I am sorry to report that many negotiation “experts” you’ve been listening to have not been telling you the truth.
Through their classes, books and social media, academics and consultants have been claiming that negotiation is a science; that if you do this, then that happens. They will suggest that you don’t need emotions to close a deal, and in fact you should avoid emotion. Oh, and that AI is the negotiation tool of the future.
Nope. Nope. And… Nope!
Here’s the reality of negotiation: it’s messy. And by “messy” I don’t mean sloppy and all over the place. I mean it is not quantifiable, constant or predictable. Why is it so messy? Because negotiation is about people talking to people to get something they want. And no one knows what’s going to happen! The process, then, is loaded with feelings of desire and fear of embarrassment.
What you can do is manage the emotion. In fact, a skilled negotiator not only manages the emotion in the room, they influence it. Experienced negotiators know the most important single truth there is about negotiation: the outcome is based on decisions made by people, and those decisions are based on feelings and emotions. To get the decision you want, you need to influence the other party’s feelings so they will say “yes.” And the only time someone will ever say “yes” to a proposal is if they have trust that this is a good decision. “Trust” is a feeling you must generate in another person, and that can only be done by navigating emotions, yours and theirs.
So forget that stuff about “no emotion.” You’re gonna feel something, they’re gonna feel something, and, if you handle it well, you’ll get a “yes.”
This is what it means to “run the room.” To understand and strategize on the goals of everyone with a stake in the negotiation to move them all away from “no” and toward “yes.” No tactic or trick will get you there. You have to get knee-deep in the emotions and work your way to decisions. That decision may be to do a deal, or that may be to not do a deal. Success in negotiation is not about getting a deal done. Success is about gathering information to make good decisions. More to come on the “how” of influencing others’ emotions. Stay tuned…
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