Negotiation Skills

1) One of the most important skillsets you can develop is negotiation skills. How can becoming a strong negotiator help you in your personal life? What about at school? Do you think being a good negotiator will be helpful in your future career? Why or why not?

2) One role model told us that to be a good negotiator in the future you should study hard, read lots, and work on increasing your vocabulary. How do you think focusing on each of these areas now will help you become a strong negotiator in the future?

3) Three great pieces of advice that the role models shared were to “know your facts,” “speak your truth,” and “be as direct as possible.” Why are these such important pieces of advice for negotiations? What might happen if you came into a negotiation without knowing “your facts”? What about if you didn’t “speak your truth”?

4) Listeners learned that establishing a win-win situation is a great strategy when negotiating. What is a win-win situation? How can establishing a win-win situation help a negotiation go more smoothly? Can you think of a time in your life that you tried to establish a win-win situation while negotiating? Describe the situation.

5) Often, during negotiations, you will need to build alliances and look to others to create a coalition. Successful negotiators know that negotiating is more of a team sport than a battle. Why do you think it is helpful to build alliances or relationships built on shared interests? What might you do to try to find common ground with others when negotiating?

6) One role model said, “Aim for the stars, you’ll at least reach the treetops.” What do you think she meant? How does it relate to negotiation? How might this advice apply to other parts of your life?

Tips on things that you can do now in order to become a good negotiator later. Study, read, increase your vocabulary. Being an avid reader is a huge part of being a great negotiator because my ability to negotiate a contract is not only understanding what’s on the page, but understanding what’s not there. Taking public speaking courses so that you become comfortable in your own skin when you are opposed or you are speaking to someone else on the other side of the table.

Whatever it is, ask the question. You want a discount? Ask for the discount. You want an extra piece? Ask for the extra piece. You don’t have information, ask for the information. If you notice, a lot of people are afraid to ask. Why not just ask? It’s all in how you ask it.

Be as direct as possible and to not feel you have to immediately commit to anything. Give yourself time. If you want something or you don’t agree with something, say, ”I feel uncomfortable. And here’s what I’d like to propose.” And just speak your truth.

I always establish what the win-win situation will be, right? So if I need something from you, what do I also have in return? If for some reason I feel like I don’t, let me find something or find someone who can help you in what goal that you’re trying to achieve.

Know your facts. So that’s one thing that I can’t stress enough. Anyone could disagree with you or push back on something you said because of what they think or what they feel. But if you know that you’re going into a negotiation or a conversation with the facts, then you can be confident and be sure that what you’re saying, what you’re fighting for, what you’re representing is true. And no one can deny the fact.

Basically, you need to know what you want. You need to know that you need to have room for concessions. So for that, you need to ask for more than what you want. You need to know how to build alliances. When there’s a collective type of negotiations, you need to know how to look around you [at?] who are the people that are going to build a coalition with you to be able to reach a successful outcome.

The phrase that I always use is aim for the stars, you’ll at least get to the treetops. So ask for more than what you want, and then be willing to come down a little bit. Aim higher, understand that it’s not always going to be achieved, and then be happy when you settle at two-thirds of what you wanted.

One of the biggest things that you can tell yourself when you’re getting ready to negotiate, of course it can be intimidating, but understand that you have a goal and you have a reason for desiring what it is that you want at the end. So own that, take power in that, and you will be successful, and you’ll get where you want to go.

Negotiation Skills Independent Learning Guide: This all-purpose guide can also be used by educators, parents, and mentors to jumpstart a valuable discussion about negotiation and the importance of these skills.

Negotiation Skills Classroom Lesson Plan: This step-by-step lesson plan is available to guide a more in-depth “before, during, and after” learning experience when viewing the video with students. This lesson plan is also suitable for use in after-school programs and other educational settings.

Use Empowerment Activities as a fun way to reinforce the video topic and build community with your students.

• Scrap Sculpture

Fun Page Activity: Do good negotiators love to argue? Is negotiation really all about winning? Is it okay to lie in a negotiation? Practice identifying common negotiation myths in this thought-provoking fun-page activity.