The importance of being Authentic - the key to successful negotiating

This blog details why becoming a successful negotiator is so important and how it can help you.

Having spent the last couple of weeks as part of the directing team on the National Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Course it's great to have time to reflect, consider some of the key learning points, and look at where some of the principles crossover with commercial negotiation. 

It is incredibly rewarding watching the students discover themselves; their strengths, their vulnerabilities and their own resilience as the journey of self-discovery unfolds throughout what is without doubt the most psychological demanding course in law enforcement. It will come as no surprise that not everyone is successful on the course, whether it be a decision made by the directing team or a student coming to the realisation that being a negotiator and operating in the extreme situations that hostage and crisis negotiators do, that the role is just not for them, which in itself shows great self-awareness and strength. 

One of the most important lessons is to understand that people buy into people, so whatever arena you negotiate in corporate, hostage and crisis, or in day to day leadership, understand who you are and be true to your values and your beliefs. In short be authentic, be genuine and be real. When the deal is important, or the goal means a lot we can try too hard to be a negotiator and forget to be ourselves. 

It seems counterintuitive to tell students to stop being a negotiator, especially on a hostage negotiators course however there's a key lesson to learn there. No matter how much you have your head around the skills of influence and persuasion or how hard you try to negotiate your way through a demanding situation you won't get there if you are not authentic, if you fail to be genuine and forget to be yourself. People buy into people that are genuine and remember, pretty much every one of us has a finely tuned BS radar. We are fantastic at recognising when people are being anything other genuine, those people that you just don't buy into because your gut tells you there's just something about them. So that is the message I give to students that are finding themselves struggling with the course. “Stop trying to be a negotiator, be yourself with the skills on top”. Authenticity is just as powerful a tool as the skills we give them and coupled with those skills they make a very powerful combination. One without the other can make your proposition, your idea, your suggestion ineffective or weak. 

Seeing the development of a number of the students over the last course, in particular the incredible shift change in their development once they recognised that being authentic was just as important as knowing the skills reinforced for me the need to be authentic in whatever type of negotiation you engage in. As with every course I along with all directing team develop and hone our own skills along the way, and quite often from the students themselves who deal with a challenge in a different way than you would. With every lesson taught and every exercise critiqued we continue to learn, we continue to develop, and most importantly we continue to strive to be the best we can be. Confidence becomes arrogance when we stop learning from others. 

The lesson I am taking way this time is remember to be yourself with the skills on top because together they make your communication powerful and ultimately a better negotiator.