Anxiety is the enemy of business negotiations - how to deal with it?

A feeling of anxiety very often accompanies the process of preparing for the business negotiations and often adversely affect their course and outcome. In order to alleviate their concerns, negotiators make decisions that can torpedo their efforts - for example, presenting too low initial offers, reacting too quickly to counter-offers or making sudden concessions that result in a lower achievable outcome.
How to deal with feelings of anxiety and how to make them an ally in the negotiation process? Below you will find three of the most effective methods.

1. Good preparation for business negotiations

Feeling anxious immediately before or during a negotiation meeting undeniably has a negative impact on performance. However, feeling anxious before a business negotiation, thanks to a phenomenon called pessimisation, can have a positive effect on the course of the negotiation. Anticipating potential difficulties increases motivation. It makes negotiators or members of negotiation teams pay much more attention to preparing the whole process properly and developing a BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). With BATNA, we know what our options are even if we end negotiations without agreement.

2. Frequent negotiation practice

Building confidence through practice is one of the best ways to deal with anxiety. Numerous studies show that anxiety causes negotiators to temporarily reduce their confidence in their own abilities. At the same time, we need to realise that negotiation is a process that generates a certain level of conflict and discomfort, and we need to get used to it. How to achieve this? The best method is through regular negotiation training, whereby the negative effects caused by feelings of anxiety can be eliminated.

3. Focusing on opportunities

Negotiators extremely often focus on likely threats and negative outcomes business negotiations. They spend long hours analysing possible mistakes they may make in the negotiation process and analysing potential risks. This attitude causes the feeling of anxiety to increase. And as a result, the likelihood of failure also increases.

Focusing on opportunities allows you to effectively eliminate anxiety. Thinking about opportunities facilitates the preparation of an effective negotiation strategy and the selection of the best techniques. The result is a greater likelihood of success. And that, after all, is what it is all about!

At Eveneum we run effective negotiation training, individual coaching and we assist in negotiations. We pay particular attention to:

• preparation for business negotiations Eveneum method and
• effective negotiation training - e.g. Negotiation Sparring Partner
• supporting negotiators in real negotiations through a programme of Negotiating Shadow