Throughout all areas of business, from board room battles to finalising that all important sales contract, your style of negotiation will affect your result. Essentially, it requires all your best communication and persuasiveness skills and is a popular topic on management and sales training courses.

There are two main types of negotiation and each has their drawbacks and benefits.

Adversarial Negotiation
This is the typical battle of wills with an opponent where your goal is to get what you want, and minimise your opponent’s chances or elements of success. Typically that means the first round is where both parties aim (sometimes unrealistically) high and cling on to as much as they can. Often information will be withheld and no concessions will be made until as late as possible. Adversarial negotiation often results in a ‘win-lose’ or if it fails completely a ‘lose-lose’ outcome. It’s suited to the strongest and most aggressive competitor and typically isn’t designed to build trust and long term relationships.

Co-operative Negotiation
In this style, each side acknowledges the needs of the other and concedes there may be differences that should be explored. There is much more objectivity, with a goal to settle on what is fair and reasonable for both parties. Communication is much open, and there is much more of a tendency to share information between both parties in the search for empathy and understanding. It’s seen more as a problem solving exercise, and is much more likely to lead to positive long term relationships and a ‘win-win’ outcome.