Being a good negotiator is an art for which we are somehow specially prepared. Most children are relentless negotiators. They know the weapons they have, they know they have the opportunity to satisfy the desires of others (such as behaving well) and they don’t hesitate to offer that in exchange for what they want.
To be a good negotiator, you need to have a number of skills and know how to handle them correctly, including trust, self-affirmation, flexibility and goodwill, but there are others. And the good news is that they can be practiced!
- The main skills of a negotiator are essentially two: courage and integrity.
- Through them a person can defend their beliefs.
- Interests or values that he represents or has.
- Being eloquent and wise.
- So if you are going to face a negotiation.
- It is good to know that there are some strategies that can help him.
- Especially when he chooses the right trading time to use them.
As we have already said, from a very young time we show what our qualities are, for example, when we ask them to read us another story or when we try to save a few more minutes before bed, parents are our first rivals. because, even without realizing it, we’ve been negotiating with them since we were little.
Skills are developed through experience, regularity, practice, and learning.
In the face of a negotiation process, it is most common to feel some nervousness and, at first contact, activate our prefrontal cortex; secondly, if we think we won’t be able to deal with the situation, the amygdala scares us.
To overcome this fear the ideal is to anticipate the situation with prior planning and preparation, for example, knowing what our goal is, how we should proceed or collect as much information as possible, it is also good to know some tricks, such as opening the trade when it comes to quantities to use the “anchor effect”.
Second, brain activity is concentrated in our mirror neurons, through which we try to empathize with the person with whom we negotiate, creating an environment of understanding and trust. We seek any sign that allows us to deduce what the person is like, to adapt to it. their mood and act accordingly. At this stage, communication skills are essential.
At some point in the negotiation we can get to or from a point without going back, but before throwing in the towel we must use all the tools we have, verbal and nonverbal, dialectic and gestures are crucial. For example, if we notice that the person frowns at all our proposals, changes positions several times, does not maintain eye contact or is very attentive to roles, it is better to change the way we act.
Two key moments should receive special attention: welcome and farewell. The ideal handshake is the one that is done vertically, without turning the palm up or down. To close deals, you can use your left hand to slightly touch the other person’s arm, as this reflects proximity. In any case, when two parties are interested in a negotiation, if it fails, both parties lose.
If after completing the negotiation process both parties benefit, the brain may not be satisfied, in these cases our mind does not recognize the famous win-win, there are only two options: win or lose, success is not measured in terms of profitability, but in the level of satisfaction that is consciously perceived.
There is another type of negotiation in which a collaborative agreement is sought, in this sense both negotiators know that if one of the parties is not satisfied, the agreement will probably collapse, so if we are one of those parties and we are well negotiators, we will not only try to take care of or protect our interests, but we will try to ensure that the outcome achieved by the other party is perceived as positive on the other side.
On the other hand, if we rate the business result as positive, our reward cycle begins. When activated, our body releases pleasure-causing neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and oxytocin. But if we think we’ve failed, the threat cycle begins. The protagonist is adrenaline, so we feel angry, disappointed or despondent.
Many experts point out that to be a good negotiator you have to put emotions aside and focus on objectivity, that is the basis of game theory, which advocates a cold and aseptic process, in which everyone involved is completely rational.
But it is a very difficult thing to do if we take into account that we are people and, as such, that emotions are part of us, feelings almost inevitably influence a negotiation and it is necessary to know how to dominate them so that they do not leave us in an unfavourable situation.
Managing emotional intelligence and self-criticism are essential factors to be a good negotiator, with these factors we will be able to adapt to a defeat, analyze its reason, learn from it and face an even better future negotiation.
We summarize a series of skills that a good negotiator has that turn his negotiating skills into art:
To be a good negotiator, the secret is to use the brain and listen to the advice of neuroscience, there are managers of all kinds and personality, but the secret to success is knowing how to find the right dose of emotion and reason.