I returned to the Antalis academy for another engaging workshop, this time we were looking at how to achieve effective negotiation. For someone like me, who is much happier to agree to things rather than engage in conversation, I can fully admit that I was in dire need of this workshop.
Luckily for me, this was another one of the set of workshops taught by Julie Biddle. If there is one thing I’ve learned from her previous workshops, it’s that you will be guaranteed to walk away at the end of the day having learned something new. I’m at the point now where the idea of interactive workshops no longer scare me, which is a testament to her teaching!
Another plus is the small groups that attend the workshop, it makes it more intimate as everyone can join in and it’s usually filled with lovely people.
“You’re only worth your cheapest price”. Before we could get into the intricacies of negotiation, it was important to cover why it’s so important. You see, negotiation is imperative in a business setting. But we also use it in our everyday life – a lot more than we think. Even if it’s just to knock a few pounds of the fruit at the market. It all counts.
We went over the criteria necessary for negotiation, because knowing when to and when not to is just as important. Then we moved onto the essential key to success that applies to everything in life – preparation. The benefits of preparation and planning are endless. With regards to negotiation in specific, there are issues that need to be considered once you have set your objectives. Such as, what are the other parties’ objectives? What variables do both parties have? What strengths and weaknesses are on the table? Only by thinking things through from both sides and understanding what is important to the customer, will you be able to effectively build your case in a convincing manner.
As always, it’s impossible to escape the participative part of the session, we began by splitting up into two and completing a questionnaire on what we believed were the most effective negotiation techniques in certain scenarios. It was really interesting to learn the difference between the textbook answer would be in comparison to what I considered the realistic solution.
Once we had a better idea of what worked and what didn’t, we were set a case study to complete in groups. We went over a hypothetical situation whereby we were busing a pizza restaurant and had to consider all the factors we should take into account and attempt to negotiate on. As well as making me pretty peckish, this exercise was very interactive and it just a lot of fun to try and figure out what would be most beneficial to do.
Our group took the position of adversarial bargaining, whereas the other group took more of a co-operative approach. It’s safe to say that everyone really got into it and many passionate discussions were had.
All in all, I have to say this was one of my favourite workshops. It was a lot of fun, but most importantly I feel like I took away some very crucial tips on how to conduct negotiation.
Effective Negotiation.
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