Negotiating and Influencing

Negotiation and Influencing

Negotiation and influencing are life skills which most of us use every day. Healthcare managers rely on these skills and yet most of us learn them on the job. NHS Elect supports its members in a range of ways to maximise their advantage in negotiation and influencing:

• Training staff to be better negotiators and more effective influencers
• Facilitating complex negotiations; e.g. agreeing new commissioning mechanisms or establishing memoranda of agreement between potential partners
• Developing negotiation strategies where member organisations want to be satisfied that they understand all the avenues open to them and the order in which those avenues should be explored

• Improving personal influence. For more on this topic please visit our “personal development” page

Our approach works on three levels:

1. The basics: the people in the negotiation: What kind of negotiator are you? How can you make sense of other approaches to negotiation that you will encounter? What would it take to vary your style? How could you get the other party to change their style?

2. How does negotiation really work and how can you establish control over the process? Defining types of negotiation in terms of complexity, maturity and the significance of the relationships involved. Understanding and utilising concepts like the “zone of possible agreement” and anchoring.

3. Complex and strategic negotiations. Using “Principled Negotiation” to achieve win-win solutions through techniques like interest mapping and the development of a “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement”.     

How can we help you?

We provide:

• Central training courses
• On site seminars
• Project support
• Facilitation and meeting design
• Example memoranda of agreement
• Interest maps

To discuss this topic further please contact Jim Timpson at jim@nhselect.org.uk