Mastering the Art of Negotiation
Good negotiation skills are indispensable. Almost every business decision is preceded by a negotiation process. With the help of our training offerings, you will emerge successfully from every negotiation situation.
What is negotiating?
Negotiation is often viewed in a negative light. We think of backroom deals, car salesmen, and wanting to get the most out of a situation. But we negotiate almost every day, even if we’re not always aware of it. For example, what are we having for dinner tonight and who’s doing the dishes? A negotiation is nothing more or less than a process in which two individuals or groups attempt to reach an agreement through proposals and counterproposals.
If you look at negotiating from this broad perspective, you will see that it is also found everywhere in your work situation: when setting up your own business, during the creation of partnerships, in co-creation, when leading or collaborating in (complex) projects, when coming to good decisions and dealing with deadlocks and conflicts. In fact, we all negotiate!
Why learn to negotiate well?
We live in a chaotic, fast-paced time where everything is constantly changing. In the business world, organizations become flatter, projects larger and more complex, and interests and risks increase. If you don’t know how to deal with this, your insecurity grows. How can you stay in constructive dialogue with all parties, serve your interests, avoid conflict and maintain progress? The answer: by negotiating well. Nine out of 10 decisions today are the outcome of a negotiation process. Negotiation is the way to reach decisions.
Our Negotiation Trainings
We can call ourselves the negotiation specialists of the Netherlands for forty years, and have trained thousands of people to become firm but agile negotiators. With us, you will learn how to properly prepare and successfully execute your negotiations. Even during the training, your results in the workplace improve. By practicing a lot, using your own practical situations or using Aikido, for example, you will learn to:
Sharpen your approach tactically and strategically.
Deepen your negotiation skills and get people with you on the road to good decisions and creative deals.
Become more agile in dealing with negotiation games that are being played.
Our Harvard Connection
Our trainings are being based on the Harvard method, which we helped introduce to the Netherlands. Ever read the book Getting to Yes (Excellent Negotiating)? This way of principled negotiation turns the various negotiating parties into problem solvers rather than adversaries. We built and deepened this approach over the years. Our method is based on seven principles. Based on these principles, you will learn how to prepare properly, shape a negotiation and accelerate your learning process.
| Separate the people from the problem. |
| Work on trust, demand and provide verifiability |
| Focus on interests, not positions. |
| First invent options for mutual gains, then evaluate and choose. |
| Base the negotiation outcome on an objective, reasonable criteria |
| Think carefully about, and explore each other’s alternatives |
| Think carefully about, and explore each other’s alternatives |
For whom are our training courses?
We have extensive experience with engineers, technicians, consultants, specialists and researchers. We also train many account managers, business developers and project leaders from the world of IT, financial services, fast-moving consumer goods and contracting. We also work for organizations in the public domain: ministries, provinces, water boards, public-private partnerships and NGOs.
Strengthen your negotiation?
Do you want to improve your negotiating skills? Learn from your own practical stories, but also from fellow participants from other organisations? Or are you curious about our negotiation method and approach? View our negotiation training courses and the white paper 'Negotiate with Impact' here.
