Negotiation Training: What happens after the trainer leaves?

Professional development is amazing. It helps us expand horizons and deepen our expertise. I’m a big fan of individuals pursuing it, and of companies making it a cornerstone of their business development strategies.

But, condensed into 1-2 days (or even hours…) there’s a lot of theory in these courses, but how much really sticks? Most skills develop best when we’re active, we do it, we practice – we succeed and we fail.

So what happens when the course ends and the trainer goes home? How do you and your team cement all of that great knowledge and transform it into a solid skill set?

The Perfect Pairing

A course provides the theory and teaching component, but the doing comes from a complementary workshop offering in partnership with the training. After a day or two of class, students bring in their real-life example of a negotiation they’re working on and the whole class, led by a facilitator– helps them brainstorm approaches, role play scenarios and really dig into the key elements of that negotiation. Authors and writers do this with manuscripts and screen plays – the whole idea is to play with concepts, get comfortable in all of the angles and stop feeling stuck inside your own hamster wheel of reflection.

Once the workshop has ended, the facilitator may leave – but the students have now created their own support system to return to during their negotiation or future ones. As this community grows, so will the success of the participants – what better way to lock in the benefit of that initial training?

The Follow-Up

Returning to your job after a training program can be particularly challenging. You don’t have co-workers to workshop with and now that you’re in the trenches trying to work through your negotiation problems, you’re not quite sure if you’re on the right track. And this is perfectly ok – it’s impossible to expect that after a training course you’ll be 100% confident (or even capable) to execute on all of that new knowledge and those exciting techniques. It takes time – and a helping hand.

Working with a coach on your next negotiations will help you build trust in your instincts and negotiation skills – they’ll be there to re-affirm the great strategies you’re developing, or provide some re-direction if you’ve missed the mark. A coach can be someone like me –a fresh set of eyes from outside your organization, or it can be a mentor or more experienced employee in the workplace – don’t be shy to ask for help from someone whose negotiation style or skills you admire!

As you move through various discussions and build confidence in your negotiation skills you won’t need the coach anymore. I like to say that if I’m doing my job as a consultant and coach correctly, one day my clients won’t need me at all…and that’s the best success I can hope for!

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When it comes to investing in your professional development, negotiation courses and seminars are a great way to ignite the process but how do you take your new knowledge and turn it into a skill? How do you take that skill and turn it into a competitive advantage? Guided, real life practice.

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Is there a training program you’ve loved? What made it so effective? Is coaching something that you’ve tried before? Have a question about a negotiation? Let me know in the comments or send a note to devon@devonsmiley.com.