How Your Social Skills Can Help When Negotiating

Would you call yourself a negotiator? While maybe not a title you’d put on your resume, you probably find yourself in negotiating situations multiple times a day. Arranging meetings at work, getting your kids ready for school, divvying up the chores with your other half – these are all types of negotiation.

The reason you may not have realized is because you’re able to do all these using skills you’ve honed since childhood. If you’ve ever tried to persuade a toddler to eat their greens, you’ll know that children learn to negotiate before they can talk. Here are five skills you already know that stand you well on your way to becoming an accomplished negotiator.

Everyone is a natural-born problem solver. You see this skill in action in babies when they’re learning to walk. They try it; they fall; they get back up and try again. If you didn’t know how to problem solve in some guise, you would never have managed to do anything, because the second a problem arose, you’d be stuck.

As you get older, problem-solving becomes more complex and more collaborative, but the social skills you’ve learned along the way are an excellent framework in which you can build upon with negotiations training.

You make hundreds of decisions throughout your day – whether or not you make good decisions is entirely up to you. As you get older, you become more adept at understanding what makes a good decision; sometimes the most appropriate choice isn’t the one you favor yourself but is the best overall for the situation.

This skill is vital to negotiations because, at some point, you need to come to an agreement, and if you’re unable to make and commit to a decision, not only are you dragging it out longer than it needs, you could also be giving the impression that you’re not competent enough to handle the task.

It’s hard to find common ground with someone if you’re virtual strangers. Often, taking the time to build a rapport with someone can pay dividends – particularly if the situation calls for some challenging conversations.

Understanding someone’s motivations, what they hope to gain from a situation both personally and professionally, makes it easier to come to an amicable resolution. The sooner you find an outcome that gives both parties what they want, the more peaceful the negotiations will be.

There’s a big difference between listening and hearing, and some people confuse the two. Hearing is acknowledging a sound. An alarm going off, a phone ringing, a baby crying – these are all sounds you hear. Listening, and active listening especially, is when you concentrate on what someone is saying.

It’s something you consciously choose to do and to which you give your undivided attention. It’s courteous, respectful, and – most importantly – reduces the risk of miscommunication and messages getting lost. From your parents telling you how to do something to your time in the classroom, you’ve been learning to listen your whole life.

You could think of assertiveness as standing up for yourself or your beliefs. Being assertive is so important in negotiations because this type of behavior enables you to fight for what you want without denying the rights of others; it allows you to express your needs and wants positively.

Often, passive-aggressive behavior is passed off as being assertive, but the difference is it doesn’t allow for anyone else to have an opinion or, at the very least, feel comfortable expressing it.

Every time you’ve ever spoken up for yourself – if someone short-changes you, pushes in front of you in line, or takes something that belongs to you – you’ve exhibited assertive behavior.

You already have the groundwork in place; now, take your negotiation skills to the next level. High-quality negotiations training will help you reach satisfactory resolutions every time. Take the next step today and become more proficient not only in your work life but in your every day too.