The Negotiating Table

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.