Looking to negotiate effectively? It’s a question of personality…
Recent research highlights a surprising truth: personality plays a major role in successful negotiations.
When two people share similar traits—whether introverted, extroverted, or even “disagreeable”—they tend to reach agreements faster, experience smoother interactions, and walk away with better impressions.
In fact, nearly 49% of negotiation ability stems from personality.
But here’s the rub: most of us don’t have the luxury of working only with people who share our personalities—nor do we have the time to analyse everyone’s preferences in detail. That’s where a strategic focus on personality can give you the edge.
While we can’t always get to negotiate with similar personalities or choose who we negotiate with, we can adapt our approach to suit them. By leveraging personality insights, we can build trust, tailor our strategy, and turn negotiations into lasting, successful partnerships.
So today, this is what we want to focus on – how can personality insights help us unlock more of our negotiation potential by talking to others on their terms, in ways that resonate with their deepest motivations. Here’s a very quick run-down of how personality impacts our negotiation outcomes:
Get in touch to find out more about how you can use TALY profiling to give you the insights you need to build great teams - from recruitment onwards! Or Book a Demo today to see how easy it is to start using TALY in your business.
How does personality play a role in negotiations?
Have you ever wondered what happens when two introverts sit down to negotiate? Or how two extroverts hash out a deal? It turns out that personality isn’t just small talk—it can play a major role in how smoothly negotiations go.
Workplaces are a mix of people from many backgrounds, dumped in an artificial environment and expected to work well together. It becomes tougher when we need to negotiate outcomes that create win-win outcomes for everyone.
We’re often thrown into negotiations with a wide range of people—clients, teammates, business partners—with little time to dig into their personal profiles.
But this understanding matters. A Wharton Poll of business graduates highlighted some key points about negotiation tactics:
• 25% believed that understanding the other party better was essential.
• 32% felt that establishing and maintaining trust was essential.
These insights are powerful reminders that negotiation isn’t just about crunching numbers or hammering out contracts—it’s about connecting with people.
But how do you build that connection when you don’t have all the details about someone’s personality on hand?
Finding ways to build trust by aligning ourselves to others requires a deeper understanding of what motives and values our colleagues hold. To negotiate effectively, you need to connect with someone – and you can’t connect with someone if you don’t know them.
Your personality is playing a role in every situation – impacting on your motivations, how you connect with others, how you respond and your biases. Recognising this, and the impact it is having in negotiations, is a critical step to bridging the understanding gap.
When it comes to negotiating, some traits are impacting more than others.
The TALY Personality Profile brings together a unique combination of Five Factor Personality, Emotional Intelligence and Risk to build a holistic understanding. Within this, there are some key traits that really impact in the area of negotiations.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the main culprits…
Extroversion
Extroverts get their energy from connecting with others, with the world around them and with sharing their energy. In negotiating, this can help to make them sociable, assertive and excellent at building rapport—ideal for collaborative negotiations.
Watch out… their energy can be A LOT sometimes. And in a competitive negotiation, they can often give too much, sometimes oversharing or conceding information too quickly.
Agreeableness
Some people are just naturally warm, flexible and empathetic and love to find a way to make sure everyone is being looked after. These highly Agreeable people are great at fostering cooperation and trust, often leading to win-win solutions.
Watch out… in their desire to build consensus, they can often end up compromising too easily. This focus on accommodating colleagues and others can lead to giving away a bunch of value. And even when they feel like they are pushing back, they are people still being very accommodating!
Openness
Highly open people are creative and flexible and are great at brainstorming innovative solutions. They love to solve problems, to progress ideas and to keep things moving. In negotiations, this creative and problem-solving mindset is loved by clients – they are always customising every solution!
Watch out… Highly open people love to create – and even when the existing approach is working, they will still try to innovate. In negotiating, rather than pushing back and keeping customers aligned with current processes for efficiency, they may naturally lean to re-creating.
Emotionality
Some people feel a lot of fluctuation in their emotions, impacts by anxiety, mood and much more. These people are naturally emotionally sensitive and really feel what is going on
Watch out… this emotional sensitivity can make the fear of things not going right (and the consequences) too much to bear. The stress can become real, and the tendency to exit or the fear of rejection can be too much
Tips and Tricks to make negotiations better…
Of course, the best way to build understanding around the people you are negotiating with is to start with the best personality data (that’s where TALY comes in of course!)
But there are also some other techniques you can bring into the mix to help you build alignment and understanding across the negotiating table.
Leverage EI to Build Trust
Practice active listening, maintain calm body language, and ask open-ended questions that signal genuine curiosity – these can give vital clues on what they’re looking to get out of the negotiation.
Play to Personality Strengths
If your colleague is high in agreeableness, use try building some more rapport to foster a collaborative vibe before diving into the nitty gritty of the negotiation.
Adapt to the Other Side
Use personality insights to shape your style. With a conscientious colleague, bring details and plans. With extroverts, invest time in friendly banter and conversation first. This tailoring can prevent miscommunication.
Encourage Self-Awareness
Before entering negotiations, reflect on your own traits and patterns. Are you more cold and detached, and your colleague more warm and empathic? Try meet them on their level to make the negotiation run smoother and reduce fall-outs. Combining self-awareness to adapt to the other side will unlock more potential to land a great deal!
Focus on Long-Term Relationships
Even if a negotiation feels like a one-off, reputation and relational capital matter. Smart negotiators are thinking about the next negotiation, not just this one. By tailoring your style to meet your colleague’s needs you’ll be showing empathy, fairness, and integrity, all which will increase your future long-term success with that person.
If you don’t understand, you can’t connect
When it comes to building connection and rapport in negotiating – and to driving the outcome you’re looking for – the best first step is always to start with personality.
As mentioned, almost half of the outcome in negotiations are linked to personality, so taking a moment to think about your personality and how to build alignment with others will make sure you head off in the right direction!
The TALY approach to personality profiling brings together a unique mix of Five Factor and Emotional Intelligence profiling to help organisations, hiring managers and teams to make better decisions about recruitment and teams.
Get in touch to find out more… we love talking about this stuff! Or Book a Demo today to see how easy it is to start using TALY in your business.