“CPD” can be reduced to a tick-box exercise: attend a webinar, download a slide deck, file a certificate, move on. Yet, professional competence does not improve through exposure alone. It improves when people practise... repeatedly... under realistic conditions, with feedback that shapes what they do next.

That is the philosophy behind CPD at The Negotiation Club (TNC): structured development built on live negotiation practice, observation, feedback, and reflection.

• But what does CPD means in practical terms,
• Why does it matter to individuals and employers, and...
• What evidence supports a practice-led approach... like the one at The Negotiation Club?

Why Practice-Based Development Matters (for Individuals and Employers)

Most professional regulators and professional bodies frame CPD as the mechanism by which people keep skills and knowledge current so they can practise effectively and safely. For example, the HCPC describes CPD as how registrants continue to learn and develop so they can practise safely and effectively.   

Similarly, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) requires solicitors and registered lawyers to maintain competence and keep knowledge and skills up to date.   

The important point is that CPD is not “nice to have”. In many professions it is integral to professional standards. Even where it is not formally regulated, it is increasingly used by employers as evidence that people are not standing still.

Why negotiation is a CPD-worthy skill

Negotiation sits at an unusual intersection:

• It is a commercial skill (value, cost, risk, terms)

• It is a relationship skill (trust, rapport, communication)

• It is a judgement skill (trade-offs, timing, decision-making)

• It is a pressure skill (emotion, rejection, conflict, discomfort)

It therefore matches what many CPD frameworks consider legitimate development: not only technical knowledge, but also non-technical capabilities such as communication, leadership, and decision-making. ICAEW, for example, explicitly notes that CPD is not restricted to technical domains and that non-technical skills such as communication and leadership are also valid professional development.   

For individuals, this is liberating: you do not need to justify negotiation CPD as “soft”. In many roles, it is core!

The TNC approach: CPD through deliberate practice

The Negotiation Club’s CPD is structured around a simple truth: skills are built through repetition plus feedback, not through awareness alone.

This aligns with evidence from broader professional learning research. For example, literature on deliberate practice in simulated skill environments highlights the importance of specific feedback that supports reflection and action plans, and notes that simulation can support competency development and transfer of skills into real settings.   

It also aligns with public-sector CPD thinking which emphasises learning as more than formal training—placing significant weight on practical work and learning through relationships, not only classroom inputs.   

That is exactly why our sessions are designed to be active:

• short, time-boxed negotiations

• observer roles (so participants build judgement, not just performance)

• structured debrief and reflection

• progressive challenge (single-variable → multi-variable → team negotiation)

A certificate matters. But the behaviour change comes from the practice loop.

The value to individuals: confidence you can use on Monday morning

The most common failure mode in negotiation training is this: people leave with knowledge and enthusiasm, but revert to old habits under pressure.

Practice-based CPD mitigates that by giving people repeated opportunities to rehearse the moments that matter—especially the uncomfortable ones: saying no, holding silence, testing assumptions, handling rejection, making proposals, trading variables.

From a professional development perspective, CPD is often described in terms of career impact: keeping skills current, building confidence, preparing for greater responsibility, and improving decision-making. That framing is consistent with how the CIPD describes the benefits of CPD to the individual—keeping skills and knowledge up to date, boosting confidence, and supporting better decisions.   

At TNC, we translate those outcomes into tangible behavioural shifts, such as:

• asking clearer questions without rambling

• summarising accurately under pressure

• making proposals with better structure and fewer concessions

• noticing emotional rejection early and responding professionally

• trading variables rather than arguing positions

These are not abstract “insights”; they are rehearsed behaviours.

The value to employers: reduced risk, better outcomes, stronger capability

For employers, negotiation is often a hidden capability gap. People negotiate regularly—internally and externally—but rarely receive structured skills practice. That creates cost and risk:

• value leakage through unnecessary concessions

• avoidable disputes due to poor communication

• slow deals because people cannot structure discussions

• inconsistent supplier/customer outcomes across teams

• weak stakeholder management internally

CPD addresses this when it is treated as a capability system rather than a one-off event. Regulators and professional bodies emphasise the need to maintain competence; employers benefit when that maintenance is visible and evidence-based.   

There is also a workforce sustainability argument. A systematic review on continuing job education / professional development explored its relationship to labour market outcomes and retention dynamics (with the overall picture nuanced by context).    The practical implication for employers is straightforward: professional development is not merely “training spend”—it is part of how organisations keep their workforce capable, confident, and less likely to stagnate.

And when training is targeted (rather than generic), evidence reviews in corporate education frequently associate it with improved performance and organisational outcomes.   

TNC’s particular advantage for employers is that our CPD is not passive. It creates observable performance signals:

• who prepares well

• who listens vs performs

• who trades variables effectively

• who escalates emotion

• who can debrief constructively as an observer

That makes negotiation CPD useful not only for development, but also for management insight.

“Recognised CPD” and what evidence actually looks like

A common question is: “Will our staff be able to use this CPD for professional requirements?”

In many CPD regimes, what matters is not a logo on a certificate; it is whether the learning is:

1. relevant to the role, and

2. recorded with evidence.

For example, ICAEW’s guidance on CPD stresses relevance to your role and the need to demonstrate how the activity meets learning needs, and it provides direction on “verifiable” CPD, including the need for objective, corroborated evidence of completion.   

This is why TNC provides a CPD Framework and supports evidence-based participation (attendance, session structure, learning outcomes, and, where appropriate, records of reflective learning). It also explains why regular practice matters: it generates repeated evidence of development rather than a single point-in-time attendance certificate.

Why regular practice is the distinguishing factor

If you only do CPD once a year, you are likely maintaining knowledge, not building skill.

Negotiation is a performance domain. Skills decay without use, and habits dominate in moments of pressure. Regular practice creates what professionals actually need:

• faster recall of techniques under stress

• better judgement about when to use them

• improved self-awareness (especially through observation)

• behavioural consistency rather than “occasional brilliance”

In other words: CPD becomes capability, not paperwork.

That is why The Negotiation Club is deliberately structured like a gym model: the aim is not to “finish” negotiation training; it is to train negotiation as a professional skill.

Next steps

If you are an individual, CPD with TNC provides a structured way to develop negotiation skills you can actually apply—while building evidence of professional development.

If you are an employer, CPD with TNC creates measurable capability improvement, better outcomes, and clearer visibility of how your team behaves in real negotiations.

To understand how we calculate CPD hours, what counts as CPD activity, and what our certificates evidence, please refer to our CPD Framework and Policy page.

About the Author Philip Brown

Phil Brown is the founder of The Negotiation Club, a training organisation built on the belief that negotiation is a skill developed through practice, not theory. With 30 years of procurement and commercial experience, Phil now helps professionals worldwide build confidence and fluency through structured, repeatable negotiation practice. Experience Phils unique negotiation practice at a FREE NEGOTIATION TASTER ....

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