The Negotiating Table

Each of us negotiates all the time, every day, whether at work, at home, on the street, or with our friends. We negotiate over petty stuff such as what to order on our pizza or who has to clean the office fridge and really big stuff such as long term relationships and career options.
Some of these negotiations will come more easily to us and others will cause us grief. Moreover, each of us brings different skills and a different personality into the mix. The problem is that because the way we negotiate is just part of the overall picture of how we interact with others, we learn how to negotiate from our experiences and generally have a hard time seeing ourselves as we negotiate.
Without this self-awareness, we are likely to act on impulse rather than strategy and more more likely to be influenced by the other party's tactics. Negotiations involve preparation, strategy, dialog, and follow-though. While each of these pieces can be modeled in frameworks and outlined as step-by-step processes, negotiations are ultimately highly emotional activities in which our ability to behave strategically is impacted by our emotions.
Without emotional self-awareness, we will have a hard time seeing when the other side has made us anxious and caused us to lose sight of our strategy. Without self-awareness we won't notice when we have angered the other party and damaged a relationship over a relatively minor issue. Only by becoming self-aware negotiators can we be effective at following our strategy and employing our skills.

People want many things. People say many things. I do, you do, the people we negotiate with do. The important principle to remember is that the things people say and do are generally not the end of the story but instead simply clues to the deeper and more significant needs that are really driving them as they negotiate. It is so easy to get hung up on their words and deeds and to lose sight of the fact that success comes instead from understanding and satisfying their underlying interests.
So next time you are negotiating with someone, whether a business partner, a customer, a vendor, a coworker, a friend, a significant other, or a child, remember to ask "why?". When the person comes out with an unreasonable demand, inquire more to find out why they want what they say they want. By uncovering their fundamental interests, you can move toward agreements that meet their interests and satisfy your own. 

Negotiations take on a whole new dimension when you and the other party or parties come from different cultural background. While most of the fundamental principles of negotiation theory cut across cultures, the practical implementation of the theory takes on very different forms depending on the culture.

For one, people communicate differently in different cultures, and since communication is such a vital part of negotiation, learning to communicate effectively across the cultural divide can be a critical skill. In some culture "yes" means "I agree" while in others it merely means "I hear you." In some cultures, emotion is readily and loudly expressed, while in others it is kept close. Before you negotiate in another culture, try to talk to people who are familiar with the culture and get advice from them.

Relationships also take on different meanings and look different in different cultures, and you need to know the meaning of relationships in the culture of the other party. Similarly, the way people express and prioritize their interests, respond to solution ideas, and treat objective information also work differently in different cultures.

Before engaging in negotiations with people from another culture, try to get some information on the norms and expectations that the other party might be bringing to the table. Then use the negotiation process itself to understand what the other person values and needs, and what they expect in terms of process and communication. Remember that even within cultures, all people are individuals, and that while understanding the other person's culture serves as a general guidelines, it is even more important to listen and be receptive to learning as you progress through the negotiation.

Negotiations would be much more manageable if we weren't primarily emotional creatures. Read any book on negotiation strategies, and the fundamental assumption that lies beneath the surface is that the people employing these strategies are largely rational. If you have no emotional reactions to a negotiation, or if your emotional reactions are minimal, then indeed you can act strategically as you negotiate. The problem is that very few people are rational all or even most of the time. Anything the other person says or does is likely to provoke some emotional response in you. Sometimes they don't have to do anything at all - something about the circumstances of the situation itself makes you nervous, or angry, or anxious, or something else. Whatever your emotional reaction, the issue is that you have one and it dominates you.

Under such circumstances, the assumption that you are going to be rational is untenable, but there are some things you can do to help yourself along. The first and most important is to slow down the negotiation and to develop a higher level of self-awareness regarding your emotions. Some people do this naturally, and have a good sense of their emotions in real-time. Many other people are unclear at best about their emotions and have great difficulty identifying what is happening with them at any given time. Fortunately, self-awareness is something you can develop with time, through the simple act of paying attention and writing down what you notice about yourself. With time, you will become more comfortable understanding and using your emotions as you negotiate.

Every relationship involves negotiation and all negotiations involve relationships. Sometimes those relationships are brief, such as when you are buying a trinket from a street vendor or negotiating for a car, and other times the relationships outlast the negotiations, but they always matter.


Street vendors understand this. Yes, they try to entice you with an attractive product or a good price, but where they start is with you, engaging you with a smile or a comment, catching your eye or asking you a question. They know they have seconds to establish a relationship in which you will want to buy from them rather than the next vendor down the street.


In your work and personal life, where the relationships endure for many negotiations, you need to be aware of the impact of your actions on the relationship. What you do today will be reflected in how people respond to you tomorrow, or if there will even be a tomorrow in which to negotiate.


Of course, not all relationships are important to the same extent, and sometimes the outcome of the negotiation is so important that you need to negotiate hard even if you damage the relationship, but it is always important to keep the relationship in mind and to be deliberate in your actions.

So, it actually does matter what you say, but it matters even more what the other person hears. Whatever you try to communicate, it is always possible that the people you are talking to will interpret what you've said differently than you had intended. The problem is that while you have a great deal of control over what you choose to say, you have a lot less control over the interpretations that people overlay upon your words. How then do you control your message so people hear what you intend? The simple answer is that you can't really control what people hear, but you can stack the odds in your favor by doing a few simple things.

The first thing is to talk from the point of view of your audience, since it's their perspective that determines what they hear. For this, you first have to know your audience, and the key to understanding your audience is to listen to them. Strangely enough, in order to communicate effectively to others, you first have to listen to them. You then need to get out of your own head and really imagine that you were them, listening to your words.

The second thing you have to do is to consider the emotional impact of your words on your listeners. Since people interpret what you say through emotional filters, and their emotional reactions to what you say are going to drown out their rational responses, you need to think about the emotional land mines you might be stepping with what you say.

The third thing you can do is to get help from other people. If you are not good at figuring out the emotional impact of your words on others, have a friend or colleague help you, since an outside perspective often helps identify things you've missed.

Even with all of these steps, there is no certainty that your words will be understood as intended, but it's a matter of probabilities and you can make it more likely. So in the end, though what the other person actually hears is still out of direct control, it is up to you to construct your messages carefully and communicate from the other person's point of view.

Think of the leaders you admire, and almost all that come to mind will have been great communicators. Sure, some were great orators and gave memorable speeches, but not all. Some leaders instead just talked to their people quietly and individually, constantly reinforcing their vision for success and encouraging their people to achieve it. Communication as a leader should be a daily habit, a bit like breathing. Without it your people will feel disconnected and lost, no matter how well you are managing things from the top.