Training Guide

Winning over, negotiating

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Winning over, negotiating
Summary
● Presentation of the CFPJ Group 3
● Using the training support material 7
● Course sheet: objectives and programme 8
● Training sheets 10
• The theoretical context: engaging communication or the
psychology of engaging
• The winning over position
 Preparing yourself on the content
– Setting an objective
– Determining an angle
– Communicating as a strategist
– Convincing: facts, opinions, feelings
 Listening to the content and form
– Going after a "yes"
 Reformulation
 Questioning
 It’s all a matter of attitude: 6 instructions
• The effective negotiator’s check-list
● Paper for making notes 36

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Winning over, negotiating
The CFPJ Group
● The partner for information, media and communication
professionals
● CFJ: the training school for journalists
• As the original training school of the CFPJ Group, the Training
Centre for Journalists (CFJ) awards a diploma recognised by the
French State and by the French National Joint Commission for
Employment for Journalists (CPNEJ). An institution with an
international reputation and a member of the Conférence des
grandes écoles, CFJ has trained over 2 000 journalists with
responsibilities in all media. Thanks to its rigorous selection and its
solid and practical training methods, CFJ trains multidisciplinary
journalists in two years, with specialisations in print, radio and
television. Multimedia is taught permanently at CFJ and is part of
our basic culture.
• CFPJ Media: vocational training for journalists
• The Advanced Training Centre for Journalists (CPJ) is the centre for
vocational training and coaching in print, television, radio and
multimedia. A place where experience and the future outlook of
the profession is shared, CPJ welcomes 2 500 journalists for inter-
company training every year (over 150 training courses in our
catalogue) or for tailor-made in-company training.

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Winning over, negotiating
The CFPJ Group
● CFPJ COMPANIES GOVERNMENT LOCAL AUTHORITIES: training
in communication techniques
• 3 000 communication professionals from companies, government,
local authorities and associations come to CFPJ every year to be
trained in the best communication techniques and journalistic
know-how. A complete range of over 130 training courses to refine
your communication strategy, develop effective lobbying,
communicate in crisis situations, adopt best practice with the
press, convince through the written and spoken word, master web
communication, and assert your leadership… Essential techniques
today whether you’re a leader, an executive or manager. CFPJ also
develops your communcation skills for managerial relations.
Discover our total expertise in personalised media-training which
has already convinced numerous company directors, politicians
and eminent political figures.

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Winning over, negotiating
The CFPJ Group
● CFPJ Leadership: serving the performance of leaders
• CFPJ Leadership trains the leaders of large French and
international companies to improve their communication and
assert their leadership. Specific training methods, situational role
plays and individual training concentrated in just a few hours, a
limited number of participants, specialised contributors, dedicated
premises: all the ingredients of CFPJ Leadership training have been
brought together to respond to the requirements and amount of
time that leaders have available. Leaders therefore strengthen the
effectiveness of their message in all situations: general assemblies,
works councils, conventions, seminars, presentations,
negotiations, meetings…
● CFPJ LAB: the incubator of digital ideas
• CFPJ LAB is an incubator for ideas, a place to meet and discuss web
innovations. CFPJ LAB organises 7 or 8 free mornings every year,
led by recognised experts who bring both a technical eye and a
journalistic approach to the chosen subject.
• A few themes covered in 2009 : "Web fiction, web documentaries:
creativity serving the editorial?", "Digital intelligence and tracking,
the keys of effective intelligence on the web", "Hyperlocal
information seeking to conquer the web".

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Winning over, negotiating
The CFPJ Group
● CFPJ INTERNATIONAL: training foreign journalists
• CFPJ International has been dedicated to the initial and continuing
training of foreign journalists for over 40 years in Paris and around
the world. Around 2 700 students and journalists have taken
training on our premises (continuing training). CFPJ International
has also been running three French-speaking journalism courses
for the last 14 years in Egypt, Lebanon and Russia (initial training).
Nearly 700 professionals have graduated at Master’s level from
these courses of excellence.
•
● CFPJ EDITIONS: disseminating professional know-how
• CFPJ Editions offers journalists and communication professionals
practical reference manuals. Thanks to these books, journalists
and communication professionals can increase their know-how,
and better perform and understand their job.
• Recent publications include:
 "The communication of influence",
 "The journalistic angle",
 "Developing your professional mark",
 "Manual of typographical usage",
 "The written web".

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Winning over, negotiating
Using the training support material
● This material contains:
• The course objectives, the training method, the training
requirements, the profiles needed, ...
• The course programme.
• The training and practical content.
• Paper for making notes.
• For you to complete with practical work documents and
exercises, corrections to them, the corrections and
additional documentation provided by the trainer over the
course of the training and any notes you make.

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Winning over, negotiating
Objectives and Programme
● Making it a state of mind to win the other person over
● Objective
• Winning over both internally and externally. Becoming an
informed and attentive negotiator. Concluding lasting, beneficial
and confidence-building agreements. Developing a communication
style that wins over and supports your leadership.
● Course participants
• Operations managers, communication managers, HR managers,
marketing and sales managers, negotiators.
● Programme
• Preparing your negotiation
 The different types of negotiation.
 Identifying the stakes, the levers, the context of the negotiation,
detecting the decision-makers and integrating the notion of third-
party deciders.
 Building your arguments and anticipating your interlocutors’
arguments.

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Winning over, negotiating
Objectives and Programme
• Mastering the protocol of winning others over
 Connecting with the positive intention of your interlocutors.
 Assuming your objective of convincing.
 Evolving in listening and reformulation.
 Dealing with objections by moving from "yes but" to "what if".
 Going after a "yes" and points of agreement.
 Arguing at the right time and concluding in line with the other person.
• Making the logic of winning others over your own
 Verbal and non verbal language: adapting your communication to the
vocabulary and level of maturity of your interlocutors.
 Convincing without binding : "what can I change in me in order to
change the other person without asking him/her to change?"
• Managing negative behaviour and speech
 Getting out of power relationships: decoding power play and adapting
your behaviour to create a climate of trust.
 Dealing with objections with goodwill.
 Daring to say "no" and managing your stress.
 Setting up a strategy: using the common objective in a negotiation to
stay your course and differentiate between the emotional and the
rational.

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Training sheets
Winning over, negotiating

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Winning over, negotiating
The theoretical context: engaging communication or the psychology of
engagement

• How do you bring others to change their behaviour freely?

• How do you manage to change mentalities and behaviour?
• How can you influence others, in their convictions, their choices
and their acts, without having to use authority or even
persuasion?
• Authority and persuasion are not enough because they do not
result in a change in behaviour and habits.
•
● Decision and engagement
• The key: to obtain acts that are freely decided because, for there
to be a link between motivation, attitude and behaviour, there
needs to be decision. Once the decision to behave in a certain way
has been taken, it will somehow freeze the range of options
possible and lead the decision-maker to stick with his/her decision.
• In other words, when we have taken a decision, we are linked to it,
like prisoners of it. This is why the decisions we take or that we
manage to get taken for us, engage us.
 Bibliography :
– Reference book on the psychology of engagement :
» Petit Traité de Manipulation à I'usage des honnêtes
gens ("The little book of manipulation for well-
intended people") - Robert-Vincent Joule

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Winning over, negotiating
The theoretical context: engaging communication or the psychology of
engagement

● The principles of the psychology of engagement

• Definition of engagement
 Engagement corresponds, in a given situation, to the conditions in
which the performance of an act cannot be attributable to the person
who performed it.
• The effects of engagement
 On the cognitive level: engagement leads to a consolidation of
attitudes.
 On the behavioural level: engagement leads to a stabilisation of
behaviour and to the attainment of new behaviour of a similar nature.
• The quest to win others over
 When it is more effective to obtain acts that are freely agreed, the
quest to win the other person over becomes key to his/her
engagement.
 How to help the other person take his/her decision. How do you lead
him/her in a decision-making process?

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Winning over, negotiating
The theoretical context: engaging communication or the psychology of
engagement

● It is therefore more effective to obtain acts that are freely

consented (concept of freely consented submission) than to try
to persuade or impose by authority.
● The 4 technical principles that enable you to obtain without
imposing
• Foot in the door technique
• Tag technique
• Touching technique
• "But you’re free to" technique

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Winning over, negotiating
The theoretical context: engaging communication or the psychology of
engagement

● Focus on techniques that enable you to impose

• 1. Foot in the door
 Principle: obtaining a little before demanding a lot
(the preliminary demand can be explicit or implicit)
• 2. The tag technique
 Principle: optimising the foot in the door by integrating "a tag" into
the preparatory act that increases the person’s status (eg: "I was lucky
to fall on someone good like you ")
• 3. Touching technique
 Principle: touching the person from whom you’re asking something
• 4. "But you’re free to" technique
 Principle: appealing to the feeling of freedom enables you to bring
people to do what they would not have done themselves.

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: preparing on the substance

● Setting an objective
• Is my message of interest to my interlocutor?
 Am I speaking for him or for me?
 Complete : "my objective is to convince you that … "
• What is the priority idea?
 Getting to the point
• Is my interlocutor receptive or reluctant?
 Choosing the good communication strategy
• How will I see that my objective has been reached?
In order to make sure that my objective is realistic and achievable

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: preparing on the substance

● Determining an angle
• The angle enables you to
 Present complex information clearly
 Highlight a particular theme
 Present things in the interest of your interlocutor
• Defining the angle
 The angle is defined from
– an objective
– the concerns and interests of your interlocutor

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: preparing on the substance

● Communicating as a strategist
• If your interlocutors are primarily receptive
 Get straight to the essential message without trying to argue unduly:
keeping things brief increases the impact of your words
 Tip: say the essential in less than 3 minutes
 The goal: gaining time and impact
• If your interlocutors are primarily reluctant
 Introduce the subjet
 Create an exchange with your interlocutors so they can express their
resistance, refusal or disagreement
 Listen to the different points of view
 Argue
 Sales people know that arguments carry more weight when they
respond to an objection
 The goal: to convince

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: preparing on the substance

● Convincing: facts, opinions, feelings

• Facts
 Put forward irrefutable facts to create a common base for reflection
and strengthen loyalty
• Opinions
 Take on his choices, his prejudice, his recommendations
• Emotions
 Strike a chord to strengthen empathy, encourage memorisation, invite
a move to action
• Example of argumentation from the commercial field
 Fact : "Frances sold 20 % more products than the rest of the team last
month. I discovered that she’d developed an original and effective way
of arguing.
 Opinion. If this way of arguing had been shared, she would have
enabled everyone to sell more.
 Emotion. I regret for both our sakes that this way of arguing was not
shared earlier; if it had been, the team would definitely have attained
110% of the objective, with a good bonus on top…
 Conclusion. I therefore propose that Frances presents her way of
arguing to us and responds to your questions."

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

● Going after a "yes"

• Highlighting points of agreement
 Example : "On this point, we agree, don’t we ?" Response: "Yes"
• Asking for validation of his reformulation
 Example : "You’re telling me that you don’t like the second solution, is
that right ?" Response: "Yes"
• Putting forward pre-conclusions
 Example : "So, if I offer you more blue and less red, with the same
conditions as the green, you’re ready to sign, is that right ?" Response:
"Yes"

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

● Reformulation
• Reformulation consists of repeating what your interlocutor has
just said, but in other terms – often more concisely and explicitly.
• On no account is it about interpreting what has just been said by
the other person. It is not about mimicking or imitating the other
person.
• Reformulation has a double objective
 making sure that I’ve understood the other person properly,
 showing the other person that I’m interested in him and his project
• Reformulation must be expertly dosed in order to attain your
objective and avoid falling into the trap of wasting time or the
parrot effect.

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

● Reformulation is a key element in the relationship. It

encourages listening, engages the other person to deepen his
reflection, clears up misunderstandings, shows respect and
increases trust.
• Reformulation-reflection
 It generally follows an important sentence in the conversation.
 Reformulation-reflection refers to the other person’s thought as a
statement. It shows the attentiveness of the person who is listening
and his effort to understand.
 It’s feedback, an information-check, which enables the two
interlocutors to establish whether they have understood each other or
not.
 Example :
– B : "if I’ve understood correctly… in your view… you mean… in
other words…"

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

• Reformulation-clarification
 Reformulation-clarification enables you to clarify what is confused or
underlying in the other person’s words. The interpretation must be
right.
 Example :
– A : "You must offer something extra in order for us to reach an
agreement; at the same time, it’s on the quality of the project
that we will make the decision; the important thing for us is to
work in partnership"
– B : "In fact, what you’re saying is that your choice will
especially be made on the quality of our proposal, and that if
we offer something extra you will see it as a desire on our part
to enter a partnership."

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

• Inverted reformulation
 Inverted reformulation leads the other person to change his point of
view, to re-organise his thinking, to reflect on the consequences of the
ideas expressed.
 It sets out to reverse the construction of the words that were said in
order to update what has not been said, although this was embodied
in his words.
 Example
– A : "I’m the only person in the team who doesn’t know how to
make myself understood by customers"
– B : "What you’re telling me is that you think all the others in
the team make themselves better understood than you."
– This reformulation leads the other person to "review" his
problem, to rectify what he is saying and to become clearer in
what he says.

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

● Questions
• Closed questions...
 Call for an answer with yes or no
 Must be precise for a right answer
 "Did you sleep well?"
Serve to validate, check, confirm

• Alternative questions or multiple choice...

 Impose a choice of answers
 Give information on the statistics
 Set a precise framework
 "Do you want to go to the cinema, to the swimming pool or stay
here?"
– make the negotiation advance while leaving the interlocutor
free to choose.
• Open questions...
 Call for a wide choice of answers:
 When? How? What? Who? How many? Where? What for? Why?
 Can be motivated by a prerequisite
 Require qualities of active listening from the questioner
 "Could you tell me about your professional choices?"
– enable the debate to be opened if it is blocked
• A major art in listening, questioning helps you not to speak too
much, to be well informed, to accompany your interlocutor in his
thinking, to refocus according to the objectives, to clarify and to
check. You need to be patient and curious for this, not to let
judgment or disregard show through, but rather empathy and
openness.

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Winning over, negotiating
The winning over position: listening

● Question of attitude: 6 instructions for use

Attitudes to On condition
Adapted
display that you…
Listening with empathy

Questioning, …have time and are

UNDERSTANDING reformulating and available
getting to the root
of the problem

Refocusing a
negotiation
DECISION …plan another meeting
If lacking time

Opening the
negotiation …take account of the
ENQUIRY other person’s
If your interlocutor is concern
very closed

Making the negotiation

advance …take account of the
other person’s
INTERPRETATION If your interlocutor is references and
already advanced point of view
in his talk

Sending a sign that …do not minimise the

SUPPORT you’re listening problem

JUDGMENT Never! On no condition

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Preparing your interventions

• It is necessary to:
 Be yourself, convinced of your words.
 Anticipate the objections and prepare answers to the questions.
 List the possible points of agreement and disagreement.
 Train yourself for contradiction, to speak in a sensitive situation.
 Before an important deadline, it can be useful to train with people you
trust who play the opponents.
 → Forcing yourself to prepare enables you to feel "ready", to be
mobilised, focused, prepared and calmly determined.

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Capitalising on the points of agreement

• Highlight what is getting close.
• Spend time on sharing points of agreement.
• Take advantage of the points of agreement to mark out the points
of disagreement. Example: "we agree on the objective and simply
don’t agree on how to achieve it".
• → "We agree, so let’s move on to the next point … ". Sometimes
interlocutors are not convinced just because more time has been
spent on the points of disagreement than on the points of
agreement…

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Being explicit on points of disagreement

• Allow your interlocutors to express their disagreement.
• State the points of disagreement yourself that seem to remain
unsaid.
• Be precise about what exactly these disagreements are focused on
so that you avoid them getting out of proportion.
• → In a negotiating situation, the manager’s role consists of being
explicit about the disagreement or having it made explicit, not
necessarily commenting on it. A manager is perfectly able to take
note of a disagreement. The manager is not necessarily trying to
be convincing on the content, but in the way in which he plays his
role.

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Give preference to the inclusive logic of "AND" over the

exclusvie logic of "OR"
• Try and bring closer, combine and collect the different opinions.
• Set each of the points of view in a precise context. Example: two
seemingly opposed ideas can be fitted in two different phases of
the same project.

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Letting go on the substance

• Being convinced is a state specific to each person. A person can’t
want to convince absolutely.
• The best way to achieve it is paradoxically to admit that the other
person might not be able to be convinced.
• When faced with someone who is undecided and who has already
heard the arguments, the negotiator’s role consists less of trying
to convince than of:
• Stating the fact explicitly that the interlocutor is not convinced.
• Asking why the interlocutor is not convinced, so as to understand
properly.
• Accepting the reasons for his disagreement.
• Asking him what could make him change his mind.

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Organising the discussion

• Give a framework, agree on the rules and having them respected,
follow the points of the agenda.
• Make sure that each person plays his role. As in a football team,
we don’t expect the same thing from the striker and the
goalkeeper … State explicitly what you are expecting from each
person.

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● "Meta-communicating"
• Many disagreements come from a different interpretation of the
words used.
● The negotiator’s role consists of
• Encouraging each person to state clearly what he wants.
• Proposing common definitions of the words used.
• By doing this, we can hear reflections in a negotiation such as: "in
fact we agree… " ; "if I understand correctly, we’ve been debating
for 5 minutes although we are talking about the same thing … "

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Convincing your team

• It is rare to convince a team by having convinced each of its
members. It’s enough for the majority of the team to be convinced
to make the minority follow.
● The manager must be careful to
• Listen to this minority so that it doesn’t become a blocking
minority.
• Encourage a constructive debate between those who are
convinced and those who are undecided.
• The manager is sometimes less well placed than some of
his colleagues to convince those who are undecided.

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Winning over, negotiating

The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● Being convincing
• This is the result of a series of factors:
 Accompanying your words with gestures, getting physically involved in
the communication.
 Speaking in a lively way.
 Structuring your messages with method.
 Listening to your colleagues.
 Playing your role of negotiator: organising, defining the framework,
encouraging discussion, etc.
 Persevering throughout: if the negotiator doesn’t convince the first
time, he can convince the second, or even the third time.

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The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● The questions to ask

• Do I prepare what I say enough?
• Do I train myself regularly in debating and convincing?
• Do I state the points of agreement and disagreement explicitly?
• Do I encourage meta-communication?
• Do I let go when the other person is not convinced?
• Do I encourage debates between colleagues who are undecided
and those who are convinced?
• Do I show perseverance and keep "trying again" throughout?

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The winning over position: the effective negotiator’s check-list

● In conclusion
• Contrary to popular belief, convincing is less a question of
"charisma" or of "the gift of the gab" than the result of discussions
with your colleagues.
• These discussions require involvement, courage and method.
• Starting with method can help you have more confidence in
yourself.
• The involvement and courage will follow.
• Now it’s up to you to master this advice, make it your own and
adapt it to your different occasions to communicate.

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