Negotiation strategies workshop

I spent the last two days in a negotiations strategies workshop at work. A company was brought in to train the seven Education Advisors and Account Managers.

... "WIN-WIN negotiation, reasoned negotiation and adult learning principles. Training is carried out with the help of our exclusive interactive computer tools, and using simulations with professionals recreating the stress-filled reality of difficult transactions.

We spent yesterday learning what to do and why.

A couple weeks ago, we each had to provide them with four scenarios we wanted to work on in the workshop. Yesterday afternoon we each did two of our scenarios. There were four "actors" giving us a hard time to make us use what we'd learned.

Today we did our other two scenarios with the actors pushing us again ... but we were videoed. Needless to say, that added an extra level of stress.

It turns out that I'm an Expressive Driver ... I like to talk and explain the steps to take. What I need to work on are:

• Silence - not giving in the the urge to talk to fill in the silence because whoever I'm talking with isn't answering right away
  
• Using monosyllabic words - answering "yes" or "no" and shutting up, rather than explaining something yet again