Training Tips
Negotiating Styles

Note: This exercise, and the list of negotiating styles that go along with it, comes from the blog Online Guide to Mediation, managed by Diane Levin of the organization Partnering Solutions, LLC.

Just like with conflict styles, different people have different kinds of negotiation styles (in fact, there are probably a number of corollaries between the two categories). Again, none of these styles is wrong or bad, but it can be hard to communicate with one another without knowing each person's styles. Three main types of negotiating styles are persuasion, trickery, or force. Here is an exercise to get people to think about their own type of negotiation style:

1. Give each person a partner. Have each participant stand across from their partner and create a line (using masking tape, string, etc.) between the partners.
2. Tell each person that the aim of the exercise is to get their partner to cross the line. If they do, then they are the winner and will receive a prize.
3. Give the partners a couple of minutes to try and get their partner to cross the line.

Inevitably, the majority of participants will try one or both of the styles above. They may try to convince their partner that they are more deserving of the prize (their partner got a prize earlier, they need money to feed their kids and are planning to sell the prize to get it, etc.), which epitomizes the style of persuasion. They may also try to use trickery by telling their partner that they can split the prize while intending to renege or extending a hand as a sign of good faith and then pulling their partner across. Finally, some use intimidation or force to drag or pull their partner across the line.

Typically, the exercise ends with no one getting the money, the participants splitting the money, or one partner winning everything. The one option that would allow both parties to win, having each partner cross the line to the opposite side, is rarely thought of. The reason for this is the same reason people will often get into conflicts, because they focus on how they can win and how their positions are right. It is assumed that there can only be one winner since that is normally how games are played, so each parties interests are ignored, leaving out the possibility of creating a win-win solution. It is a mindset we should get out of if we want to create the possibility for more mutually beneficial solutions.