Choose Communication Tools Carefully
How do we communicate? There are a great many decisions to make. We tend to make our communication choices subconsciously when negotiating; a path to improved practice is to give them great thought and make our choices purposefully. Which communication methods and preferences are going to make a good outcome more likely?
I am always amazed when I surreptitiously observe students from other countries negotiate the cases we use for practice at Wharton. Which language will they choose to speak in? Particularly fascinating is the decision to use English in situations where the two negotiators share a different first language. For example, why wouldn’t two Korean students conduct the case in Korean? Is it a conscious choice or just habit that flows from having spoken English in class for weeks? Did they consider which language choice would serve them best? Would working in Korean advantage one more than the other? Or is it merely so that I, their instructor, can understand?
By analogy, a craftsman should use the best tool for the job at hand. The proper wrench or saw or plane will surely result in a better work outcome—even if it means a trip out to the truck to get the correct device.
Should you negotiate face-to-face or use a more convenient or anonymous method? While there is no single correct one-size-fits-all answer, we may have some default preferences. The telephone offers great convenience at the cost of losing face-to-face cues and nonverbal messaging. In recent years, I’ve noticed more and more negotiation being done by e-mail. This takes away the advantages of voice as well as face-to-face. On occasion, I am now engaged in bargaining with companies where I suspect that no human being is involved—that the partner on the other end is a computer or some sort of bot. Such situations do not make me too happy. The question that serves as a starting point for what medium to use is an old one. What are you trying to accomplish? Then you must examine which communication methods are most likely to assist you in that attempt.
If part of your plan is to win over the other person with your warmth and charm, do not try to do it over e-mail. While in-person negotiation techniques have much to offer, it can be very inefficient when compared with the ease and time savings of telephony or Internet-based communication. So, as with many other things in life, we must make a cost-benefit analysis. If the stakes are small or the results unimportant, we may choose ease instead of opting for the most effective method. Of course, it warrants some examination of just how much less effective the easy way is. Don’t give up too much advantage just because you feel lazy. On the other hand, where the stakes are important or we deeply value our connection to the people involved, it may be worth the effort to choose the absolutely best communication medium for getting the job done right.
Work to Create the Atmosphere You Want
What kind of tone and atmosphere do you want to establish in any given negotiation? There are a hundred choices, but each one will subtly affect what happens between the parties. For example, bargaining with neighbors over property borders could call for a warm tone and being conducted over chocolate chip cookies. The sorority meeting to address everyone’s negligent failure to do their chores might benefit from a more sober tone, and a decision to refrain from serving drinks might help. Official diplomatic negotiations are often held in highly stylized ways to set a serious and formal tone. A meeting of the Teamsters Union bargaining team with railroad management is often stylized as well and for the same reason: to set a particular tone. But that tone is quite different from the one at the United Nations. The recruiters coming to campus in an attempt to recruit our best students to their multinational companies set one kind of tone. My wife and I set a very different one when interviewing potential babysitters. The important message here is that there is great value in considering what tone a negotiator wishes to establish and then taking a series of ongoing actions to make it happen. The mistake a negotiator must avoid is to simply figure that the tone will somehow take care of itself. Be purposeful.
We send all kinds of messages through our speech and written words. Most of us realize, though, that we also send a plethora of messages through nonverbal means. Our bodies speak, our actions speak, and even our absences tell a story. Eyes and haircuts and torsos and feet and clothing all send cues to those around us. So do furniture and automobiles and gift-wrapping and jars of jellybeans. Khrushchev even took off his shoe and pounded it against the desk.3 Pay attention and send messages consistent with what you want your partners to receive. Be very careful that your nonverbal messages do not contradict the verbal ones you have planned so carefully.
Whatever messages we want them to get, it is our job to make sure that they get them: that they receive the message and they understand it in full. Lots of effort should be put into making sure that the sending and receiving you intended actually succeed. Some funny or outrageous examples may help make this point. Beach-going consumers can be better messaged by a sign pulled behind an airplane than through paper flyers. A scorned wife lets her husband know that she will shame him for his infidelities on a center city billboard. A number of Ivy League college hopefuls have sent their applications by balloon or carrier pigeon. This may be a great strategy if the message conveyed consistently through the application is “I’m creative.” On the other hand, if the applicant’s strong point is rigorous academic analysis, the balloon thing may fall flat. Furthermore, if it is the third balloon application this week, it may not strike the admissions committee as all that creative. Even in more everyday situations, good negotiators plan their communication with message reception in mind.
Focus on What You Want to Tell Them—and How
An important threshold question in most negotiations revolves around how much openness or withholding there will be. As discussed elsewhere, there are tremendous strategic considerations to how much information you will share and how much should be carefully guarded. As a communication matter, though, careful consideration should be given to how the decisions in this area will be implemented. How will you let them know what you want them to know? In what way will you make sure that they are sharing important information in return? No negotiator wants to be in the position of telling everything and learning nothing. How to ensure information give-and-take is essential. Careful planning around saying what you want to say, not releasing that which you intend to keep secret, and learning all you can from the other side is worth a great deal of effort.
What is it that we want to communicate to those we are negotiating with? Probably we want them to understand a great deal of substance: prices, terms, bottom lines, parameters, specifications, and on and on. Also, we want them to appreciate our needs, interests, goals, and limitations. Beyond those things, though, a skilled negotiator will wish to get across a great deal more. As we study the subject of negotiation, we become versed in a great many ways that we wish to negotiate. Techniques, cautions, methods, and areas of concern are all things that we want not only to execute but also to communicate to our partners.
Here are some examples. Do we want to be soft on the people and hard on the problem?4 We should let them know about that intention. Will we separate inventing from deciding?5 We need them to join us in that effort. Will we refuse to bargain based on any metrics other than fairness? If so, we want them to know it. Is it our plan to meet relationship problems with relationship tools but solve substantive disagreements only with substantive tools, as G. Richard Shell urges?6 Surely we want them to be fully informed of that intention. And perhaps most important, are we open to reason? Can they persuade us? If so, what kinds of arguments will we be receptive to and which we will reject outright? These are things we need them to know fully and clearly.
Use Active Listening Techniques
Your communication, and therefore your results, will be better if you continuously strive for improvement. You should be constantly monitoring your communication efforts for purpose and effectiveness. Are they hearing all you want them to hear? Do they understand? As fully as might be po
ssible? What might you do to improve the interaction? The very best negotiators use the techniques of active listening more than do average bargainers. In particular, they ask far more questions and test for understanding by summing up and getting confirmation. You will frequently hear such an expert say something like “What I understand you to be saying is . . .” and then asking you, “Do I have that right?” Such active listening techniques can go a long way toward minimizing misunderstandings and reinforcing effective communication.
Communication failures can cost us dearly even in situations where all our intentions were good. Consider O. Henry’s well-loved story “The Gift of the Magi.” A poor young couple approach Christmas, each resolved to buy the other a meaningful gift. Each is determined that the special gift will be a surprise. Della sells the only thing of value she has, her long, beautiful hair, to pay for a platinum fob chain for Jim’s prized possession, his pocket watch. At the same time, though, Jim sells his watch to afford jeweled combs for Della’s hair. The symmetry of their bad outcome is almost perfect.
I have come to the conclusion, after several decades of study, that misunderstanding and miscommunication are actually the biggest places where negotiations go wrong. Confusion, misinterpretation, mistrust, language problems, errors, mix-ups, double meanings, and failure to fully understand one another are where things go awry the most. Thus, they form the area with the greatest potential for improving negotiation outcomes. If we can communicate more effectively, we can get better outcomes. And, of course, the good feelings that flow from such better outcomes can facilitate even better communication in the future.
Good Negotiating Process
In addition to communicating effectively, negotiators are interacting with each other in an ongoing and continuously changing process. The means and methods by which we interact in the negotiation invariably play a tremendous role in what ends up occurring and what outcome results. As a mindful and careful negotiator, you want to plan the process with a sharp eye on what kinds of interactions are going to lead to the best results for you.
There is a tremendous amount going on between the parties to a negotiation every time they interact. This is amplified when they are meeting together. A very incomplete list of issues includes the method of conversation, choice of language, ways of presenting and receiving data, positioning in the room, nonverbal messaging, gender dynamics, eye contact, and seating arrangements. In a one-on-one negotiation, the number of such issues is huge. As we begin to add the complexity of other parties, the number of things to pay attention to can become staggering.
Be Aware of the Power Dynamics—and Consider Changing Them
Consider the extremely important matter of personal power dynamics. In most human interactions, one person is given or takes more of the authority and control over the interaction. Sometimes this is a natural consequence of people’s roles, such as a parent’s superiority to a child. In some cases, this is the result of social structures: When you are introduced to the president or the queen, you automatically act deferentially. There are many situations, though, where the question of power gets resolved by one party simply being aggressive and seizing control.
To teach these ideas to my students, I use the classroom dynamic itself as a demonstration model. Where does the power reside in a university classroom and why? As professor, I usually possess overwhelming power and authority in the room. Let’s think about how this comes to be. My students almost invariably defer to me. I have great power over them because I give them grades. But they also give me authority because the university has told them that they should. They think me knowledgeable without really checking that out because the entire university system sends them consistent messages that this is so. They tend to believe I am always right, in part because they are spending an astronomical amount of money to learn from me. Were I to be wrong, or full of bull, it would create massive cognitive dissonance and suggest that they have made a terrible mistake in their choice of spending, time and effort applied, school, and general direction in life. Unless I do something terrible, they will continue to grant me extraordinary authority, respect, and deference.
Consider, too, the physical setup in the classroom. I stand at the front of the class, and they all sit (metaphorically) at my feet. I control the information flows in the room: blackboards, screens, computers, and handouts. I set the agenda of what will be discussed, and I call on them to speak. On the other hand, I talk when I wish and cut them off as I deem necessary. I roam the room as I teach; directing their attention where I think it will best enhance learning. I make all the rules. I can even dismiss someone from the room, and, I am sure, they will leave without protest. In the classroom, the professor is pretty much a king.
I am not criticizing the power structure of the classroom. Not only do I enjoy its fruits, but, more seriously, I recognize it as being constituted and implemented to advance a worthwhile cause. Indeed, we could imagine a university president defending all that goes on at her college by pointing out the wonderful good outcomes of successfully educating younger people. And I would agree. I teach about these structures not to urge students to rebel against them but to notice and be fully aware of them. Where they lead to best outcomes, they can be observed and then followed. On the other hand, the world is also full of power dynamics put in place to serve less admirable goals or simply to advance one person’s or organization’s agenda. In such circumstances, passive acceptance is a mistake. Good negotiators are well advised to ask whether the power structures and processes in current use are the best ones to advance our goal of reaching a best possible outcome.
Where the process in place is neither a necessary consequence of larger roles and relationships (such as deferring to a government official) nor a good one for advancing a negotiator’s interests, you should not accept it. In plain English, as a good negotiator, you should try to change it to your own advantage.
Who controls the conversation?
Is one person treated deferentially or as having authority?
Where do the discussions take place?
Are you going to play dirty tricks (example: one chair high above the other), and how are you going to react to such tricks if used against you?
What interpersonal atmosphere do you want to create (friendly, businesslike, mildly intimate, standoffish, cautious, gung ho)?
Should food or recreation play a role (restaurant, golf)? If it does, who gets advantage from that?
Who controls the data presentation (controlling the blackboard)?
Plan a Process That Will Lead to Good Outcomes
Clearly, part of good negotiation practice is considering in depth the kind of process that is going to lead to a good outcome. Thereafter, you should implement a plan and take a series of actions to maximize the possibility of establishing that process.
You can be guided in thinking about process issues by the old journalists’ guideline of who, what, when, where, why, and how. To these I would add tone, pace, and atmosphere.
In one of the books that followed from the initial success at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Getting Together, Fisher and Brown instruct the reader on how to create a relationship that can deal well with differences.7 They suggest that a negotiator learn how the other side sees things. Thereafter, they suggest that the parties negotiate side-by-side, the idea being that a process in which the parties work together, as teammates, to solve the problem of finding an outcome good for all involved is a superior process. Consider how different it might feel from the more traditional procedure of sitting across the table from each other as adversaries.
Fisher and Brown go on to recommend that negotiators always consult before deciding8—and listen carefully to the response that such consultation brings. Letting the other side know what you are going to do, before you do it, is a wise practice. Don’t present them with an unpleasant surprise that it is too late to undo. Rather, be up front about your alternatives and what they should expect. Then pay close a
ttention as they respond. You are simultaneously building the relationship while working through the specific negotiation problem. Paying close attention to what—and how—they are communicating with you is important to both.
In their recommendation that a negotiator be “wholly trustworthy but not wholly trusting,”9 Fisher and Brown are coming down strongly on the side of creating a process that is honest and forthright. Some negotiators believe that a certain amount of puffery, bluffing, and misleading is acceptable as long as all bargainers are aware of and playing by the same rules. Although such a process is common and can work, it may be inferior to establishing right up front the expectation of reliability and honest communication. Of course, as Fisher and Brown remind us, the mere fact that we have insisted on forthrightness, and unwaveringly offered it, does not mean we should entirely trust the other parties. We do not want to fall victim to their failure to follow through on an agreed-upon process. Neither, though, do we want them to find us less than completely reliable.
As with other aspects of negotiation, the most important thing with regard to process is to be purposeful. Plan for it, notice it, and try to influence it in the direction that will best serve you. Consider being open and forthright in discussing with your partners the kind of process you seek. Do not, however, ignore it or assume that it will somehow work out fine without your serious efforts to steer it in the best direction.
Negotiating Your Investments Page 6