Free Practice Questions for CIPS L4M5 Exam

According to the book 'Influencing: Skills and techniques for business success' by Fiona Dent and Mike Brent, there are two major influencing styles. Push tends to be directive. It tells, and is clear and resolute, but needs to be employed in situations where firmness is required because of difficulties that exist or weakness is evident. Pull is more participatory and collaborative. It seeks to incorporate everyone’s perspective. It can appear wishy-washy if not skilfully employed. Thatapproach should be followed which is most likely to secure commitment and not mere compliance.

The two divisions can be further divided into four style categories: directive; persuasive reasoning; collaborative – team oriented, people oriented to inspire them with a vision. The directive style relies on your expertise and reputation being respected by others, and where there really does seem to be one answer. It is "I" driven whereas persuasive reasoning is more "we" and issue driven. Directive styles can make the user appear as "a bull in a china shop"; persuasive reasoning can be portrayed as tough guy.

Collaborative influencing takes the "we" element further and seeks to mobilise everyone’s ideas in a journey of discovery. It may have the flavour of "I’m your best friend", which may not go down too well. Visioning style is concerned to stir people’s emotions in support of achieving an objective. This last one has been used by demagogues to stir people’s hearts and minds for evil purposes as well as good.

A useful table offers the benefits, problems, words and body language associated with each style along with advice on when to use and when to avoid each. Cases and exercises illustrate these styles.

Empathy comes in for extended treatment with the definition of "standing in the other's shoes". This does not necessarily happen just intuitively, and therefore before a specific influencing effort there should be an intense effort to think about the other person or persons and to sense what it might feel like to be them – their hopes, fears, concerns, what turns them on, what turns them off, where are they coming from.

Lina is asking a probing question to gather more detailed information on the actions GBG is taking to address quality issues. Probing questions are intended to delve deeper into a topic and elicit specific details, making them suitable for understanding underlying issues, as per CIPS’s negotiation question types.

Junior team members can play supportive roles in negotiations, such as taking notes and observing the proceedings. These roles allow them to learn and contribute without leading the negotiation. Serving as an expert or chair would typically require more experience and authority.

Distributive negotiation carries several risks beyond justlosing out on value. These includedamaging supplier relationships,eroding trust, andreaching an impasse, where neither party can agree. This could result in delayed projects, increased costs, or supplier withdrawal.

“Distributive negotiation can lead to a breakdown in communication, impasses, and long-term relationship damage. The win-lose mindset can prevent collaborative problem-solving.”

(L4M5 Commercial Negotiation, 2nd edition, Section 3.5 - Risks of Distributive Approaches)

A supply curve will slope upward from left to right showing more supply at higher prices, as illustrated in the graph below:

A movement along the supply curve will be brought about by a change in price, but a shift of the whole curve will be caused by a determinant other than price:

- The physical feasibility and time and energy required to produce the products

- Technology and innovation

- The objectives of the producers and their future expectations

- Prices of other goods and services

- Government's policies

LO 2, AC 2.2

Integrative negotiation focuses on collaboration, transparency, and the pursuit of shared benefits. It emphasizes mutual problem-solving and long-term value creation rather than short-term wins.

Integrative negotiation is a negotiation strategy in which the involved parties work together to find a solution that satisfies the needs and concerns of each. This process often involves group brainstorming and creative thinking for individuals to suggest different ideas that benefit both parties.

Compromising is often common in integrative negotiation, and both sides may need to give up certain needs to reach a solution. Honesty can also promote successful integrative negotiation because it can lead to a comprehensive understanding of the issue and what each party needs to be satisfied with the result.

Commercial negotiation objectives should be driven by the business needs of the organisation. Organisations are made up of different stakeholder groups, some of whom may have different, even conflicting objectives. From a negotiation perspective, stakeholders can be defined as persons or groups that have interest (or stake) in the outcome of the negotiation you are leading or participating in.

CIPS distinguishes between 3 sets of stakeholders:

- Internal stakeholders

- Connected stakeholders

- External stakeholders

End-users are examples of internal stakeholders. They are the people who will benefit from the purchase of a product or service. However, their interest may conflict with other groups, i.e. thebudget controllers whose objective is minimising the expense. In negotiation perspective, procurement should involve different groups of stakeholder.

LO 1, AC 1.1

In the scenario, to exchange cost cutting, the purchasing manager promises to 'reward' supplier shorter payment period. This is an example of reward power, which results from one person's ability to

compensate or reward another for compliance.

The reward does not need to be money, but could be introduction to other buyers in the group, positive references, agreement to trial new product, quicker payment or indeed any other variable that the buyer

knows is attractive and valued by the supplier.