School of Business

Negotiation Masterclass

The Negotiation Masterclass is an experiential training workshop which has been designed to give you actionable insights into your own negotiation process as well as guidance and practice on best practices that will help you to strategise, plan and execute more successful commercial negotiations.

The workshop involves face to face teaching and will take place at the University of Leicester School of Business. Typically cohorts are formed of commercial, sales and procurement managers and practitioners into small groups of between 8-12 participants.

What is experiential training?

Experiential training is an engaged learning process whereby attendees ‘learn by doing’ and through guided reflection on the experience, applying their learning in the workshop and beyond. For the Negotiation Masterclass you’ll be given the opportunity to apply your knowledge and ideas to real-world case study scenarios and play an active role throughout the workshop.

How will it benefit me?

The Negotiation Masterclass provides you with a series of usable strategies, tools and tactics that will help you to achieve more in your negotiations. These include:

  • The ‘More’ mindset; an understanding that the purpose of negotiations is to improve deals
  • Understanding of core negotiation strategies and objective criteria for selecting appropriate strategy
  • Simple, repeatable planning processes to ensure that you plan your negotiations adequately and execute your plans
  • Tools to prepare, execute and track complex negotiations
  • An understanding of the impact of common cognitive biases on your performance and your counterparties, and strategies to manage this.

Masterclass programme

Day One: you will be introduced to a framework offering a variety of approaches to negotiation situations ranging from auctions to complex, value creating negotiation and objective criteria for selecting the appropriate approach. We will discuss the optimal mindset for business negotiation and tackle the mindset factors that inhibit negotiators’ performance, and how to manage them. The learning will be supported by three cases of increasing complexity.

Day Two: you will be introduced to a three step process for optimising your outcomes from non-complex negotiations and practice applying the tools and tactics in two cases, using video feedback to highlight areas of opportunity for improvement. At the end of the day, you will be introduced to more complex negotiation and the differences in approach required for these scenarios.

Day Three: you will work through a highly complex case in teams, learning how to identify and manage differences in cost and value across multiple variables and create value for yourselves through managed trading.

You will be shown simple, Microsoft Office-based templates for planning, managing and recording complex negotiation to improve transparency, consistency and communications in your negotiation processes. In the final part of the day, you will be led through a facilitated 360 feedback process in which you will be encouraged to plan for your post-workshop development.

Tutor details

John Viner-Smith, Reciprocal Consulting Ltd

John is an experienced commercial director with a background in Management Consulting and Procurement. He has worked with clients around the world to improve their commercial effectiveness and negotiation outcomes.

As one of the co-founders of Amplius Partners, John supports clients in Fast Moving Consumer Goods companies in improving their commercial outcomes consistently and sustainably and, as founder of Reciprocal Consulting Ltd, John partners with institutes of Higher and Further Education to deliver Executive Programmes in Negotiation Effectiveness.

John has worked for several blue-chip consultancies' including The Gap Partnership, AT Kearney, Deloitte, KPMG and Mercer.

Testimonials

“The days were very intense and gave me a full insight in how to choose your strategy when negotiating.”

“John is very knowledgeable and made me experience the pitfalls and successes of negotiating. I have learned a tremendous amount of skills and the context of when to use them.”

“When you are faced with a complex negotiation you are better off with John on your team.”

Dates

Our next Negotiation Masterclass will run from Tuesday 19 - Thursday 21 March 2024.

Future Negotiation Masterclasses will run twice a year and upon request as part of an in-company customised future leaders, line managers or board directors programme.

Cost

  • For our initial March 2024 cohort the cost is £250 per delegate. 
  • Subsequent cohorts will be charged at £500 per delegate.

Next steps

 

 

 

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