1. Middle management competence measurement & development

MANAGER DEVELOPMENT ACCORDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE INDUSTRY

Measure the competencies of your colleagues and make informed decisions about their development!

Manufacturing/production middle managers have a key role in keeping staff, in the manufacturing process and in implementing the instructions of the top management.

If these tasks cannot or can hardly be performed, it results in significant damage to the whole company.

Why are manufacturing/production middle managers in a difficult situation?

• They are frequently appointed from among the direct workers; therefore, they find it easier to identify themselves with the employees than with the management.
• They frequently do not receive management training and regular development.
• They can often perform the actual management tasks in a small part of their working time.
• Due to the typically strongly hierarchic organisational structure, performance without critical thinking is the safest way to operate for them.

If safe production is important for you too, you have seen the above-mentioned problems and you need help, contact us to be informed about our training in details!

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2. Enforcement of interests during price negotiations

Price negotiations are a special form of business negotiations and the company’s profitability significantly depends on them. Therefore, successfully conducting these is a serious stress factor and can be mentally very burdensome:

The stakes are often overwhelming; this influences judgement, makes us impatient and makes us compromise. We view our own situation as darker and our partner’s as more favourable. This restricts thinking and the feeling of “single chance” can appear, leading to anxiety.

You always have to switch over. During marketing, product development and acquisition negotiations, we always keep the partner’s interests in mind, however, during price negotiations, we suddenly have to enforce our own needs. The previously well-functioning ways of thinking do not work; what is more, they make the enforcement of our interests all the more difficult.

Unexpected situations lead to a loss of control and the physiological processes of stress begin in the brain. This does not favour thinking and consideration, but invokes ancient, automatic reflexes (attack or escape). Although these might help us in quickly escaping from the tough situation, but these are not the ones needed in the course of successful negotiations.

The 3 pillars of successful price negotiations


• Impacting the balance of power
• Keeping the necessary arguments and information under control
• Keeping control, avoiding traps

Price negotiation is a power game whose results depend on who is strengthened and who is weakened by the power balance perceived by the parties. The perceived balance is very rarely realistic and is impacted by the parties’ behaviour. The person who is better prepared wins already before the price negotiations have begun. During the training, the participants learn the six factors impacting power balance (choice, weight, time, information, effect, punishment) and learn to influence these along the thoughts of the writer of “Human games”:

“A loser doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses but talks about what he’ll do if he wins and a winner doesn’t talk about what he’ll do if he wins but knows what he’ll do if he loses.” - Eric Berne

This method helps to decrease the pressure on the negotiator since they see their own and their partner’s situation in a much more realistic light. This also helps them to “switch over” as their own needs are much more in the foreground.

Keeping the necessary arguments and information under control

In order to avoid unexpected situations and keep control, in price negotiations, it is a question of life and death to have all necessary arguments and information at our disposal in the necessary quantity and quality. In order for this to happen, the negotiator has to keep a lot of information in mind, which is particularly difficult owing to the stress and pressure resulting from the nature of the negotiations.

Professionals, e.g. pilots use checklists in order to handle large amounts of information. It is worth copying. What makes our work all the more difficult is that every price negotiation differs from the others: there is no scheme. Therefore, we give you a method which enables the participants to compile their own checklist for each negotiation. This fact already strengthens their own position since their partner will probably not have such a list…

Keeping control, avoiding traps

The fact that we can control the dialogue and do not let ourselves be startled out of a negotiation process favourable to us is also important in order to keep control. The following ideas assist this process and if we follow these, we will always remain initiators.

• Begin in a well-defendable manner!
• Verify yourself against your partner.
• Make the client commit themselves.
• Others cannot shatter your arguments and you can avoid traps (salami, Columbo, etc.)
• Always request something in return.
• Decrease the partner’s hunger; everything has a “price”.
• Show mercy.
• Leave a door open leading to the next business.

The training takes 2 days. Participants acquire the theory through realistic, exciting situations, and, therefore, can apply this newly learned material as skills by the end of the course.

Would you like to win in business negotiations? Sign up for our training!

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