Are negotiating skills related to neurology and brain development? Yes they are, in fact the brain determines ability to negotiate vs. bargain.
How your brain is wired determines your skill and capacity to negotiate and plan effectively a negotiation. It requires patience, empathy and planning skills. For example people with low emotional intelligence competencies of impulse control, empathy may be good in sales but not good or great at negotiating. Why is that?
Sales is a canned presentation usually. Even regular sales reps have difficulty with SPIN selling due lack of patience. The best sales reps used explicit questions not implicit questions and go the sale more than those who did not. Negotiation and planning a negotiation is 100 times more difficult than SPIN selling.
Being self-centered and wanting to win at all costs is not negotiating. That is not even effective selling. By understanding the shadow psyche we can choose who can negotiate a deal. Whether that is for large stake business deals, negotiating a union agreement or a peace treaty between two countries in conflict. In my 30 years in business, I have taught the Harvard Negotiation Project and applied it to the business context. I have also trained sales teams across the country on SPIN Selling.
With pharmaceuticals the negotiation with government can take as long as 3-5 years but there are ways of cutting that down to 8 months if people understood the process for success. Patience is required and so is understanding the side of the buyer, opposition. All they cared about was getting the deal so I worked weekends to get the job done knowing my bosses would simply not approve of it if they knew how much thought and planning was required.
It is for this reason many leaders refuse to negotiate and use force to get their results. This is why we have wars, combat and conflict. The brain is wired around the reptilian core to fight, flight or freeze. It has to be rewired to the higher executive functions of the brain to be able to negotiate. With a society that now has an attention span that is less than a goldfish, it is liking finding a needle in a hay stack hiring an effective negotiator.
Negotiation skills: Can they be taught if the wiring is not there?
Negotiation skills can be taught in a structured way but if the neurological wiring is not there the person will revert back to "bargaining" due to the shadow psyche and impatience. Teaching negotiation skills requires an assessment of the neuronal capacity to think and pause as a negotiator would. Many people are incapable and it is not their fault because the brain was not developed to concede, compromise and cooperate. The brain of a bargainer is wired around "winning at all costs" and that oftentimes means destroying and exterminating the opposing party.
By teaching this to children and youth before 25 years of age while the brain is developing we could develop a more evolved society.
What is happening in the world today is haggling and bargaining not negotiating. In order to develop a more evolved species beyond wars and conflict we must develop the brains of our youth to be skilled, emotionally intelligent negotiators and leaders.
Negotiation and the ability to resolve conflicts is contingent on brain development. When neutrons have never fired together for cooperation and peace, there is no resolution except through force and violence.
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