The Role of Feedback in Improving Negotiation Styles

You Can’t Learn to Swim by Reading a Book—So Why Would Negotiation Be Any Different? We tend to overrate our own competence in negotiation—especially in SMARTnership Negotiation. At the start of every workshop, we ask participants to anonymously rate themselves as negotiators on a scale from 1 to 10. Most rank themselves between 6 and 8. After two days of intensive training, simulations, and real-time feedback, we ask the same question again. Rate yourself at the beginning of the workshop, based on the knowledge you acquired. This time, their ratings drop to 2 to 4—not because they became worse, but because they became more aware of what great negotiation truly requires. That’s why, at SMARTnership, we don’t just teach negotiation theory—we make sure our students practice it. Every session includes a carefully designed simulation where participants apply the principles of value creation in real-time. And here’s what makes it even more powerful: they are video recorded. This allows them to see themselves in action, analyze their performance, and receive targeted feedback to refine their approach. You need to train, not just do it. Without guided practice, negotiators risk repeating the same mistakes over and over again. A coach provides the necessary feedback and corrections to improve—just like in any high-performance discipline. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. That’s why practice, feedback, and self-reflection are crucial to mastering negotiation—not just reading about it. #Negotiation #SMARTnership #Training #SelfAwareness #PracticeMatters #ContinuousImprovement World Commerce & Contracting Tine Anneberg Darryl Legault Juan Manuel García P. Gražvydas Jukna Jason Myrowitz Francis Goh, FSIArb, FCIArb Francisco Cosme Moïse NOUBISSI BMI Executive Institute AAU Executive - MBA and HD at Aalborg University

A former boss taught me negotiation in a completely unorthodox way. Years later, I used their teachings to raise money, attract talent, and sign customers. The story: When I first joined the Commercial Legal team at Medallia, I thought I'd master negotiation through studying playbooks and listening to recorded calls. I was wrong. Sitting passively listening to a call recording, doesn't actually stick. Your brain treats it like any other meeting: information goes in, but it doesn't translate to real-world performance when you're under pressure. What actually worked was getting uncomfortable. A former boss knew this, and taught us negotiation this way. 3-4 times per week, they’d gather our entire team would crowd into a conference room for live mock negotiation sessions. We'd take turns on the hot seat, running through real scenarios while everyone else watched. Then, we'd dive straight into feedback. It was intense, sometimes awkward, but incredibly effective. While the feedback itself was great, it was the actual “doing” that had the most impact. When you're actively negotiating, even in a practice setting, your brain processes the experience differently. You feel the pressure, stumble through objections, and discover your own patterns / blind spots. That's when real learning happens. And for the record: This principle extends far beyond negotiation. Whether you're teaching contract review, client management, or any complex skill, theory only gets you so far. Create opportunities for your team to practice in low-stakes environments before they're in high-stakes situations. The highest-impact learning happens when people get to fail safely, recover quickly, and try again.

Feedback is critical to improvement. But what if the person already knows where they messed up? Worse, what if they're quietly beating themselves up, and we're unknowingly piling on instead of helping them get better? We can easily avoid this. Just ask them. "Did that go as you expected?" Maybe you had different expectations. -> Let's realign on what the right target is. Maybe they know where they missed. -> You can swing your chair around and partner on the solution. The faster we move from Critic to Coach, the better. Remember: Feedback is getting them to improve, not getting things off your chest. Enjoy this? Share it with your network and follow me Dave Kline for more.