Negotiation is a word that strikes fear deep into my heart. When confronted with a potential argument, I usually can’t string a sentence together, let alone establish rapport, set objectives, and determine the negotiating environment. Any negotiations usually end with me throwing a book at the opposing party. Needless to say I don’t usually end up with a positive outcome.

This is why I jumped at the chance of signing up to a CareerStart workshop on Effective Negotiation. The Lower Sixth drifted into the Hudson Centre, knowing that the next two hours would be useful but not really expecting them to be fun. Little did we know, by 5 o’clock that afternoon, everything would be different and we would never look at each other in the same way again.

Our speaker, Susan Croft, was a high-flying figure of the negotiating world and regaled us with tales from the business battlefield. We learnt what kind of negotiators we were – whether we would rather win than over-compromise to save the relationship. We admitted our common negotiating mistakes, the most common one being ‘losing emotional control’. We learnt how and when to say ‘no’, and the all-important difference between men and women in negotiating. (Not that the two are linked in any way…)

After an hour of hardcore negotiating skills, we were split into two teams to put our newly learnt skills into practice. It was time to play the infamous ‘Red-Blue’ team negotiating game. The objective of the game was not to ‘win’, but for both teams to end up with a positive score. So naturally, we all wanted to win. A new side to my fellow students emerged as everyone unleashed their inner negotiating beast. People fainted and cried, people walked away, people threatened to jump out of the windows. Attempts were made at eavesdropping, bribery and recruiting spies. Shouts of ‘Red!’ and ‘Blue!’ filled the tense air - anyone walking past the Hudson Centre at 4.30 last Thursday probably would have mistaken us for the mad interior designers annual convention.

The pressure was on as I went to meet the other team’s leader for our ‘compulsory meeting’ between rounds. As we discussed the options, I tried to analyse her body language. Was she blinking too often to be telling the truth? Was that handshake unusually sturdy, or was she actually trying to crush my fingers? We both assured each other that from now on we would co-operate. But as we all know, trustworthiness cannot always be assumed…

Although my team ended up with at least 60 points more than the opposing team, we both lost the game for ignoring the fact that the actual point was to co-operate. The moral of the story was that ‘Co-operation can be more beneficial that competition’. But although we had failed to realise the objective of the game, I felt that I had really learnt something. I had gone from a tactless, inarticulate book-thrower, to a master of the art of negotiating! Skills like these are not only important in any career, but can come in useful in everyday situations, and I would recommend this workshop to anyone.

By Rachel Little and Olivia Nixon