The mindset of top negotiators

The success of a negotiation is largely based on psychology. This is nothing new.

The mindset of top negotiators

The success of a negotiation is largely based on psychology. This is nothing new.

However, becoming a better negotiator is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. The linchpin here is our own attitude towards negotiating, i.e. the right mindset, which top athletes also adopt in order to get better and better at their sport.

Such a mindset has a decisive influence on your future negotiation results.

Understanding the importance of mindset is one thing. Knowing how to develop your attitude for negotiations is quite another.

But what distinguishes the amateur from the professional?

Six steps will help you optimize your approach to negotiating.

1. Make a decision
   Whether you are trying to kick a drug habit or learn a foreign language, the first step is to truly make up your own mind to make the decision yourself. If your initial decision is made only to please or satisfy someone else, it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the desired results.The question you need to answer is: are you determined to change your own approach in order to improve? Or are you just trying something new because you want to develop new skills or because you’ve seen how other people do good business?While these two questions may seem similar, they don’t come from the same mentality. If your goal is truly to improve your approach to a negotiation, you need to consciously decide to change your approach—and commit fully to doing so.
2. Focus your determination
   Once you’ve decided to change your approach, the next step is to focus your determination. Focus on improving your negotiation skills and apply new knowledge. Perhaps you shouldn’t try to use some random tactic you’ve heard of. Instead, learn a proper system and negotiate using a structured analysis phase, tactical empathy, deep listening, linguistic discipline, inflection points, and sequential negotiation tactics to improve your own outcome.It’s about having a clear system that is suitable for cooperative and confrontational negotiations. And more importantly, that you use it!Thoughts are cheap. Actions count.
3. Expect the unexpected
   In negotiations, flexibility is of great importance. It is important to be aware that negotiations rarely proceed in a linear fashion and that unforeseen situations can always arise. An optimal mindset for negotiations includes the ability to adapt to change and apply flexible tactics. Flexibility enables us to respond to unexpected turns and find creative solutions to achieve our own goals. The more tactics I recognize from the other side, the better I can counter them. The fuller my tactics bag is, the better I can operate. In negotiation, the most flexible element always dominates the system.
4. Allow for mistakes – and learn from them
   Even if you are determined to learn a new foreign language, it is not possible to become proficient in it overnight. Our way of speaking in negotiations is like our mother tongue. When you learn the language and rhetoric of negotiation, you will learn a language of your own.You’ll mess up plenty of words before you even have a chance to speak fluently. Imagine a non-native speaker has to understand the differences between “since” and “are”, “the” and “that”, “would like” and “like” or “arguing” and “discussing”.If you are trying to improve your approach before a negotiation, be prepared to make mistakes no matter what. Think of how many hours Christiano Ronaldo spent making mistakes on the pitch before he became a world-class player. Or how many serves Venus Williams missed before she developed one of the hardest and most precise serves in tennis history.

   You will mess up too. That’s perfectly fine. Nobody is an expert at something new right off the bat. Analyze each of your negotiations and learn from them.

5. Practice – ALWAYS
   You have to make mistakes in order to get better. But you won’t make mistakes if you don’t get the necessary repetition. When the synapses fire together, they become wired together. And that wiring turns a conscious skill – something we have to think about while we’re doing it – into an unconscious skill – something we do without having to think about it.A number of studies¹ have shown that repeated learning and repetition over a longer period of time are the most successful ways of retaining information in memory. Scientific research has shown that so-called “spaced repetition”
   ², in which information is repeated in certain contexts, has proven particularly effective for solidifying negotiation knowledge.What does this mean for you specifically?
   So, now that you’ve decided to change your approach, set specific goals, and realize that you’ll make mistakes in the process, it’s time to look for opportunities to practice your repetitions.

   The best part is that you don’t have to wait until you’re at the table to practice your new approach. Look for opportunities in your daily life to practice your negotiation skills. Whether you’re shopping on the weekend, talking to a mechanic about car problems, or on the phone with your phone company, there are always low-risk situations you can take advantage of to test your skills and sharpen your negotiation abilities.

   When you do find yourself in a mission-critical negotiation where something is actually at stake, you will have the mental muscle memory you need to achieve the desired outcome.

6. Stay curious
   The unexpected is an essential part of the negotiation. Let go of the idea that you can plan for everything. Start analyzing your counterpart. Learn the verbal and non-verbal tools, know the tactics that are critical to success, and don’t assume in negotiations that you know what your counterpart is thinking or planning. Analyze it.Stay open to everything that is developing in the field of negotiations. Read (including this blog), attend training courses, analyze your negotiations and constantly try to improve.
   That is the way to become a top negotiator.

Now you have the right attitude to get you to the negotiating table and make your negotiations more successful in the future. It is now up to you.

Remember: you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.