The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is.
Remember: “Yes” is nothing without “How.” So keep asking “How?
Why are they communicating what they are communicating right now?
They were the economist Amos Tversky and the psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Together, the two launched the field of behavioral economics – and Kahneman won a Nobel Prize – by showing that man is a very irrational beast. Feeling, they discovered, is a form of thinking.
No deal is better than a bad deal.
Ka-ching! Notice.
Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow.
We learned that negotiation was coaxing, not overcoming; co-opting, not defeating. Most important, we learned that successful negotiation involved getting your counterpart to do the work for you and suggest your solution himself. It involved giving him the illusion of control while you, in fact, were the one defining the conversation.
In a tough negotiation, it’s not enough to show the other party that you can deliver the thing they want. To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.
In theory, leverage is the ability to inflict loss and withhold gain. Where does your counterpart want to gain and what do they fear losing?
Let me let you in on a secret: people never even notice.
Even changing a single word when you present options – like using “not lose” instead of “keep” – can unconsciously influence the conscious choices your counterpart makes.
Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think – or are told – they will.
And being “nice” in the form of feigned sympathy is often equally as unsuccessful. We live in an age that celebrates niceness under various names. We are exhorted to be nice and to respect people’s feelings at all times and in every situation. But nice alone in the context of negotiation can backfire. Nice, employed as a ruse, is disingenuous and manipulative.
Compromise and concession, even to the truth, feels like defeat.
Mnookin, predictably, started fumbling because the frame of the conversation had shifted from how I’d respond to the threat of my son’s murder to how the professor would deal with the logistical issues involved in getting the money. How he would solve my problems. To every threat and demand he made, I continued to ask how I was supposed to pay him and how was I supposed to know that my son was alive.
Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.
But then I realized I did the same thing with my teenage son, and that after I’d said “No” to him, I often found that I was open to hearing what he had to say. That’s because having protected myself, I could relax and more easily consider the possibilities.
No” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo.
Prepare an Ackerman plan. Before you head into the weeds of bargaining, you’ll need a plan of extreme anchor, calibrated questions, and well-defined offers. Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on nonround numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.