Persuasion vs. Negotiation

Top-notch negotiation and persuasion techniques are essential to becoming a better leader.

In this video, Columbia Business School professor Bob Bontempo explains why negotiation and persuasion are two complementary skill sets, but with a different set of behaviors.

Transcript:

It’s not obvious, but I’ve come to believe that negotiation and persuasion are opposite psychological processes.

Negotiation is the mutual exchange of resources for mutual benefit.
Persuasion is the skill of changing what somebody believes about the value of a resource or an outcome.

And therefore they require a different set of behaviors:

Negotiation is fast; persuasion is very slow.
Negotiation is expensive; persuasion is free.

Negotiation can be explicit; you can say to somebody: “Hey look we have to work this out, what do you need for me to get what you want?”

Persuasion has to be subtle. Nobody likes (for) you to walk into a meeting and say: “Hi I’m here to change what you believe about X, Y, and Z.”

So they’re extremely different, they’re complimentary, but they’re both based on specific, teachable behaviors.

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