Skills Management: Successful Communication in Business Negotiations

Abstract

Negotiations represent a formative element in professional life. The development and continuous expansion of practical negotiation skills is therefore an important task within the framework of individual competence development. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this article therefore focuses on the central elements of professional negotiation: analysis, strategies and tools in the context of communication. A good negotiation result is regularly characterized by the fact that the assertiveness of one's own interests goes hand in hand with empathy for the interests of the negotiating partner. In an interplay of integrative and distributive negotiation, value is jointly created and individually claimed. The more a negotiation result is based on objective decision-making principles and at the same time unfolds the power of a creative solution, the greater the chance of an agreement between the negotiating parties. Negotiating situations represent a formative element of human experiential reality: In business, politics and law, reconciliations of interests in the form of negotiated solutions are regularly sought. At the economic level, negotiations are constitutive for any form of business relationship between service exchanging companies. However, hierarchical changes in the working world also mean that project-specific personnel and material resources can only be recruited and/or released if the expectations of all project participants have been communicated in advance, coordinated and the relevant target positions negotiated and fixed. Negotiations also play a prominent role within the company. This applies both to established employees of a company and to potential employees who are in an (advanced) application process. In all these negotiation contexts, people meet in a wide variety of exchange relationships. They compete for resources and want to realize their interests. The diversity of these negotiation situations occurring in the realities of individuals and groups of people indicates the relevance of dealing with the topic. Even experienced negotiation practitioners sometimes stubbornly hold the view that being able to negotiate effectively is exclusively a question of talent, that one cannot learn this ergo at all-or that intellect and practical experience alone are sufficient to achieve good negotiation results (cf. Rosner/Winheller 2012, p. 76 f.). However, this assessment is countered by empirical findings that focus on the effect of good quality negotiation training on individual negotiation skills and negotiation outcomes: With regard to the factor of negotiation experience, the studies come to the conclusion that experienced negotiators (2-3 years) achieve significantly better negotiation results than inexperienced negotiators. At the same time, it can be seen that additional experience only generates further advantages for already experienced negotiators under certain conditions: Participation in effective negotiation training is therefore necessary. This is because the previous negotiation practice can be self-critically reflected against the background of relevant negotiation research results (cf. Voeth/Herbst 2009, p. 62 f.; Thompson 2009, p. 9). On the other hand, by completing suitable negotiation workshops, new negotiators can neutralise the critical success factor of negotiation experience compared to experienced negotiators without taking advantage of negotiation training offers (cf. Herbst/Schwarz 2011, p. 163 ff.). Overall, the effectiveness of various forms of negotiation training can be regarded as proven (cf. Coleman/Lim 2001; Loewenstein et al. 2003; Nadler et al. 2003). These insights reveal what becomes clear on closer examination of the subject matter of the present study: Professional negotiation is a highly complex challenge, the successful mastering of which requires intensive engagement with relevant research findings, training of practical negotiation skills, continuous generation of negotiation experience and constant critical reflection on one's own negotiation practice (cf. Haft 2000, p. 1 f.). This insight is also reflected in the fact that negotiations have now been the subject of research for four decades in various disciplines, primarily economics, political science, mathematics (game theory) and communication psychology (cf. Moffit/Bordone 2005; Däubler 2003; Voeth/Herbst 2009). The undisputed basic literature on the subject, on which the following remarks are based, is the Havard concept Getting to Yes, first published in 1981.