What do you need from other people when you negotiate?
Explore the interpersonal needs and relational dynamics that influence how you engage, respond and connect at the negotiation table.
A focused deep dive into one important part of your broader Elite Negotiator Index™.
Synthetic Profile
What does your Interpersonal Needs Profile reveal?
Your interpersonal needs map
A radar across six dimensions — expressed and wanted inclusion, control and connection — shows how you approach the relational side of negotiation.
Your three needs
Your report identifies your primary need among inclusion, control and connection — the relational driver that shapes your engagement.
Expressed vs wanted orientation
Your report shows whether you tend to express each need outward or seek it from others.
Your strongest and weakest dimensions
Your report identifies your most and least developed interpersonal tendencies.
Your interpersonal archetype
Your report describes the relational pattern that characterizes your negotiation style.
Your development plan
Your report provides a development plan focused on your primary interpersonal need.
What you need from the relationship can shape what happens at the table.
Interpersonal needs can influence how people engage, respond, connect, exercise control or react to relational dynamics. Greater awareness of these patterns can support more deliberate engagement.
Your Interpersonal Needs Report
Interpersonal Needs Profile
Use this report as a practical guide to how you tend to negotiate in this specific area. Start with your overall pattern, then look at the scores and behaviours behind it. Pay particular attention to where your strengths may become less useful under pressure and to the development actions you can test in real negotiations.
There are no 'good' or 'bad' profiles. The value comes from understanding your natural tendencies, where they help you and where greater choice could improve your effectiveness.
This specialist assessment is part of the Elite Negotiator Index™. It is a developmental self-report tool designed to support reflection and professional development in negotiation.
Your results describe patterns in the responses you provided. They are not a clinical assessment, a measure of personal worth, or a ranking against other negotiators.
Your Profile at a Glance
Your primary interpersonal need is Connection — you invest in genuine personal relationships with the people you negotiate with. You initiate connection more than you seek it, which means you set the relational tone rather than waiting for the counterpart to establish it. Your Belonging and Influence needs are moderate and balanced, giving you flexibility in how you engage with groups and structure.
Dimension scores range from 24 to 32 out of 40. Need scores (Initiate + Seek) range from 54 to 61 out of 80. Connection is your primary need.
Connection — the need for genuine personal relationship — drives your negotiation behaviour more than Belonging or Influence. You invest in rapport because it matters to you, not just because it is strategic.
Across all three needs, you tend to initiate rather than wait. You set the relational tone, include others, and establish connection rather than waiting for the counterpart to do so. This makes you proactive in shaping the interpersonal climate.
You are less likely to initiate control of the process or the agenda. This lets the counterpart set the structure, which can work well with collaborative counterparts but leaves you vulnerable to those who use process control strategically.
You build connection naturally but let the counterpart set the process more often than you should. Practice initiating one element of process control in your next negotiation — proposing the agenda, suggesting the order of issues, or framing the conversation — without abandoning the collaborative tone that makes your connections productive.
Your Interpersonal Needs Signature™
Your three interpersonal needs — what you initiate and what you seek.
| Need | Score | Band |
|---|---|---|
| Belonging | 54 / 80 | High |
| Influence | 54 / 80 | High |
| Connection | 61 / 80 | High |
How Your Pattern Works
You proactively build personal rapport with the counterpart. You invest in understanding them as a person, not just as a negotiating party, and you set a collaborative relational tone from the start.
Counterparts feel that you see them as a person, not just a position. This makes them more willing to share information, invest in the relationship, and look for joint gains.
You value personal rapport from the counterpart, but you do not need it before you can engage on substance. You initiate connection and hope it is reciprocated, but you can negotiate effectively without it.
You are not dependent on the counterpart's warmth. You can negotiate well with counterparts who are purely transactional, even though you prefer those who invest in the relationship.
Your Connection Initiate and Connection Seek dimensions work together to make you a proactive relationship builder who is not dependent on reciprocation. You initiate rapport because it matters to you, and you seek it because you value it — but you can function without it.
The risk is that your strength in connection can become a substitute for process influence. You build rapport instead of setting the agenda, which works with collaborative counterparts but leaves you vulnerable to those who use process control strategically.
They made it personal in a good way. I felt they saw me as a person, not just a position. That made me want to invest in the relationship and look for solutions that worked for both of us.
Sometimes I wanted them to take more control of the process. They built rapport well but let me set the agenda more than I expected.
Watch-Outs and Risks
Your signature is proactive connection with moderate belonging and influence needs. The watch-out is that your strength in connection can substitute for process influence. You build rapport instead of setting the agenda, which works with collaborative counterparts but leaves you vulnerable to those who use process control strategically.
| Dimension | Possible Over-Application |
|---|---|
| Belonging (Initiated) | Over-including people who do not need or want inclusion, which can slow decisions or dilute accountability. |
| Belonging (Sought) | Relying on group acceptance before acting, which can make you slow or indecisive when solo action is needed. |
| Influence (Initiated) | Over-controlling the process or the agenda, which can crowd out the counterpart and damage trust. |
| Influence (Sought) | Deferring to authority or structure to avoid responsibility for the outcome. |
| Connection (Initiated) | Over-connecting on a personal level, which can blur professional boundaries or create obligations. |
| Connection (Sought) | Needing personal rapport before engaging on substance, which can stall transactional negotiations. |
Before applying an interpersonal tactic, ask:
If not, reconsider the tactic.
Your Development Plan
In your next negotiation, propose the agenda or the order of issues before the counterpart does. This is a single, concrete act of process influence that does not require you to change your collaborative style.
Notice when you are building rapport as a substitute for guiding the process. Both matter, but they are different skills. Practice doing both — connecting and guiding — in the same conversation.
Not every negotiation requires deep personal rapport. Practice calibrating your connection investment to the relationship — more for long-term partners, less for one-off transactions.
Before your next negotiation, write down one element of process control you will initiate — proposing the agenda, suggesting the order of issues, or framing the opening. Keep it simple and concrete.
Initiate that element of process early, before the counterpart sets the structure. Notice whether it changes the dynamic — and whether you can do it without abandoning your collaborative tone.
Ask yourself: did initiating process control change the negotiation? Did it feel natural or forced? If it felt forced, what would make it feel more natural next time?
The best negotiators do not choose between connection and process control. They do both — building genuine rapport while guiding the structure of the conversation. Connection without guidance leaves the process to the counterpart.
This profile reflects your self-reported interpersonal needs in negotiation. It describes the needs that tend to be most active in your negotiation behaviour, not a measure of your social skill or likability. Higher needs are not better or worse — they describe what you tend to seek and initiate. The objective is awareness of your needs and the range to calibrate them to the situation.
Synthetic sample report — all scores and narratives are illustrative and do not represent any real respondent.
What Your Report Includes
- 1Your Interpersonal Needs Map — radar across six dimensions
- 2Your Three Needs — inclusion, control and connection, with your primary need
- 3Expressed vs Wanted Orientation — whether you express or seek each need
- 4Strongest & Weakest Dimensions — your most and least developed tendencies
- 5Dimension-by-Dimension Feedback — score and band for each dimension
- 6Development Plan — focused on your primary need
Why take this if you already have the Elite Negotiator Index™?
Integrated Breadth
Elite Negotiator Index™
The Elite Negotiator Index™ shows how your interpersonal needs fit into your wider negotiation profile across multiple dimensions and patterns.
Specialist Depth
Interpersonal Needs
This assessment goes deeper into your interpersonal needs and provides a dedicated report focused specifically on relational dynamics.
The two reports complement one another. Your Elite Negotiator Index™ report does not replace the deeper Interpersonal Needs report.
Already answered? Don't answer it again.
If you have already completed relevant questions through the Elite Negotiator Index™, those answers automatically populate this Specialist Assessment. If you complete the Interpersonal Needs Profile first, those same responses automatically contribute to your Elite Negotiator Index™.
You never need to answer the same assessment question twice.
One deep dive. Part of the whole picture.
Interpersonal Needs
Elite Negotiator Index™
5 Other Specialist Assessments
Complete one specialist assessment or several. Every relevant response contributes to the connected Elite Negotiator Index™ ecosystem.
Designed for development.
The Interpersonal Needs Profile is designed to deepen self-awareness and support professional development. It is not a hiring or employee-performance test.
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See the interpersonal needs that shape your negotiation behaviour — and where greater awareness may help.
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