07973 890 578 [email protected]www.billbritten.co.uk 511 liverpool road london n7 8ns 1 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND NEGOTIATION How can I make it as easy as possible for the other side to agree to what I want? This simple principle should drive everything you do and say in a negotiation. And emotional intelligence will be central to making this happen because emotions drive our decision-making and negotiations abound with them: anxiety, fear, relief, anger, gratitude and embarrassment to name but a few. In this paper I’ll explore the impact of emotion on negotiations, specifically looking at how you can a) recognise them and b) work with them. Firstly let’s look at the relationship between emotions and decisions. Most of us like to see ourselves as rational creatures, carefully using our intellects to work out the best strategy and then systematically, logically, executing it. But this is really a delusion. Most decisions are actually made on the basis of how we feel, or how we anticipate feeling, before we then seek rational justification for what we have already decided. At best we invite logic to have an advisory input, a bit like the way we might consult a friend, before allowing ‘gut feeling’ to make the executive decision. Advertisers – those masters of persuading us to buy things - have known this for years.
11
Embed
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND NEGOTIATION - bill britten · EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND NEGOTIATION How can I make it as easy as possible for the other side to agree to what I want? This
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
1) resolutely refusing to be the first to crack, believing the person who breaks an
uncomfortable silence will have ‘lost’
2) consciously breaking the silence and hoping this earns them some credit with
their opposite number.
(Actually there’s a third:
3) breaking the silence involuntarily because they just can’t stand it any longer - this
is usually the worst way to deal with an uncomfortable silence because it invites
the other side to take advantage of your accommodating nature.)
Returning to the first two options then, each will feel good to different personalities. But
despite how influential our emotions are, feeling good is not the thing that matters here.
More important is that central principle I opened with: how can I make it as easy as possible for the other side to agree to what I want? And both tactics have their
drawbacks.
The first runs the risk of turning the moment into an
epic struggle between two alphas battling for
dominance, in which case you’re locked into the “I’m
right, you’re wrong” dynamic which benefits no one.
The second is a slightly stronger version of the third
and sometimes it, too, weakens the negotiator by
revealing a desire for harmony that can be exploited by an unscrupulous opposite
To deal effectively with these moments of silence then, two skills are needed, both of
which take practice.
The first is the ability either to hold your ground and live with these moments of
discomfort or to break them in a way that does not suggest weakness.
The second is the judgement to know which to use. And for that, understanding the
emotional dynamic is key.
POSITIVE EMOTIONAL DYNAMICS
If there are unhelpful dynamics to be avoided, what are the dynamics that can smooth
the path to a good deal? Back once more to the central aim of a negotiation: how can I make it as easy as possible for the other side to agree to what I want?
In terms of the emotional dynamic, this means firstly removing obstacles for your
opposite number and communicating a genuine wish to see them happy with the deal.
In the case of the man who’s under pressure to be tough, for example, if you focus on
creating something that will make him look good when he returns to the office, he is far
more likely to agree to a deal. And in so doing it’s very likely there will be elements of
great value to you that he’s happy to concede.
Anything that makes the other side angry or frustrated or suspicious makes them less
likely to agree to your proposal. Putting effort into working out what they want and then
doing your best to accommodate them will usually be far more effective than