Achieving Cultural Shift
The Negotiating Challenge
Our client in the Energy Industry faced a complex and hostile series of work place negotiations.
- Two current EBA agreements to terminate in 3 months
- Previous round of EBA agreements 3 years earlier took 8 months and resulted in both sides reverting to litigation
- Long history of adversarial relations between Management and Union. Anticipated hostility and high probability of strike action, stop work, production disruption & further deterioration of management / worker relationships
- Local management restricted in negotiating with workers/unions due to restrictions imposed by overseas global management
- Complexity due to change of federal government and anticipated changes to Industrial Relations legislation & work place reforms.
How ENS Helped
ENS was engaged to focus on achieving a ‘Cultural Shift’ to help change the negotiating ‘Mind Set’ on both sides.
- Conducted negotiation skills training for both the Management Team and Union Negotiation Team (representing workers)
- After training, individual coaching was provided to both sides in using the ENS Systematic Preparation method
- An ENS consultant was available ‘On Call’ when difficulties were encountered during formal or informal negotiations.
Outcomes
Negotiations were concluded quickly, at low cost and with dramatically improved working relationships.
- Achieved outcomes satisfactory to both sides before expiry of the agreements
- Overall costs to the company were approximately 350% less than previous EBA negotiations
- The relationship between management and workers improved, with significantly reduced levels of animosity and mistrust, leading to more productive attitudes and ‘mind sets’ for future negotiations of all kinds
- Team work and relationships improved within both teams and greater respect earned from constituent members i.e. workforce in general
- Other client sites within Australia now interested in following the ENS process.
I would rate the course amongst the most highly dynamic I have attended. Operational training creates efficiencies in the delivery of our products and services with a minor effect on the bottom-line (10% - 20%). Negotiation training focused right in on where there is the potential to alter the bottom-line dramatically - up to 100%. I would urge anyone with a financial or human resource management responsibility to register your interest in future courses.
Once again I am able to put the excellent training I received in Chicago to good use. This time it was not our friends L-P but another customer that ended up telling me almost everything I needed to know to close the deal. It's amazing what you can glean by asking a few questions and then just listen. Many thanks once again for the opportunity to learn about your techniques, they will remain valuable tools in my kit bag.
Your workshop taught me how to think and act as a negotiator and not simply to accept supposed tried and tested theories or concepts.
The Professional Negotiator program has provided our management team with the techniques to optimise outcomes, irrespective of how simple or complex the negotiation environment.
I was able to keep a very important negotiation on track yesterday by focusing on building up the common ground. I was completely satisfied with the outcome as were all the other parties. There were times when we got into a bit of a stand-off about differences. When I refocused our attention to the common ground, the differences seemed much smaller. We were able to address the differences by building common future ground (agreed procedures) instead of different present ground.
By the way - this was the negotiation I planned during the course. When the face-to-face part started, it was much easier for me to guide the process toward my ideal content outcome.”
Thank you so much for your inspirational training program. I can say without hesitation that the ENS negotiator course was the best I have had the privilege to attend. Negotiation plays a vital role in my job and the tools that have been provided by ENS have definitely enhanced my negotiation skills. I have had several opportunities to use my new found knowledge and it has resulted in better than expected outcomes. I would thoroughly recommend the ENS Professional Negotiation and Influencing course to professionals wanting to enhance their negotiation skills and achieve improved outcomes.
I have been to the Harvard and Stanford negotiation courses and ENS outshines the others.
Excellent experience; 2 part workshop was a great idea, a good balance of theory and practice, professional trainer with amazing and relevant experience.
It’s the best newsletter I receive. It’s the only one I always read from top to bottom: print out, mark and read again. It’s great to receive a newsletter with short, well prepared, high quality content.
I have completed a Bachelors Degree and a MBA which gives you the theoretics of the business world. Your course ‘enables’ a business professional to negotiate and influence using the knowledge they have acquired through structured studies or practical experience. Your course is a must for any business professional who wants to navigate success in a fast paced, ego driven world. Ideally, I would like to see this type of course included in MBA programs offered by Universities.
ENS is the best process driven program available today, and I have looked at a lot of them. Based on the benefits derived it is the best value for money available.
I’ve now been on four negotiation courses and ENS is superior to the others in the following ways:
-
Clear distinction between process and content, and the importance of process
-
ENS manual is the most ‘content-rich’ resource on process that I have ever seen – the rest have ended up in the trash. This guide will remain in the collection on my desk for ready reference
-
ENS client-oriented presentation made the workshop relevant to a very tough audience – our senior and executive management.
