation is similar to golf in many ways. To be a rounded business negotiator, one needs to have mastered all the key elements that constitute leading practice in the field of negotiation. A ‘whole brain’ approach should be pursued that covers the four key elements of all negotiations: Vision, Value, Process & Relationship. As in golf, it is key that we first understand how we respond in our negotiations when under pressure, before we learn to deploy new skills.

Business Negotiation Solutions is ‘coach’ to the business negotiator. We combine our knowledge of what is required to be a successful negotiator with an analysis of the inherent skills of each individual that interacts with our training  services. Through the use of 2 individually filmed negotiation simulations & debriefings, this allows us to provide delegates with a benchmark and relative positioning against that benchmark so that they have a specific target – and plan - for skills development.

To find out more about our Business Negotiation Best Practice Program, click the button below