The Negotiation Book: Your Definitive Guide To Successful Negotiating

5.3. CONCLUSION

The fourteen behaviours of the Complete Skilled Negotiator underpin effective negotiation performance, regardless of your position on the clock face. With so many ways to negotiate driven by the balance of power, personal traits that encourage individuals to gravitate towards particular skills or negotiate in their preferred manner, is it any wonder that many find it challenging to perform well in all situations?

The key here is to work on developing your capabilities through greater awareness of those skills that you are using and to note their effect during your negotiations. Your awareness of how different behaviours will impact on your performance is the first step toward becoming the Complete Skilled Negotiator.

Every business is different and each and every negotiation situation is unique. The value of issues will nearly always be different to both parties and will nearly always be different over time. The personalities involved and relationship dynamics will differ and even those that you understand will change over time. It's with this in mind that the Complete Skilled Negotiator has to be flexible enough to perform in all situations. You cannot consistently perform well if you attempt to employ one 'preferred style' for all negotiations. The clock face helps to differentiate this whilst the behaviours help highlight those things that we must do well, depending on the opportunity in hand.