Negotiating With Difficult People

• Learn to navigate hostile negotiation environments and steer discussions back to a constructive, principled approach
• Protect yourself from unfair tactics and manipulative strategies
• Strengthen your ability to manage stress and control emotions under pressure
• Enhance your negotiation toolkit with advanced circumvention strategies for better outcomes

• Move your counterpart out of adversarial positions and bring them to a shared set of rules
• Disarm tough negotiators and overcome outright refusal to negotiate
• Break down barriers to cooperation
• Avoid the three ineffective responses to unfair tactics
• Detect and neutralize bad faith

• For professionals in any sector who are required to negotiate as part of their role. This program covers the full spectrum of negotiations, including commercial, financial, social, managerial, political, and geopolitical contexts, among others.

1. Identify the five barriers to cooperation and understand the motivations behind problematic behaviors
2. Define a response strategy based on the power of surprise
3. Avoid reactive decisions by regaining balance when destabilized and refraining from acting in the heat of the moment
4. Disarm the other party by defusing their attack rather than opposing it, creating a problem-solving environment
5. Change the rules of the game by guiding the other party toward the principles of principled negotiation, neutralizing obstruction tactics, attacks, and manipulations
6. Build a bridge that ensures an honorable exit for your counterpart
7. Use your power to encourage reflection in the other party, not to force compliance
8. Establish and enhance your “off-the-table” solutions
9. Know how to use your alternative solutions subtly to defuse reactions
10. Transform the adversary into a partner by aiming to solve the problem together rather than defeat the other party

• Knowledge and skills assessment test

• Training based on practical case studies, group exercises, and simulations.

TBD