In any negotiated process, the good negotiator must have the ability to understand and lead the other party to the most convenient path for both, managing the interpersonal relationship in the most propitious and appropriate way. Emotional Intelligence helps you get there.
Through Emotional Intelligence, negotiators recognize their own emotions and learn to manage them, at the same time that they motivate and empathize with the other party, achieving good relationships.
A negotiator who knows his Emotional Intelligence and improves it, will be developing his ability to recognize his feelings and those of others, knowing how to separate people from the problems to negotiate, motivating and managing relationships with other parties and with himself.
Through Emotional Intelligence the negotiator develops professionally and personally. For the good performance of negotiating work, technical, intellectual and personal knowledge and skills are required.
The latter (intellectual abilities) can be cognitive (found in the neocortex of the brain) and emotional (found in the limbic system). Both help the negotiator in her performance, achieving, with the cognitive ones, a greater capacity for analysis and synthesis of the subject to negotiate, originality for the creation of alternatives, linguistic ability to correctly develop the dialectical process of negotiation, conceptual thinking, ability.
On the other hand, emotional skills or attitudes help the negotiator in his performance, increasing his confidence in himself, improving his integrity (it is always said that a negotiator must be a person of integrity), his self-control (not giving in to pressure and allowing himself to be intimidated), perseverance to achieve their objectives in negotiations, increases the understanding of the parties understanding the position of the other, improves their skills to resolve conflicts of attitudes, and increases their communication skills.
The human being consists of a thinking brain (neocortex) and an emotional brain (limbic system), each with its corresponding right and left side forming four interconnected quadrants.
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Left side |
Right side |
|
|
Thinking Brain (Neocortex) |
Analytical
Mathematical Technical Logical Rational Practical |
Conceptual
Holistic Imaginative Integrative Spatial Intuitive |
|
Emotional brain (Limbic system) |
Organized
Detail-oriented Traditional Reliable Sequential |
Communicative
Emotional Sensitive Expressive Spiritual Achievement-oriented |
On the other hand, the dimensions of Emotional Intelligence are intrapersonal and interpersonal. The intrapersonal ones help the negotiator to have self-awareness (emotional awareness, self-awareness and self-confidence), to self-regulate (self-control, reliability, acting on conscience, flexibility and creativity), and also to motivate themselves (desire to achieve, commitment, initiative and optimism).
Interpersonal dimensions improve empathy (understanding of others, service orientation, harnessing diversity), and social skills (influence, communication, conflict management, facilitation of change, bonding, collaboration and cooperation and spirit of equipment).
Emotional competence is an acquired ability, based on Emotional Intelligence, which leads to outstanding job performance for all negotiators. Of all the emotional competencies, those that contribute to the high performance of a negotiator are: self-knowledge, stress management, flexibility, motivation to achieve, initiative, responsibility, understanding, diversity management, influence and leadership capacity.
Self-knowledge of the negotiator. Good self-knowledge (strengths and weaknesses) is a common quality of successful negotiators.
Negotiators who are aware of their strengths and weaknesses reflect after each negotiation and maintain a learning attitude towards new negotiations.
- Stress: Difficult negotiations, subjecting themselves to a lot of pressure or stress, constitute a risk to physical and mental health in the long term, but, in the course of the negotiation, it causes one of the parties to give in to the requests of the other.
The best thing is, without a doubt, to prevent excess stress through a good organization of the negotiated process; But if at any point in the negotiation we feel overwhelmed, blocked or pressured, we have to react in a temperate and correct way: emotionally intelligent negotiators succeed.
- Flexibility: Flexible negotiators adapt quickly to changes, reorganize their priorities when necessary, and are receptive to new proposals (collaborative negotiator). On the contrary, inflexible negotiators obstruct the processes in the negotiations, block the dialogue and have difficulties to impose what they propose (competitive negotiator).
- Motivation to achieve: The most results-oriented negotiators have a strong motivation, which induces them to face difficult negotiations with some confidence and take calculated risks. An unmotivated negotiator loses power and has a high percentage of chances of reaching an agreement where he loses much more than he gains.
- Initiative to seek solutions to the negotiation: Initiative negotiators are always ready to seize opportunities, and do not hesitate to skip procedures when the negotiation requires it. They are continually generating alternatives to reach an agreement. Lacking initiative forces us to react to unforeseen events by transmitting insecurity to the parties.
- Accountability to Agreements: Responsible negotiators are sincere, honor their commitments reflected in the agreement, act ethically and honestly, and are open to criticism and accept potential mistakes. On the contrary, the lack of integrity and responsibility would lead to the disapproval of the other party, creating conflicts of attitudes that make it impossible to reach a satisfactory agreement.
- Understanding of the parties: Negotiators listen carefully to the other party, and are receptive and sensitive to their needs, their points of view and the emotional signals they emit. On the contrary, the lack of this competence undermines the effectiveness of communication and of the negotiation itself. Diversity management: Negotiators gifted with this competence relate well to negotiators of different characteristics and know how to take advantage of the opportunities offered by differences. On the contrary, negotiators who do not know how to manage diversity miss valuable opportunities in order to obtain the desired results. InfluenceNegotiators are very persuasive and know how to use subtle strategies to connect emotionally with the other party. They express their points of view very effectively, in search of the best solution. In contrast, negotiators who are unable to connect emotionally with the other party have a difficult time gaining their trust. Leadership skills: Negotiators stimulate enthusiasm after the agreements reached, letting the other party understand that they have reached a great agreement. By contrast, negotiators without leadership skills are closer to failure than success.
A good negotiator is one who enjoys the negotiated process and always seeks to reach the best possible agreement. It is the so-called "state of flow" (Mihaly Crikszentmihalyi). Faced with negotiation situations, they feel comfortable, attracted, develop them effortlessly, they enter the negotiated process disconnecting from their entire environment, they do not care how long the negotiation lasts (they know how to handle it), they are comfortable and enjoy negotiate.
The difference between negotiators who succeed and those who fail often revolves around fundamental dimensions of Emotional Intelligence.
The development of Emotional Intelligence requires a profound neurological change, which involves weakening existing habits and replacing them with more appropriate ones. This helps you focus on what it means to be complete negotiators.
