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Impact and Influence in Negotiation – Observe their Decision Making Criteria

Guest post by: Clive Hook

Article Overview: Becoming a skilled negotiator with personal impact and influence means being socially skilled and attending to your own style and behaviour to fit the situation and making changes based on what you notice. In this article the focus of attention is the way that decisions are made and the criteria that seem to influence their decision making. In most negotiations and influencing situations there are changes that need to happen and these are going to affect other people to a greater or lesser extent. For you to have the greatest chance of impact and influence you need to be tuned to how they make decisions and which criteria they consider to be important.

Impact and Influence in Negotiation – Observe their Decision Making Criteria

Becoming a skilled negotiator with personal impact and influence means being socially skilled and attending to your own style and behaviour to fit the situation and making changes based on what you notice. This means being able to move your thinking and attention to notice how things are talked about and the style and preferences of the other people involved in the discussions. To be a successful negotiator a significant part of your attention must be focused on the other people, not just you and your objectives. In previous articles you have been advised to notice how they operate in social situations and how they talk and describe issues and work with information.

In this article the focus of attention is the way that decisions are made and the criteria that seem to influence their decision making. In most negotiations and influencing situations there are changes that need to happen and these are going to affect other people to a greater or lesser extent.

Different people will be affected by the people factor in decisions in different ways. For some people the “right” decision will be the logically correct outcome based on the available data. For others the more important criterion is the way that people will be affected and how they will feel – thus “right” in this case is more about morals and values than science and logic.

In observing other people in negotiations you are collecting data so that you can have the right kind of impact on their thinking. To influence is to change someone’s thinking and behaviour in some way. If they are influenced by you they will make decisions which are affected by the data you provide and your suggestions, proposals or requests.

For you to have the greatest chance of impact and influence you need to be tuned to how they make decisions and which criteria they consider to be important. This means listening and observing the factors they take into account as they consider changes and outcomes. Do they tend to talk in impersonal ways or do they want to examine how people will feel about the outcome, the change and even about them? This difference in approach will reveal to you which criteria are in their minds as they weigh up options and make choices.

There will be clues before the decision point in negotiating. Their conversations and contributions about the current position and any problems will be phrased in more logical language or say more about other people and their concerns, issues and feelings. You can further test this by asking a question which is directly about the effects on others. Asking a future focused question which asks them to evaluate outcomes such as “How do you see this affecting the organisation?” will elicit an answer that tells you where their thinking is.

If you want to impact their thinking and have lasting influence your proposals or suggestions will need to match their decision making criteria, whether logically correct or morally right.

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Article Tags: influencing skills, influencing skills training, negotiation skills, negotiation skills training



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