Personality and negotiation

Nothing has a bigger impact on a negotiation or the interaction between people than the personalities of those individuals, although the impact of this is huge on the negotiation outcome, most negotiators don’t invest enough time, if any, preparing for this aspect of the process, in addition most negotiators don’t even understand their natural personality traits and how this effects their negotiation style. You don’t need to be a scholar of psychology to learn the basics of personality traits or invest a tone of time learning, today you can either tap into a number of online apps that do the job or you can start with the “DISC personality assessment”, the Disc is a behavior self-assessment tool originally based on the 1928 DISC emotional and behavioral theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston.

• Red (Leaders, dominant, organized)

• Blue (Compliance, Accurate, Cautious)

• Yellow (calm, interactive, relationship based, fun)

• Green (supportive, stable, analytical)

Your role is to understand the business impact of the different personality types (your team and theirs) on the negotiation, and adjust the strategies, tactics and communications accordingly.