I think that we all realize that negotiating is hard. It turns out that if you are a woman, negotiating is even harder. However, despite these difficulties and uphill challenges, women do negotiate and they do negotiate successfully. The challenge that women face is that in order to be successful negotiators, they need to play by a different set of rules than the men who are negotiating seem to play by. What women need are a set of negotiating skills and negotiation tactics that women negotiators can use to level the playing field in negotiation scenarios.

The Challenges That Women Face When Negotiating

So, what are the barriers that women negotiators face? By now, most of us are aware that women appear to face significant hurdles in negotiation. To begin with, women are often penalized for negotiating on their own behalf. In research that was done it was found that both male and female study participants were less interested in working with women who attempted to negotiate a better salary than they were with men who tried to negotiate a higher salary. The fact that women negotiators are more often less likely to initiate salary negotiations than men appears to be due at least in part to women’s awareness that negotiating could trigger this type of social backlash at the office.

It turns out that during a negotiation, people are more likely to lie to female negotiators than to male negotiators. During a negotiation women were lied to more often simply because participants viewed them as being less competent than men are and thus less likely to question their lies. Additionally, during a negotiation, both men and women also were more likely to give male negotiators preferential treatment by disclosing their hidden interests. I think that we can all agree that such stereotypes and biased treatment can significantly hinder a women’s negotiated outcomes, putting her at an unfair advantage. The big question for negotiators is how can we remedy this state of affairs?

Tips for Helping Women Achieve Better Results at the Negotiation Table

The first thing that women need to realize when they are negotiating is that they need to come across as being non-threating to the other side. This suggestion comes from other women who are successful negotiators. Past advice from experts such as Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg who has encouraged women to combine an assertive message during a negotiation with smiles, friendly gestures, and other non-threatening and traditionally feminine behavior.

During a negotiation, women must work to find ways to become a team player. Women have also been encouraged to increase the odds of getting what they want during a negotiation by pointing out how their requests would benefit the people involved in the negotiation rather than just themselves. This approach can work successfully because it conforms to the gender stereotype that women are particularly concerned about others.

Finally, women must incorporate defensive measures into their set of negotiation skills. All negotiators, but women in particular, can guard against being taken advantage of during a negotiation by engaging in thorough preparation and taking the time to test the other side’s claims. If during a negotiation a women is told that something is true, she would be best served by testing this claim by talking to friends who know more about the topic or getting a second opinion.

What All Of This Means For You

Negotiating is hard work. Every time that we enter into a new negotiation, we are facing many different challenges that may prevent us from being able to reach a deal with the other side. It turns out that if you are a woman, you will be facing even more challenges that a man will be. By recognizing gender inequality in negotiations as a shared problem, we can take steps to both lessen the burden on women and promote more productive negotiations.

When women show up to negotiate, the deck is already stacked against them. They are penalized simply for being willing to negotiate on their own behalf. During negotiations, people are more willing to lie to women than men. The other side may also be willing to disclose their hidden interests to men instead of women. During a negotiation women have to make an effort to come across as being non-threating. They also have to be a team player and find ways to make sure that their ideas can benefit everyone involved. Understanding that others may try to take advantage of them, women need to take defensive measures during a negotiation.

There is no reason that a woman cannot be as successful as a man during a negotiation. Women do need to understand that when they enter into a negotiation they will be starting off at a disadvantage just because of the way that society works. The good news is that with just a little bit of effort on their part, they can overcome the things that could hold them back. With this knowledge, the days of women not being able to do as well as men during a negotiation should now be behind us!

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: Do you think that women should attempt to set up a negotiation so that they’ll be negotiating with other women?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Most negotiators go into a negotiation like a warrior goes into battle. We are ready to take on the other side. We want to believe that we are stronger, better prepared, and will eventually emerge from the negotiation with a better deal than the other side will be able to get. However, what we might be missing is that the other side is not showing up unprepared. They’ve done their homework. They know what we want. What this means is that we are going to have to make a decision. What are we going to be willing to share with the other side in order to get the deal that we’re looking for?

Should We Share During A Negotiation?

Letting the other side know your bottom-line, highest price, or lowest acceptable bid, is an example of the anchoring effect in negotiation and demonstrates the powerful effect of information on your bargaining strategy. However, the prospect of sharing your information with the other side can be scary – it can fix the other side into a position at the negotiation table you didn’t intend (this is an example of the anchoring effect). If you share too much, the other side might conclude that you’re desperate to make a deal, any deal. There’s also the risk that you may end up giving away privileged information that the other side could use against you. Taking time to conduct a careful analysis of the pros and cons of sharing information in negotiation can help you approach your next negotiation scenario with a greater sense of confidence and security.

How To Share Information During A Negotiation

The first thing that you have to realize is that you don’t want to wait for the other side to open up to you first. We all know that the advantages of sharing information during negotiation have been well documented. Thanks to the power of reciprocity, the other side is likely to match any information you share with valuable information of their own. In general, you should feel comfortable revealing information about your interests and what you want to get out of the negotiation, as well as your priorities across the different issues. That doesn’t mean that if there are ten issues on the table, you should reveal that you care about only five of them. Rather, you are going to want to stress that all the issues are important to you, but you’d have a hard time budging on five of them.

When we are entering into a negotiation we need to make sure that we are aware of any information that is required by law. You don’t want to risk serious anchoring effect issues such as getting into hot water by concealing information that you’re legally or ethically required to disclose to the other side. A good example of this is when home sellers may need to reveal known property defects to potential buyers. In order to make sure that you are on top of this requirement you will need to research relevant laws and professional standards before you negotiate.

Every negotiator needs to be aware that not all information is the same. There will be some information that requires “damage control” from us. Think about how a defense attorney questions his client in court about incriminating information before the prosecution can raise the issue. Negotiators need to understand that the best way to handle troubling facts may be to come clean to the other side. For both ethical and strategic reasons, for example, a job applicant who was fired from their previous position would be wise to explain what happened to an interviewer rather than waiting for them to discover it during a reference check.

The final thing that negotiators need to understand is that we now live in the internet age. Information that used to be hard to come by may now be readily available information. These days, information that was difficult to track down once upon a time – including financial and disclosure statements, legal documents, and news reports – could be just a Google search away. When deciding whether to share sensitive information that may be widely available, you will need to assess what would happen if the other side discovered such information on their own.

What All Of This Means For You

The heart of any negotiation is information. What do you know going in, what does the other side know going in, and what will you be willing to share with them? This is one of the biggest questions that every negotiator faces during a negotiation. We know that we don’t want to give too much away to the other side; however, at the same time we know that by sharing information we can get the other side to share with us. How much is just enough and how much is too much?

We need to understand that when we share information with the other side, we may be causing the anchoring effect to come into play during our negotiation. We have to carefully consider everything that we may end up revealing during our next negotiation. Negotiators need to understand that during a negotiation they should not wait to reveal information to the other side. When you reveal something to them, they will feel obligated to reveal things to you. We also have to realize that the law may require us to reveal certain information to the other side. Additionally, now that we live in the internet age a great deal of information may be available to the other side simply by performing an internet search. We need to be aware of this and we may choose to reveal things that we know are publicly available.

Every negotiation is simply a meeting in which information is exchanged. As negotiators, we need to understand this. Additionally, we have to understand that not all information is the same. We will exchange information with the other side, but we need to make sure that we are aware of what information we will be exchanging. We need to do this carefully and we need to have a plan. Make sure that the next time that you negotiate you exchange information in a way that allows you to get the deal that you want.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: How long do you think that you should wait during a negotiation before you stare to share information?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

I think that we all realize that negotiating is hard. It turns out that if you are a woman, negotiating is even harder. However, despite these difficulties and uphill challenges, women do negotiate and they do negotiate successfully. The challenge that women face is that in order to be successful negotiators, they need to play by a different set of rules than the men who are negotiating seem to play by. What women need are a set of negotiating skills and negotiation tactics that women negotiators can use to level the playing field in negotiation scenarios.

One of the most important things that any negotiator brings to their next negotiation is their particular leadership style. It can be autocratic, it can be decisive, etc. The big question that we all have to be asking ourselves before we enter into our next negotiation is just exactly what style of leadership is going to be required in order to have the best chance of being able to reach a deal with the other side?

What Is Your Leadership Style?

I think that we can all agree that the advantages and disadvantages of leadership styles are not always readily apparent during a negotiation. However, one thing is certain – being decisive while avoiding autocratic leadership tactics is necessary for successful negotiators. Navigating these treacherous waters can be extraordinarily challenging for us to do successfully, but it can also give rise to creative decisions that help resolve disagreements that we encounter in unexpected ways. Few people balance these potential risks and rewards more than political leaders. There is a lot that we can observe about their leadership styles.

A good example of leadership styles is given to us by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He was called on to intervene in a dispute between business leaders and workers in ways that can be of interest to anyone who hopes to manage disputes between parties without causing more trouble than good. Abe was re-elected as Prime Minister of Japan in 2012 on the promise of reviving Japan’s long-stagnant economy. Abe took the opportunity to implement a new 3% tax on consumer purchases. That’s when everything fell apart for him. The consumer tax revealed that decades of stagnant wage growth had brought many Japanese workers to the brink of financial ruin. Very quickly consumer spending fell precipitously. Even as the economy quickly slipped into the red, large corporations continued to turn profits on a combination of exports and government support. Meanwhile, the workers who were being newly taxed turned to the Prime Minister for answers.

To save the day, Abe turned to a Japanese spring negotiation ritual called Shunto. In the decades following World War II, Shunto signaled the start of yearly salary talks between business and labor leaders. The Japanese economic boom of the 1980s turned things around, however, and in recent decades the declining influence of unions reduced Shunto to a mere formality. Abe signaled that this year would be different. Hoping to boost public spending, Abe made it clear that the year’s Shunto should lead to measurable increases in spending on wages. Abe succeeded in getting a handful of major corporations to commit to increased wages. Within two months, his choice to join the Shunto did prove to bear fruit for everyone.

How To Expand Value When Faced With A Challenging Negotiation

Negotiators need to understand that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. In Japan Shunto may have lost some vigor over the years, but it had long-standing cultural value for workers and businesses alike. Rather than inventing a new process, it can be beneficial for negotiators to rely on existing ones and the pre-existing understandings they create.

We need to identify our audience. In the case of Japan, Abe wanted businesses to thrive, but also needed the support of all his citizens. Picking the right forum to back workers shaped the negotiations and signaled an awareness of shared valued to a larger constituency.

We need to set reasonable expectations. Abe saw the need to join this year’s Shunto, but he will lose the support of businesses if he does it every year. Instead, the Prime Minister’s representatives took special pains to emphasize the fact that they won’t be showing up to Shunto in the years to come, and got more value out of their negotiation by doing so.

Make sure that you get concessions that can lead to concessions. In Japan, the largest stakeholder to commit to raising wages was Toyota. Outside observers saw the car giant’s concession as a watershed moment that led many other companies to follow suit. In a complex negotiation with many stakeholders, getting a leader on the other side to make a concession can enhance the chances of a deal by strengthening coalitions and lessening fear.

We need to let the parties define their own concessions. Abe would have been met with accusations of autocratic leadership if he had demanded compliance with specific wages. Instead, he encouraged concessions, but avoided too making too many specifics, allowing individual companies the opportunity to negotiate a range of issues with their workers.

Finally, make sure to keep your celebrations to yourself. A hard-fought win in a negotiation can seem like just cause for a victory lap to just about everyone. In any business, the chances are high that you will find yourself negotiating with a former adversary some time down the road. There is also the likelihood that you’ll need a counterpart’s support away from the table. Yes, a win should feel good, but make sure that you don’t delight publicly in the other side’s loss.

What All Of This Means For You

Our ability to reach a deal with the other side in a negotiation often rests on our leadership style. There are many different styles that we can choose from; however the key is to pick the one that will work with the other side and allow us to reach the deal that both sides want. A good example of using your leadership style to get what you want can be seen in the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe was reelected based on his promise to restart the Japanese economy. One of the things that he did to make this happen was to impose a 3% tax on all consumer purchases. This ended up revealing that Japanese workers were not making enough money to support a new tax. In order to resolve this problem Abe had to start negotiations with Japanese businesses in order to get them to give their workers raises. He used the Japanese spring negotiation ritual called Shunto to accomplish this. His actions showed the value of using your leadership style to get what you want in a negotiation.

Negotiators need to understand that they have to take the time to realize who they are negotiating with. If they can find common ground for their negotiations, then they can make things happen easier. Abe was able to take a challenging negotiating situation and get the deal that he wanted. If we study how he made this happen, we can make the same thing happen in our next negotiation.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: What’s the best way to set expectations that will be reasonable?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Most negotiators go into a negotiation like a warrior goes into battle. We are ready to take on the other side. We want to believe that we are stronger, better prepared, and will eventually emerge from the negotiation with a better deal than the other side will be able to get. However, what we might be missing is that the other side is not showing up unprepared. They’ve done their homework. They know what we want. What this means is that we are going to have to make a decision. What are we going to be willing to share with the other side in order to get the deal that we’re looking for?

All negotiators would like to become better. The challenge that we are all facing is that we don’t know how to go about doing this. Sure, we can go to courses, we can talk with other negotiators, and we can collect statistics on how our negotiations go. However, if we really want to become better negotiators what do we need to be doing? Interestingly enough, the answer may be simpler than any of us realized. What negotiators need to do is to get good at giving and getting feedback.

Why Do We Need Feedback?

Every negotiator wants to know about what helps people learn and what gets in their way. While we spend countless dollars and too many hours each year asking others to teach us how to give feedback, perhaps we’ve got it backward. What we need to be doing is educating receivers – both in our workplace and in our personal relationships. We need to understand the profound challenge of being on the receiving end of feedback, and our conflicting desires – both to grow and improve vs. finding ways to be accepted as we are.

One of the problems that we have as negotiators is that when feedback comes up as a topic, negotiators instantly think of the feedback they have for other people, not the feedback others have for them. When we encounter people who know about receiving feedback, our first response is always “Oh, that’s so great. I know someone who needs that kind of help.” What we need to understand is that this is the kind of help that we all need.

Negotiators need to be taught how to receive feedback. We need help in determining whether the feedback is off base versus just poorly delivered? In order to solve this problem, we need to start listening to people when they complain about their feedback. What we’re going to discover is that it will seem like everyone is very preoccupied with the who-when-where-why-how of what is wrong with the feedback. Despite all of this, there may still be something we need to hear. Remember that as emotional beings, we get so obsessed with the negative aspects of the feedback that we are hearing that we tend to ignore what might be good about it.

How To Use Feedback

I think that we all need to acknowledge that when it comes to giving and receiving feedback, these can be difficult conversations to have. What we need to discover is the root cause of this conundrum. We need to realize that we’re conflicted about feedback because of two core human needs. One of these needs is to grow and improve. This is the key to achieving happiness and satisfaction. However, at the same time, the second need is to be accepted, respected, and loved just as we are. Unfortunately, a lot of the most valuable learning in life can come from our most painful experiences. We need to realize that in most cases, these experiences are very hard to appreciate at the time. We only appreciate them or understand what they had to teach us, later on.

For negotiators who want to become better at giving feedback we need to become a better feedback receiver. If we can be a better feedback receiver, we become a better role model for what is valued in our organization. Plus, when we understand what’s hard about receiving feedback, we become a better giver of feedback. For negotiators who want to become better feedback receivers we need to understand the challenges of the key triggers: Me, We and See. Each of these triggers are important.

• ME: We are all wired differently – some people can feel very uncomfortable with positive feedback, others may be particularly sensitive about negative feedback. There are very large variations on how we swing, both positive and negative, and how long it can take us to recover. Understand that this is completely normal.
• WE: Realize that your reactions to the person who is giving you the feedback will color your reaction and may make you dismiss the feedback entirely. The lesson here for you is that while you may have issues with the “who,” don’t let it pre-disqualify the “what” of the feedback.
• SEE: All of us have blind spots. The challenge of understanding the feedback we get is compounded by the fact that feedback often comes with very vague labels – for example, “try to be more proactive.” We get so upset in the moment that often we don’t actually pause to understand: 1) Where is this coming from? What’s the data behind it? 2) Where is it going? What is it that you are asking me to do differently? We assume that we understand the feedback that we are getting, when in fact it takes a lot more effort and skill to unpack what’s under a vague label.

What All Of This Means For You

Negotiators need to learn that we can always glean something useful from feedback. Getting good at receiving feedback doesn’t always mean that you have to take it. Rather, what it means is that you need to fully understand it before you decide what to do with it. The good news is that receiving feedback is a skill that can give you more control over your negotiating anxiety and enable you to accelerate your learning.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: Who do you would be the best person to give you more feedback?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

One of the most important things that any negotiator brings to their next negotiation is their particular leadership style. It can be autocratic, it can be decisive, etc. The big question that we all have to be asking ourselves before we enter into our next negotiation is just exactly what style of leadership is going to be required in order to have the best chance of being able to reach a deal with the other side?

Let’s face it – no matter how highly we may think of ourselves, none of us are perfect. What this means is that every time that we enter into a negotiation, we arrive with our own set of personal cognitive biases. We have experience with this negotiating stuff and so it’s natural that we may tend to rely on our intuition when it comes time to make decisions. There is no question that this may be the right thing to do sometimes; however, it’s the wrong thing to do at other times. How can we limit our use of cognitive bias during our next negotiation?

The Problem With Bias

Negotiators know about the psychological biases that affect negotiators, many of which spring from a reliance on our intuition, and which may hinder our integrative negotiations. Of course, negotiators are not always affected by bias; sometimes we think systematically and clearly at the bargaining table. Most negotiators believe we are capable of distinguishing between situations in which we can safely rely on intuition from those that require more careful thought. However, it turns out that often we are wrong.

In fact, all too often most of us trust our intuition more than evidence suggests that we should. To explain why negotiators don’t always think rationally or logically, researchers have distinguished between what they call System 1 and System 2 types of thought. System 1 type thought describes our intuition: quick, automatic, effortless, and influenced by emotion. By comparison, System 2 type thought is slower, more conscious, effortful and logical. When you are carefully considering your options, you are using System 2 thinking. When you are simply acting on your intuition, you are using System 1 thinking. I.am pretty sure that we can all think of instances in which we acted rashly, relying on System 1 thoughts and emotions, as well as times when we carefully evaluated a situation using System 2 logic.

Unfortunately, most people – especially busy negotiators – fall back on System 1 thinking during their negotiations. Reliance on our intuition increases when a situation is complex and negotiators reach a state of what is called “cognitive overload”. At such times, our ability to process information is pushed to the limit and we naturally shift away from complex System 2 thought toward simpler System 1 thought. It is understood that a complete System 2 thought process is not necessary for every managerial decision or for every small negotiation you may be facing. When you’re negotiating with your coworkers over where to go for lunch, when you’re setting deadlines for low-priority tasks, or when you’re informally discussing items that you plan to revisit later in more detail, System 1 thought will be sufficient. Taking the time to logically reason through every decision can be costly, even leading to decision paralysis. However, negotiators are encouraged to engage in System 2 thought during our most important negotiations.

How To Prevent Falling Back On Your Intuition During A Negotiation

If you want to find ways to prevent yourself from falling back on your intuition during an integrative negotiation, then the first thing that you will need to do is to make a System 2 list. Negotiators need to understand that the first step in negotiating more rationally is to identify real-life negotiation situations that call for extra vigilance. Periodically, perhaps as often as once per month, make a list of important upcoming negotiations that you think might require System 2 thought. Such negotiations could concern lots of money, complex issues, multiple parties, key strategic partners, or a new direction for your firm.

When you take the time to carefully prepare for particular negotiations, you are setting yourself up to engage in System 2 thought in situations where it is required. You also should schedule negotiations in a way to best engage in System 2 thinking. If you’re a night owl, then you should avoid meeting with an important client first thing in the morning. In addition, this strategy will remind you to actively participate in any necessary pre-negotiation discussions that could affect your agenda.

Negotiators also have to be careful to not let time pressure affect your decisions. As noted, intuitive System 1 thought often takes over when negotiators are under intense time pressure. Awareness of this tendency can lead you to make key adjustments to your negotiations. Instead of scheduling to negotiate a deal over a short lunch, instead set aside an entire morning keeping in mind that you’ve already decided that these talks are important. If someone catches you off guard and launches into discussions on the fly, you can ask them to reschedule the conversation for a later time or date.

We all know that real estate agents and other intermediaries are famous for “forcing” people to negotiate, make commitments, or respond to requests under immense time pressure. Too often people fall prey to this tactic, for fear of losing the deal or offending the other party. It turns out that, in most cases, there is little reason you should feel guilty about postponing your negotiation or decision. Unless someone has given you specific, credible information that time truly is of the essence, you need to avoid succumbing to others pressure tactics.

In order to avoid relying too much on your intuition you need to partition the negotiations across multiple sessions. We all understand that human beings have a natural desire for achieving closure. As a result, most of us seek to reach an agreement or settlement as quickly as possible during a negotiation. But we need to keep in mind that completing an entire negotiation in one session is typically unnecessary – oh, and in fact, sometimes it’s impossible. Even when you show up well prepared, a negotiation that is the slightest bit complex will raise new information, unforeseen issues, and tactics that you did not anticipate. Remember that in negotiation, patience often generates significant dividends.

What All Of This Means For You

Taken together, these strategies should help you identify when to incorporate careful, reasoned analysis into your next negotiation. These recommendations may run counter to the implicit trust and confidence that many of us have in our own intuition. However, the data is very clear: with the use of intuition comes the potential for significant psychological biases that lead to irrationality. By accepting these strategies, you can learn to overcome bias and think more rationally during your next negotiation.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: How can you detect when you have started to rely on your intuition during a negotiation?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

All negotiators would like to become better. The challenge that we are all facing is that we don’t know how to go about doing this. Sure, we can go to courses, we can talk with other negotiators, and we can collect statistics on how our negotiations go. However, if we really want to become better negotiators what do we need to be doing? Interestingly enough, the answer may be simpler than any of us realized. What negotiators need to do is to get good at giving and getting feedback.

When we enter into a negotiation, we are hopeful that we’ll be able to find a way to reach a deal with the other side. However, as we all know, there is always the possibility that we are going to run into problems. The way that we see things and the way that the other side sees things may be different. If this is the case, then there is the very real possibility that we are going to encounter an impasse. If this happens then we may not be able to reach a deal with the other side. How can we prevent this from happening?

Dealing With Impasses: Create A Gain Frame

Negotiations over issues such as costs and losses, items that are found in a mortgage foreclosure, budget shortfall, or a job termination are generally more competitive and challenging than those involving benefits and assets, such as a home purchase, a budget surplus or a new job. What negotiators need to understand is how they can avoid approaching negotiations over losses with a rigid attitude? The goal is to try to identify any benefits that may accompany the burdens that you can anticipate. At the same time you will want to encourage the other side to do the same.

Dealing With Impasses: Think Multiple Steps Ahead

During a negotiation, when you are faced with someone’s unappealing offer or position, you need to think multiple steps ahead before you refuse to negotiate or compromise unless the other side meets your conditions. If you are not careful, firm positions and rejections can easily lead to a protracted impasse. Instead of taking a tough stance, good negotiators take the time to educate the other side about what aspects of their offers are most palatable and think about what they might ask for in return for concessions.

Dealing With Impasses: Keep Talking

It’s possible that individuals and organizations may sometimes refuse to negotiate in the hope that the other side will back down as the costs inflicted by an impasse mount. What’s often overlooked when this tactic is tried is that impasse damages both sides. The more time passes, the deeper both sides dig in their heels. If somehow you do manage to get back to the negotiating table, the ill will that accumulated during the impasse will make your talks all the more challenging and a deal that much harder to reach.

What All Of This Means For You

The reason that we enter into a negotiation is because we want to be able to reach a deal with the other side. However, negotiations can be tricky beasts. If we are not careful, it can be easy for our negotiation to run aground and we may end up mired in a conflict that prevents us from reaching a deal. Our goal as negotiators is to be able to understand how impasses can occur and what we can do to avoid them.

We all understand that engaging in a negotiation is usually a much more promising means of resolving a conflict and ending an impasse than refusing to negotiate with the other side. However if during a negotiation our talks have reached an impasse, we need to try building trust and goodwill by proposing that we negotiate relatively minor issues first. Dealing with impasses is the best way to get around them.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: If you encounter an impasse, do you think that you should take a break in the negotaitons?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Let’s face it – no matter how highly we may think of ourselves, none of us are perfect. What this means is that every time that we enter into a negotiation, we arrive with our own set of personal cognitive biases. We have experience with this negotiating stuff and so it’s natural that we may tend to rely on our intuition when it comes time to make decisions. There is no question that this may be the right thing to do sometimes; however, it’s the wrong thing to do at other times. How can we limit our use of cognitive bias during our next negotiation?

As negotiators we realize that bias is a big deal. We have to work hard to identify what bias we bring to the table. Once we know what they are, we then have to take steps to make sure that they don’t find their way into our negotiating. However, it turns out that there is another side to this coin. The other side may be bringing their own set of bias to the table and that could impede your ability to strike a deal with them. What do you need to do in order to help them deal with their own set of bias?

The Problem With Bias

When we go to negotiation training, we are often encouraged to ‘debias’ our own behavior by identifying the assumptions that may be clouding our judgment. It turns out that we all have a number of judgment biases – common, systematic errors in thinking that are likely to affect our decisions and harm our outcomes in a negotiation. These can include the winner’s curse, the mythical fixed-pie, egocentrism, overconfidence, escalation of commitment, the influence of vivid data, and the list goes on and on.

However, in a negotiation, recognizing and overcoming your own judgment biases turns out to be only one side of the coin. After all, the other side is likely to be just as biased as you are. This is a fact that’s easy to forget in the heat of the moment. During a negotiation, when others appear to be acting irrationally, what is the best way for you to respond?

Most negotiators would get excited when they see the other side giving into their bias. We may think that we should use their mistakes to our advantage. Sadly, things are not that simple. Instead, your goal should be to not only identify the biases in the other side’s behavior but to make an effort to confront these judgement mistakes – and, most often, to even try to defuse them. What we all need are some simple rules for improving our negotiation performance by anticipating, identifying, and, when possible, neutralizing the judgement biases of the other side.

How To Deal With The Other Side’s Bias

The first thing that we need to do is to find a way to help others to be less biased. A question that every negotiator needs to be able to answer is would you rather negotiate with someone who is rational or irrational? Too many of us falsely assume that bargaining with an irrational partner can lend you to a competitive advantage. We need to consider that irrational negotiators are overconfident and uncreative. They may continue to hold out for deals that you’ll never give them. They might assume that a supply of resources is fixed and, as a result, fail to explore any tradeoffs among issues. When the other side is affected by judgment biases, they’re likely to make a variety of other mistakes that hurt not only their interests but potentially also yours. For these reasons, it’s in your best interests to help the other side think more clearly.

During a negotiation, you are not going to want to follow the crowd. In many negotiations, experienced negotiators follow best practices, emulate the behaviors of experts, and do things the way they have always been done. They cite their years of experience, yet they are often unable to back up their theories about negotiations with logic. Too many negotiators follow these types of intuitions unquestioningly. All too often negotiators follow their industry’s folklore rather than using theories that have been empirically found to produce more effective results. Yes, experience is valuable. However, experience accompanied by the wisdom of analysis is far more valuable. What does this mean for us? Instead of following common wisdom, we need to seek out data that disconfirms the experts and then systematically apply these findings to our decisions and negotiations.

Finally, during a negotiation we can use irrationality to create contingent agreements with the other side. Sometimes the best way to manage another negotiator’s judgment biases is not to try to cure them but rather to accept them. The question is how can we go about doing this? You can do this by making a bet that you expect to be favorable to you and costly to the other side. Most negotiators know the benefits of contingent agreements. When they are built into formal contracts, contingent agreements with incentives and penalties can increase the odds of compliance by both sides with a deal. Contingent agreements can also offer a novel opportunity for you to use the other side’s biases to your advantage in a negotiation.

What All Of This Means For You

When we enter into a negotiation, we have been instructed that we need to be careful that we don’t bring any of our bias with us. The challenge is that we can have a lot of bias! However, we’ve been told why allowing them to enter a negotiation with us is a bad idea. However, it turns out that there is something else that we need to concern ourselves with. It turns out that the other side of our next negotiation may show up with their own biases. If that’s true, then we have a responsibility to make them aware of them and to deal with them.

In the negotiation training that we have all been to, we’ve been taught that any bias that we have need to be left outside of the negotiations. If we don’t do this, then they can cloud our judgement. Since the other side may show up with their own bias, we need to be able to find ways to identify them and try to neutralize them. During a negotiation we need to look for ways to help the other side to become less biased. We don’t want to follow the crowd and rely on things that have worked in the past. If necessary, we can use the other side’s irrationality to strike a contingent agreement with them that will meet both side’s needs.

Many negotiators will respond to an opponent’s perceived irrationality with both frustration and irritation. A much better strategy is to regard the other side’s biases as inevitable facts of negotiating life, ones that can be confronted with a number of empirically proven strategies.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: Do you think that it is wise to tell the other side that they have bias during a negotiation?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When we enter into a negotiation, we are hopeful that we’ll be able to find a way to reach a deal with the other side. However, as we all know, there is always the possibility that we are going to run into problems. The way that we see things and the way that the other side sees things may be different. If this is the case, then there is the very real possibility that we are going to encounter an impasse. If this happens then we may not be able to reach a deal with the other side. How can we prevent this from happening?

I think that we can all agree that any negotiation can become fairly emotional at times. There is always the possibility that you may end up doing or saying something that you will later on regret. If this does happen, should you tell the other side that you are sorry? If they do something that offends you, should they tell you that they are sorry? If they do, should you forgive them? For that matter, what role should forgiveness play in any negotiation?

The Power Of Forgiveness

As important as it may be, it’s generally believed that forgiveness isn’t an essential component of negotiation. We may be able to get to the finish line despite resenting or disliking the other side intensely. However, when you’re suffering from a grievance, it can be all too easy for you to get trapped in a cycle of anger, self-pity, and resentment that puts you at risk for further conflict as well as both emotional and physical stress.

The reason that not forgiving someone can be such a big deal is because simply remembering a hurtful experience can trigger a biochemical stress response in you. If you can find a way to move beyond blame then research has shown that this can help you better regulate your emotions and may even lower your blood pressure. What negotiators need to understand is that the health benefits offered by forgiveness can have a transformative impact on conflict.

In one study, people from both sides of a conflict were brought together for a week of forgiveness training. When assessed six months later, the participants’ rating of the intensity of their hurt had declined significantly. Overall, using conflict resolution training has been found to encourage people to experience greater empathy toward their offenders and to change their personal story of victimization to one of overcoming adversity.

Using Forgiveness In A Negotiation

When we are talking about negotiations, the forgiveness inspired by a sincere, well-timed apology can potentially improve the odds of reaching a settlement in the negotiation and could even repair relationships. We need to understand that forgiveness is always achievable or even desirable during a negotiation. In particular, the greater the trauma people have suffered, the less open they will be to reconciliation. Studies suggest that victims must feel a sense of economic and psychological stability before they can summon the strength to forgive those who have harmed them.

But if the prospect of moving on psychologically from a grievance appeals to you, the big question is how can you increase your own capacity to forgive? Your willingness to forgive someone who has hurt you may come down to your beliefs about human nature. Researchers had participants square off against an opponent who repeatedly violated their trust in a computerized negotiation before apologizing. Participants in the study who believed that moral character can change over time were more likely to trust their counterparts following the apology than were participants who believed that moral character is a fixed thing.

These results suggest that you can increase your capacity for forgiveness during a negotiation by allowing for the possibility that a counterpart who expresses a seemingly heartfelt apology is capable of personal growth. This is the kind of decision that we all have make using our own personal view of the negotiations that are currently being conducted.

What All Of This Means For You

During a heated negotiation things can be done or said that can hurt someone who is involved in the negotiation. Although we can try very hard to make sure that a situation like this does not happen, unfortunately it can still occur. As negotiators we need to understand what we need to do in a situation like this. One option that we have available to us is forgiveness. However, do we know how to use it?

It turns out that we don’t actually have to forgive the other side for things that they have said or done. However, if we don’t forgive them then just thinking about what they have done to us can have a negative impact on our well-being. Studies have shown that forgiveness can reduce the amount of hurt that people are feeling. If forgiveness is worked into a negotiation, then the possibility of being able to reach a deal with the other side increases. If you are willing to believe that the other side can really change, then you may be able to forgive them.

In the heat of battle, the thought of actually forgiving the other side for something that they have either said or done may seem like something that you can’t imagine doing. However, perhaps this is a negotiating tool that we should all take a closer look at. If resentment is going to cause us to miss out on an opportunity to reach a deal with the other side, then perhaps forgiveness should become part of our negotiating toolkit.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: If you forgive the other side would you expect them to forgive you?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

As negotiators we realize that bias is a big deal. We have to work hard to identify what bias we bring to the table. Once we know what they are, we then have to take steps to make sure that they don’t find their way into our negotiating. However, it turns out that there is another side to this coin. The other side may be bringing their own set of bias to the table and that could impede your ability to strike a deal with them. What do you need to do in order to help them deal with their own set of bias?

Pressure is a part of every negotiation. We need to understand that when we are negotiating and when we are under pressure, our ability to make good decisions may be compromised. If we can realize this, then we can make sure that we take actions that will prevent us from making bad decisions. However, what we have to learn are safeguards we need to have in place when we make decisions under pressure.

Always Think Ahead

When a disaster looms, it is all too easy for negotiators to start to feel pressured to wrap up a deal as quickly as possible. We need to remember that speed is often the enemy of a sound, lasting deal, but several safeguards can protect us the next time we negotiate. The first is to take the time to think multiple steps ahead every time we negotiate. It’s very common for negotiators to be so focused on signing a deal that they overlook the long-term challenges of implementation. This pitfall is all the more dangerous when we are involved in crisis negotiations, where parties often feel desperate to reach a deal at any cost, and quickly.

When we engage in this type of short-term thinking it will often limit us from considering the various eventualities that could unfold down the line. If negotiators can think several steps ahead, we might anticipate the possibility that a draft agreement could result in various parties getting a raw deal down the road. Diagramming potential outcomes with a decision tree is one way negotiators can bring long-range outcomes into focus. Negotiators can encourage farsighted thinking in others by (1) having negotiators articulate how their proposed contracts advance the organization’s long-term interests and (2) linking financial bonuses to progress during the early years of deal implementation rather than offering rewards for closing the deal. Finally, by adding an “if, then” contingency to a deal, both sides can agree to disagree by building incentives and penalties into the contract based on their differing predictions of the future.

Slow Things Down

Negotiators need to learn how to take a slower pace during a negotiation. In the midst of a crisis, we may feel that we have a duty to work at lightning speed in an effort to contain the situation. Yet even as we approach the problem with intensity and a sense of urgency, there is value in working methodically. An extreme form of crisis negotiation would be hostage standoffs. In these situations the perpetrators tend to be people who have “snapped” because of a personal crisis and taken hostages on impulse. These is a good chance that they are likely to be in a volatile emotional state when the crisis begins, but their rage tends to subside as time passes. Consequently, hostage negotiators view time as their most valuable tool – and they try to stall for as long as they can. Once they are freed from deadlines, the authorities try to gradually earn the hostage taker’s trust and encourage him to surrender.

Make Sure That You Monitor The Deal-Drafting Process.

After engaging in a complex negotiation process, negotiators are often happy to pass off the technicalities of deal drafting to their attorneys. Unfortunately, this handoff can be prone to errors. Deals that contain vague, contradictory, and missing deal terms are not uncommon, and they can lead to serious problems during the implementation stage. Such mistakes and oversights often arise when rushed or inexperienced lawyers start working from a prior contract in their files and fail to make sufficient changes to boilerplate language for the new deal. In addition, negotiators often fail to adequately communicate the motivations and intentions of their deal to their lawyers, and this can result in even more misunderstandings. These errors are all the more common when negotiators and their attorneys are under pressure to try to wrap up a deal quickly.

The good news is that there are at least three ways to avoid such mistakes when you negotiate. First, you need to be sure to communicate the motivations behind your deal to your legal team. This step can keep your lawyers from having to guess your intentions and thus could save you both time and money in the long run. Second, you need to resist the common tendency to merely glance over deal documents and file them away. Instead, you must read them through carefully – including drafts and memos – in order to determine whether they accurately reflect the negotiated terms as you understand them. Finally, set up a time for your lawyers to read the deal back to you in plain English, free of any legal jargon. Ask them questions about any potential ambiguities, and “stress test” any hypothetical scenarios that could arise.

What All Of This Means For You

Pressure is a part of every negotiators life. When we are engaged in a negotiation, we will always be under pressure. What this means for us is that we need to realize that we are dealing with pressure. We have to understand that how we go about making decisions when we are under pressure may be different than how we normally do it. With this realization, we can take steps to make sure that we make good decisions when we are under pressure.

During a high-stakes negotiation, we need to make sure that we always take the time to think ahead. We can diagram potential outcomes with a decision tree in order to investigate what our possible options are. During a negotiation, in order to make better decisions, we can always slow things down. Hostage negotiators use this technique. When the deal has been struck, our job is not done. We need to take the time to monitor the deal drafting process.

There is nothing that we can do about pressure. It is simply a part of the negotiating process. However, if we realize that we are operating under pressure we can be aware that it may impact how we go about making decisions. With this knowledge we can make changes to our decision making process in order to ensure that we won’t be making any decisions that we’ll end up regretting later on.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: What’s the best way to cause a negotiation to slow down?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

I think that we can all agree that any negotiation can become fairly emotional at times. There is always the possibility that you may end up doing or saying something that you will later on regret. If this does happen, should you tell the other side that you are sorry? If they do something that offends you, should they tell you that they are sorry? If they do, should you forgive them? For that matter, what role should forgiveness play in any negotiation?

If you want your next negotiation to turn out successfully, you are going to have to be willing to make an investment into it. What you are going to have to do is to find a way to build trust. Trust is something that is critical to any agreement that you will be able to reach with the other side. Your challenge is that we often don’t start a negotiation with a great deal of trust on either side. Trust has to be built. How can we make this happen?

The Power Of Trust

As negotiators we understand that trust in negotiations can develop naturally over time, but we rarely have the luxury of letting nature take its course. Thus it sometimes seems easiest for us to play it safe with cautious deals involving few tradeoffs, few concessions, and little information sharing between parties. However, avoiding risk can mean that we miss out on significant opportunities. For this reason, taking the time to foster trust on the fly is a critical skill for negotiators. The first step to inspiring trust in the other side during negotiations is to demonstrate your trustworthiness. What we need to know are the strategies that that will allow us to influence others’ perceptions of our trustworthiness at the bargaining table.

Speak The Language Of The Other Side

It’s important for negotiators to speak the other side’s language. This principle goes beyond understanding things like technical terms and lingo. It also means catching the nuances and cultural implications behind what’s being said by the other side, and noticing how they use words to convey their ideas. By taking the time to understand the other party’s history, culture, and perspective, you have the ability to send the message that you’re committed to both the negotiation and to the relationship with them. This is an integral step in trust building. This fluency also signals that you are ready to follow through on your negotiated settlement.

Manage your Reputation In Order To Gain Trust

Guess what – in a negotiation, just like all aspects of life, your reputation will precede you. Your bad reputation can be a deal killer from the start, while your great one can help transcend an impasse. Effective negotiators realize that their reputation is not just a backdrop but rather is a tool. How can you go about making your reputation a factor in negotiation? One way is that you might provide references from mutually trusted third parties that vouch for your character and competence. If appropriate, this third party could communicate with the other side prior to the negotiation or even serve as an intermediary during it. Additionally, you can also offer other forms of evidence of past success in similar relationships, perhaps such as media or trade reports.

You Can Make Dependence A Factor In Order To Gain Trust

The more dependent you become on someone, the more willing you’ll be to have trust in negotiations with them. This phenomenon plays out to the extreme in what is called the Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages become so psychologically dependent on their captors that they will trust their captors’ statements and demands more than those of the officials who are attempting to negotiate for their release. During a negotiation we tend to cope with the psychological discomfort associated with any dependence by believing in the trustworthiness of those upon whom we depend. In negotiation, when both parties believe that they need each other to achieve their individual goals and that other options are limited, the good news is that trust between parties will increase. As a negotiator, you can trigger this trust-building process by highlighting the unique benefits that you have the ability to provide and by emphasizing the damage that might result from any impasse. This technique can be particularly useful when a stalemate looms large and alternatives to agreement appear to be either painful or costly. In such situations, a negotiator who senses he has no other recourse may come to trust even someone that he may consider to be his “enemy.”

What All Of This Means For You

In any negotiation that we participate in, we always want to find a way to reach a deal with the other side. In order to make that happen, both sides are going to have to be able to trust each other. The problem that we face is that when we come to the negotiating table, there may not be a lot of trust between the different sides. This means that we need to understand how to go about building trust during a negotiation.

Trust can develop naturally during a negotiation; however, that can take time. As negotiators we will want to move things along quicker. We can make this happen by learning how to go about speaking the language of the other side. We need to understand that our reputation can often precede us into a negotiation and so it must be managed. If the other side does not have any other options, if they are dependent on you, then this is something that can help to build trust.

The good news is that trust is something that we can cause to grow in our next negotiation. With a good understanding of what is required in order to make the other side trust us, we can take the correct steps to allow trust to develop between us. Use the tips that we’ve discussed to build a bond of trust between all sides during your next negotiation.

– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills

Question For You: Do you think that there is any way to control what the other side thinks that your reputation is before a negotiation starts?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Pressure is a part of every negotiation. We need to understand that when we are negotiating and when we are under pressure, our ability to make good decisions may be compromised. If we can realize this, then we can make sure that we take actions that will prevent us from making bad decisions. However, what we have to learn are safeguards we need to have in place when we make decisions under pressure.