Business Tips for Introverts under CRM

How well your business's negotiations
go depends on more than just the skills
of the person conducting the negotiation.

 New research suggests that the personality traits of the negotiators
 on both sides of the table – play a
key role.
A study recently published in the
Journal of Applied Psychology revealed
that negotiations work best when both
negotiators have matching personality
traits. This holds true even when both
sides are disagreeable.
Fadel Matta, one of the study's authors
and an assistant professor at the
University of Georgia, said normally
people think that, when it comes to
negotiations, being agreeable and
cooperative is a good thing and being
disagreeable and cold is a bad thing.
"But with negotiations we find that's not
necessarily true," Fadel said in a
statement . "The same thing goes for
someone who is extroverted. It’s not
always a good thing when you’re
entering negotiations."
Fadel said the research shows that the
key is having negotiators with matching
personality traits. [See Related Story:
Face It.
"If you’re a jerk and I’m a jerk, then it
might seem like we'll never get
anywhere in negotiations, but it's
actually more useful to put two similarly
minded people together," Matta said.
For the study, researchers surveyed
more than 200 individuals about their
personalities and then randomly
assigned them a role in a mock
negotiation between two companies.
The participants negotiated against
each other over issues related to human
resource management and
compensation. After an agreement was
reached, the researchers surveyed
participants about their perceptions of
the process and their partner.
The study's authors found that,
although someone's personality didn't
predict negotiating outcomes, the
combination of personalities of both
negotiators did lead to consistent
results.
Specifically, Matta said the negotiations
between participants with similar scores
on agreeableness and extroversion
tended to go more smoothly, finish
quicker, and leave both parties with
better impressions of the other than
negotiations between participants with
dissimilar personality scores.
Matta said the key takeaway is to not
just consider who is conducting the
negotiations on your behalf, but think
about the negotiator on the other side
and not always select negotiators who
are well-liked and agreeable.
"It’s the combination of the two people
that will determine how well the
negotiations proceed," Matta said.
The study's authors acknowledge that
matching personality traits is a
significantly tougher task when the
negotiations are taking place between
external parties.

it may be more challenging to predict
the personality of the potential
negotiating partner," the study'sauthors
wrote . "Thus, at least an understanding
of the personality traits (and chiefly, the
similarity or dissimilarity of traits) of
employees who engage in negotiating
for the organization may be a first step
in creating awareness and expectations
regarding future negotiation experiences and outcomes."