You should think about negotiation as an organisational capability. A common error made by companies is to only consider the development of the negotiation skills of individuals. If your business relies solely on the negotiation skills of individuals it directly signifies that you will always be exposed to the risks associated when people move. What happens when your star negotiator is promoted or decides to sign up with your competitor or supplier?

Your business' ability to negotiate effectively is dependent on four factors:

* The negotiation strategy (or absence thereof)

* The negotiation process

* The negotiation skills of individuals

* The negotiation supporting network

Developing an individual's negotiation skills is obviously an important element in developing the negotiation capability, but an error is easily made by focusing on negotiation skills training without having considered the 2 steps that should head negotiation skills development; an organisational negotiation strategy definition and business negotiation process design or redesign.

Investing in a negotiation skills development program without having considered the negotiation strategy & supporting process can be associated to focusing on the training of troops for war independent of the general strategy for the war.

The second big mistake is that companies will focus on the development of the negotiation skills of individuals but fail develop a supporting environment for enhancement of these skills. Using the war analogy, this would be like training soldiers how to use their weapons and then not supplying them with the ammunition and resources needed to keep the weapons serviceable in action.

If you are contemplating investing in a negotiation skills development initiative and you are not prepared to:

* outline or refine a negotiation strategy,

* develop or redesign the negotiation process, and

* create a best practice negotiation supporting network

I would like to propose that you invest your money elsewhere as you are likely to get a better return on your investment!

Another tips is to ensure that your negotiation training program includes individual negotiation preference profiling.

An individual's negotiation capability is made up of three element:

* Their competence (that which they are able to do)

* Their preferences (that which they prefer to do)

* Their behaviour (that which they in reality do)

Contrary to popular belief, the biggest influencing element on your negotiation behaviour is not your competence but your preferences. Think about it, if your capability to do something was dependent on your competence to do it, then not one person would smoke, we would all eat five fruits and vegetables daily and we would all exercise on a regular basis.

The simple truth is that you have a habit to behave in negotiation (as in life generally) according to your preferences. You could therefore persuasively say that your preferences in life have a much bigger impact on your behaviour than your competencies. It follows that one of the biggest errors made by companies in recruitment and negotiation assessments, is to check the competence of people without gaining an understanding of their preferences.

Therefore, the fact that you are able to do something doesn't necessarily mean that are actually going to do it. In the context of negotiation skills development, this suggest that it is essential that each person understands their own preferences with regards their approach to negotiations in addition to their competencies and equally, that they are made conscious of the fact that different individuals and different cultures will have varying preferences when it comes to negotiations.

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