Seeking Your Thoughts: How Can I Improve My Negotiation Skills Presentation?

Based on a lot of positive feedback from my peers/seniors on my previous post, I am attaching a PowerPoint presentation on Negotiation skills. Please let me know what you think and what you believe I should add or delete to enhance it. I am looking forward to constructive feedback rather than just people downloading it without any comments.

Dear Ms. Richa Joshi,

My feedback is as follows:

a) You have not divided the slides into various sections/parts.

b) About 90% of the slides are loaded with a lot of information. If this PowerPoint is to be followed, then you will end up reading the slides.

c) Slides 32 to 34 explain the concept of BATNA. The opposite of BATNA is WATNA. However, the WATNA concept is not explained.

d) Slide No. 57 advises to "ramp up listening skills." Along with listening skills, negotiators should also demonstrate questioning skills.

e) The first sentence of slide No. 11 says, "Should not be a doubting Thomas." Who is this Thomas?

f) Slides 15 to 17 explain the types of negotiations. Sales negotiations are not included. Is there a specific reason for their exclusion?

g) The most important fact is that no negotiator should sit for negotiations with assumptions. Negotiators should ask questions to themselves to check these assumptions. Nowhere in the presentation have you mentioned the word "assumption."

This was my constructive criticism. The objective was not to offend you or show how bad you are. You have done a good job. You can still do better!

Dinesh V Divekar

Hi Dinesh,

Thank you very much for your feedback, and no, you did not offend me—one learns from one's mistakes. I shall change the presentation based on your feedback.

Sales negotiation is NOT a part of this presentation since it is for negotiations for managers who don't deal with vendors or external clients but mostly with internal clients (i.e., their own employees).

Thank you once again for your valuable input.

Richa Joshi :)

Richa, this is an awesome presentation, and you have our whole-hearted appreciation for this effort. We need to understand the difference between bargain and negotiation. Negotiation should always start with a clear goal of what you want and what your alternate measures should be to satisfy your goal. Additionally, the negotiator must have a strong grasp of the basics of the subject to achieve their goal.

Often, negotiation turns into a bargain without the above considerations.

Thanks,
Ram

Hi Richa,

Great work on that PowerPoint on Negotiation skills. I would like to clarify to Mr. Divekar that the phrase on slide 11 about 'doubting Thomas' comes from the Bible, where Christ appears to his disciples after his resurrection but his disciple Thomas was not present. When the other disciples tell Thomas that Christ had come and visited them, he was skeptical and doubtful. He makes a statement that unless he sees for himself and touches Christ’s wounds, he would not believe. Later, Christ does appear to the disciples when Thomas is present, and he (Christ) invites Thomas to feel his wounds. Ever since, the phrase "doubting Thomas" is used to refer to those who seek proof all the time or those who do not believe what is told to them at face value.

Regards,
Jacob

Personality Development, Corporate Training, Communication Skills – website: [http://www.actspot.com](http://www.actspot.com)
Academy for Creative Training - Blog: [http://www.poweract.blogspot.com](http://www.poweract.blogspot.com)

Dear Richa,

Thank you for your excellent presentation!

I am surprised concerning your findings on gender differences (sheet thirty-eighth). Could we have a cultural issue here? From my experience, in Western Europe, for issues with some importance (on average), ladies will get a WIN-WIN result sooner than men (on average), who are more often going for the 'competition' style. Do you have a scientific reference for your statement?

Personally, I would make a bit more distinction between what we are negotiating (Content), how our relationship is (Relationship: mutual trust or distrust, experience from the past...), and if we agree on the way we will proceed during the negotiation (Procedure, e.g., what we are going to tackle first, or how we determine the 'value' of the different options/solutions).

Clarifying this (especially Content and Relationship) could make the application of the Thomas Kilmann model (using Competition, Collaboration... sheets 49 - 53) more insightful.

Again, no criticism because you did an excellent job sharing this with us!

Geert Haentjens

Dear Richa,

Please accept my congratulations for your work. Many people have given many constructive suggestions, and you can add those suggestions to your PPT. I also request you to add some negotiation techniques, like the "float a balloon" technique, which helps in breaking an impasse when both parties are stuck in hard negotiations on some points. Since negotiation is a two-person zero-sum game, you can also talk about maxmin and minimax positions.

Wishing you a happy new year and best regards,

K. Viswanathan
Management Consultant & Visiting Professor

I enjoyed your presentation. I especially liked the parts that stressed "interest-based" ideas. I would include more about the definition of an interest vs. a position. You might also include a comparison of "traditional" negotiation vs. an interest-based approach. Nice job...

This is an excellent presentation! Thanks so much for sharing with us.

A lot of good feedback has already been given. So here are my two cents:

First of all, I am not sure what you will use this presentation for. How long will the session be? 1/2 day? Perhaps next time you could provide more details (e.g.: objectives you want to achieve, the audience, the delivery method, etc.) as it would help in terms of feedback (e.g length, info to incorporate or skip, interactive or not, etc.).

I agree with Dinesh V Divekar's great feedback. I would, however, not add WATNA, which is not exactly the opposite of BATNA. There is some controversy around it so it may not bring as much to the presentation (again in my own opinion of course).

I agree with Geert re: gender differences. I am not sure this slide adds too much value compared to all the great info you already provide. Removing it would not negatively impact your presentation at all.

I suggest you add some of your sources as references for people who would like to do some more reading and also in order to cite your sources (e.g.: the book "Getting to Yes" from Fisher & Ury).

Hope this helps.

QUESTION for K. Viswanathan: I would like to hear more from about the "Float a Balloon technique" when you come to an impasse. It seems interesting. What is it? How does it work? Thank you in advance.

Hi everyone,

I apologize if I offended some by making a foolish mistake of not adding the references and acknowledging the material I used to make the ppt. I have added them now.

@ Simhan, You haven't touched a raw nerve; it was an honest mistake, and thus I apologize to all who thought of me as a 'plagiarizer' :(

Adding to each reference/acknowledgement mentioned by Simhan, most of the information is from Fisher & Uri's book "Getting to Yes."

WRT Geerts' question -- I am sorry I haven't any scientific data that correlates to the slide beyond the fact that it is my observation based simply on the cultural differences between the Western nations vis-a-vis India - where the mindset of win-win seems natural to the male if there is a female negotiator. That slide was simply based on my personal observations, and I was personally in two minds about putting it in as part of the ppt -- but again...the ppt was just an outline, with too much info and all I was trying was to get some input from the members here as to how far I was correct/incorrect, etc. I thank you for noticing that slide, but to be on the safer side (since I don't have a backup to prove my hypothesis, I have since deleted that slide).

Once again, a request to understand the 'float a balloon technique' please.

I do thank all of you for such an overwhelming response; I personally take it NOT as criticism but feedback, which will only improve my work.

Thank you all.

Richa Joshi

Dear Richa, EXCELLENT WORK. Don't get bogged down by comments from certain kinds of people. They only know how to CRIB, CRITICIZE, and CHALLENGE without showcasing any WORK themselves. They are the ones who have never posted any presentation in public and only CLAIM to be a TRAINER. A trainer who doesn't know that an effective TRAINER is the one who shares KNOWLEDGE.