The way we start a negotiation can have a profound impact on the outcome. Last week I was conducting an advanced negotiation workshop for a group of senior investment bankers in Singapore. One of the role plays positioned one of the parties at fault and in risk of breach of contract (let’s call them ‘Party A’), while the other party played the part of the wronged client (let’s call them ‘Party B’).
Party A tried to open the negotiation with a friendly tone however, Party B immediately shut them down and positioned themselves as the wronged party demanding resolution at Party A’s cost, compensation and threatening the risk of legal action if their demands were not met. Having witnessed this negotiation role play multiple times, even I was quite surprised how assertively Party B came out of the blocks!
What ensued was 15 minutes of high emotions from both sides with Party A trying to deflect some of the blame (“you didn’t respond to our emails”), and Party B becoming more animated and issuing more threats. Only when Party A admitted their fault and tried to calm the situation by suggesting an amicable resolution, did Party B start to calm down. Even then however, the tone of the conversation was not what either party had planned for during their pre-negotiation preparation.
During the post-negotiation group analysis, two valuable insights were gained:
(i) Party B disclosed that they had planned to use an assertive approach for the first 5 minutes only (what would be described as ‘competitive’ or ‘hard’ negotiation), then switch to a collaborative mode after that. This did not however work out how they planned (see discussion below!), and;
(ii) The fact that Party A tried to start the negotiation as if everything was fine had a major impact on the emotional response of Party B, contributing to the failure of their planned strategy mentioned in (i) above.
Emotions are difficult to control at the best of times. To plan starting a negotiation as an angry and aggrieved party is understandable, however to then expect to be able to switch to a more collaborative tone may not be as easy as you thought during the calm environment of pre-negotiation planning. In this case, the opening remarks and ongoing reaction of Party A caused Party B to become more competitive as the emotions rose. At no point in time before Party A admitted their fault, did Party B calm down enough to switch to a collaborative stance as they had planned during their pre-negotiation preparation.
Pre-negotiation preparation is critical. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” however, what happens during a negotiation can cause even the best prepared plans to fail. As was experienced in this role play, the impact of emotions in negotiation can lay waste to any amount of planning . It is therefore important to consider the impact of emotions and how you will address them in real time.
For this, I have two suggested strategies:
(i) Before entering negotiation, consider how you need to act if you want to achieve your objectives. Our emotions can swing wildly when challenged or threatened, however there is a ‘zone of control’ that we need to stay within if we are to manage the negotiation process effectively. If possible, write this down or at least write a trigger word that you can see and will remind you of where you need your emotions to be in order to maximise your chances of staying within the zone of control.
(ii) As suggested in the negotiation classic ‘Getting to Yes’ written in 1982 by Harvard professors Roger Fisher and William Ury, make emotions explicit and discuss them openly (and in a controlled manner) when they are at risk of damaging the negotiation. If Party A had said something like “You appear to be very upset and taking quite an aggressive approach towards us. We also want a resolution...” early on in the negotiation, it would have been interesting to observe the response...
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