Negotiating in Life, Negotiating Tips, Business Negotiation August 5, 2011

Creativity is an important negotiation skill

While many people think of creativity as the ability to paint or be musical, in reality, creativity is defined as the ability to generate and recognize new ideas that can be used to solve problems.

According to an abstract from the California State University at Northridge:

In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives.

You can see how the ability to create new solutions can impact your negotiation ability. A creative mind may find a great deal that will create a win-win scenario for both parties.

Harvard Business Schoolrecently reported on a study that found that negotiators do benefit from creativity training:

Negotiators who had received creativity training performed better than did those who had received more traditional training. The results suggest that by exposing negotiators to creativity training and supporting their bright ideas, organizations may see improvements to their bottom lines.

There are many ways to boost your creativity. Among the “20 Tips from from Psychology for Boosting Creativity" are actively looking for inspiration and creating a flow chart of ideas. If you are looking for more ways to books your creativity, read the article “Boost Creativity: 7 Unusual Psychological Techniques.”

Sometimes when you have been dealing with a problem for a long time, you can’t see alternative solutions. The best thing in this case is to take a break. You could quite literally walk away from the problem, as the act of walking can have a meditative effect, which will help you to see things differently.

What do you do when you are presented with a difficult problem requiring a creative solution?