CII WORKSHOP

The Power of Negotiation is immense. It can lead to paving way to immense business opportunities and growth. We are involved in negotiation a good part of every day. Negotiation skills are crucial for professionals in today’s business environment. Effective negotiation skills can save money and improve a company’s profitability. If best practice can be replicated across the department, the combined benefits can be enormous.

Keeping the same in mind, CII organized a Workshop on “Negotiation Skills Creating a Win-Win Situation for a Stronger Relationship” Wednesday, 26th February 2014, Hotel Lemon Tree, Ghaziabad.

The resource person was Mr Suresh Mohan Semwal - Co-Founder, POSSIBLERS. Mr Semwal’s inspirational and thought provoking messages emanates from his enriched experience of 22 years in the field of finance, travel, construction and corporate training. He has addressed 100000+ people in 250+ organization through 2400+ interventions & is a certified NLP practitioner by American Board of NLP.

A Team of 4 Management students accompanied with the Training & Placement officer of DGI – Prachi Agarwal attended the workshop.

The session started at 10:00 AM with a brief introduction by Mr. Semwal. Furthermore, all the participating delegates were asked to introduce themselves. Post introduction, Mr. Semwal asked the audience to share their opinion about the sentence, “Winning all the time is a counterproductive habit”. The audience expressed their views on the same. Ms. Prachi Agarwal expressed her views to say that , ”In life people have to loose small arguments at times to win big battles”.

Later there was an activity in which Mr. Semwal gave an activity and the following questions had to be negotiated within ourselves.

1. As per our understanding, what is negotiation?

2. As per our understanding, what is not negotiation?

3. Why does it fail?

4. What are the 3 effective ways of negotiating successfully?

5. One common expectation from the program.

Each group sitting a table negotiated their opinions to reach a common consensus. After the same various answers of the audience were discussed. He stated the following main points in negotiation:-

1. It is not an event, it is a process

2. It is not a game

3. It is not determining winner or looser

4. There is no ‘one sixe fit formula for all negotiation tables.

He stated that as a human being, people tend to listen more to ourselves and talk more to others. Whereas it should be vice versa. At negotiation table, one must be really exercising good listening capacities. Listen to spoken and unspoken words and attention must be paid to the fact that who is saying what. One must always try to extract more information from the other party. Also, true feelings must never be conveyed while negotiating.

He advised the use of Acronym, ‘POGO’ before and while negotiating.

1. P- Problem- One must always try to see the problem area of the negotiator.

2. O - Opportunity- Try to look for your own opportunity in other’s weaker area.

3. G – Goal – There has to be mutually agreed goal for negotiation.

4. O - Outcome- A common consensus reached while negotiating.

He also stated that the best remedy is not to negotiate. He gave example of fixed price shops who do not bargain on their price. But in order not to negotiate one must have the following powers:-

1. Choice

2. Time

3. Product Monopoly

4. Knowledge

5. Approach

Furthermore he stated that Negotiation is finding about finding a third alternative to the same problem. He stated that before sitting on the negotiation table one must know the BATNA which means Best Alternative to Negotiation Agreement. He also gave the WSP formula for Negotiation. It is called WSP which means Will, Skill and Power to negotiation.

Post that there was an activity done with the audience in which a Psychometric Test was done. There were different numbers shown on the screen and Mr. Semwal asked us to do the addition in our brains. A tool and a number were asked to be thought in our brain.

All the people who thought of red as the color and hammer as the tool were categorized as receptive people and hence not good for negotiation.

A person has private and public time at his disposal. One must work hard in private time to be able to do good in public time. He related this while negotiating and stated that one must do homework about the other negotiating body in the private time to be able to do good negotiating in public time.

Also, he stated that keeping eye contact with the other party plays a major role in negotiation. It is advisable not to sit in the confronting position facing each other but to sit at the same side of the table so that it is more productive.

Also, while negotiating one must never make the first offer and try to get that from the other party. The first offer must never be the best offer as it is always termed to come down as a part of negotiating skill. One must always talk in measurable terms in order to derive more fruitful result from negotiating. He gave 5 following steps in negotiating:-

1. Preparation

2. Proposal

3. Discussion

4. Bargain

5. Agreement

Towards the end, he gave the following golden rules while negotiating:-

RULE – 1:- Don’t give things free.

RULE – 2:- Start higher than what you deserve

RULE – 3:- Identify the envelope of negotiation

RULE – 4:- BATNA must be known in advance

RULE – 5:- Never settle issues individually and must be resolved in a package

RULE – 6:- The meeting must be concluded with a nibble.

RULE - 7:- Keep looking for creative concessions and future opportunities

The event concluded with the remarks that 'NEVER LET YOUR EGO NEGOTIATE'.