Action Officer's Guide to Developing a Negotiation Skill Set

A shortfall has been discovered in the deliberate development of Airmen. New Pentagon Action Officer's (AOs) quickly find themselves in need of a negotiations skill set as they are thrust into the "beltway" environment, where one building contains 20,000+ staff officers all trying to handle their hot issues. This is especially vital in an era of dwindling defense budgets. Although the USAF has begun to recognize the need for this training and (SAF/GCD and A1D) recently created the Air Force Negotiations Center of Excellence and the "Institutional Competencies List." These two efforts are a big leap forward, but will require time to fully integrate into the AF professional development system. This time gap until full incorporation leaves a generation of military officers without some requisite negotiation skills. To fill this critical skills void, a primer was developed. It presents the critical, basic steps to aid new AOs in fulfilling their duties. First, it must be clear that negotiation is not a 4 letter word. Negotiations are, in fact, the path to agreement on an issue where all parties involved can choose to either say "no," or choose to develop a mutually beneficial resolution. Developing the negotiating skill set requires the AO to determine who they are. Negotiating predispositions may be revealed through assessment tools, such as the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument or with other tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Once personal preferences are established, the next step is learning to communicate to influence. This ability involves both effective listening and speaking skills which includes the ability to frame and re-frame a discussion as well as detect and respond to non-verbal communications. The final step to developing the tools required for a negotiation skill set is to understand the military conflict handling mode. This is a unique combination of assertiveness and cooperativeness.