Beyond Reason

by Roger Fisher

  They can damage a relationship. Unbridled emotions may be desirable when falling in love. But in a negotiation, they reduce your ability to act wisely. Strong emotions can overshadow your thinking, leaving you at risk of damaging your relationship. In anger, you may interrupt the long-winded comments of a colleague who was just about to suggest an agreement workable for both of you. And in resentment, he may retaliate by remaining silent the next time you need his support.

  They can be used to exploit you. If you flinch at another negotiator’s proposal or hesitate before telling them* your interests, these observable reactions offer clues about your “true” concerns and vulnerabilities. Careful observers of your emotional reaction may learn how much you value proposals, issues, and your relationship with them. They may use that information to exploit you.

  If those are possible results of emotions, it is not surprising that a negotiator is often advised to avoid them altogether.

  EMOTIONS CAN BE A GREAT ASSET

  Although emotions are often thought of as obstacles to a negotiation—and certainly can be—they can also be a great asset. They can help us achieve our negotiating purpose, whether to find creative ways to satisfy interests or to improve a rocky relationship.

  President Carter used the power of emotions during the historic peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt. He invited Israel’s Prime Minister, Menachim Begin, and Egypt’s President, Anwar Sadat, to Camp David. His goal was to help the two leaders negotiate a peace agreement. After thirteen long days, the negotiation process was breaking down. The Israelis saw little prospect for reaching agreement.

  By this time, Carter had invested a lot of time and energy in the peace process. He could easily have expressed frustration, perhaps approaching Begin with a warning to accept his latest proposal “or else.” But an adversarial approach might have caused Begin to abandon the negotiation process completely. It would also have risked damaging the personal relationship between the two leaders.

  Instead, Carter made a gesture that had a significant emotional impact. Begin had asked for autographed pictures of Carter, Sadat, and himself to give to his grandchildren. Carter personalized each picture with the name of a Begin grandchild. During the stalemate in talks, Carter handed Begin the photographs. Begin saw his granddaughter’s name on the top photograph and spoke her name aloud. His lips trembled. He shuffled through the photographs and said each grandchild’s name. He and Carter talked quietly about grandchildren and about war. This was a turning point in the negotiation. Later that day, Begin, Sadat, and Carter signed the Camp David Accord.

  The open discussion between Carter and Begin could not have happened if there were a poor relationship between them. Begin talked to Carter about difficult issues without resisting or walking out. The groundwork of positive emotions allowed nonthreatening conversation about serious differences.

  This groundwork did not just “happen.” It took work. Honest work. Carter and Begin began to establish rapport at their first meeting more than a year prior to the negotiation. They met at the White House, where Carter invited the Prime Minister for an open, private discussion about the Mideast conflict. Months later, Carter and his wife invited Begin and his wife to a private dinner, where they talked about their personal lives, including the murder of Begin’s parents and his only brother in the Holocaust. Later, during the Camp David negotiation, Carter demonstrated that he was looking out for each party’s welfare. For example, before Begin met with Sadat for the first time at Camp David, Carter alerted Begin that Sadat would present an aggressive proposal; he cautioned Begin not to overreact.

  Carter did not want the negotiation to fail, nor did Begin or Sadat. Everyone had an interest in “winning.” And positive emotions between Carter and each leader helped to move the negotiation forward.

  In an international or everyday negotiation, positive emotions can be essential. They can benefit you in three important ways.

  Positive emotions can make it easier to meet substantive interests. Positive emotions toward the other person reduce fear and suspicion, changing your relationship from adversaries to colleagues. As you work side by side on your problems, you become less guarded. You can try out new ideas without the fear of being taken advantage of.

  With positive emotions, you are motivated to do more. Things get done more efficiently as you and others work jointly and with increased emotional commitment. You are more open to listening and more open to learning about the other party’s interests, making a mutually satisfying outcome within your reach. As a result, your agreement is more likely to be stable over time.

  Positive emotions can enhance a relationship. Positive emotions can provide you with the intrinsic enjoyment that comes from a person-to-person interaction. You can enjoy the experience of negotiating and the personal benefits of camaraderie. You can talk comfortably without the fear of getting sidetracked by a personal attack.

  That same camaraderie can act as a safety net. It can allow you to disagree with others, knowing that even if things get tense, each of you will be there tomorrow to deal with things.

  Positive emotions need not increase your risk of being exploited. Although positive emotions may help you produce a mutually satisfying agreement, there is a danger that you may feel so comfortable that you make unwise concessions or act with overconfidence. Our advice is not to inhibit positive emotions but rather to check with your head and your gut before making decisions. Before committing to an agreement, check that it satisfies your interests. Draw on standards of fairness. Know each person’s alternative to a negotiated agreement, and use that information wisely.

  Table 1, which follows, contrasts the effect of positive and negative emotions on a negotiation. This table illustrates the effect of emotions on seven key elements of the negotiation process that are described on page 207.

  DEALING WITH EMOTIONS:

  THREE APPROACHES THAT DON’T WORK

  Despite knowing that emotions can harm or help a negotiation, we still have little guidance on how to deal with them. How can we reap their benefits? It is sometimes suggested that negotiators: Stop having emotions; ignore them; or deal directly with them. None of those suggestions helps.

  Stop Having Emotions? You Can’t.

  You cannot stop having emotions any more than you can stop having thoughts. At all times you are feeling some degree of happiness or sadness, enthusiasm or frustration, isolation or engagement, pain or pleasure. You cannot turn emotions on and off like a light switch.

  TABLE 1

  SOME FREQUENT EFFECTS OF EMOTIONS

  Elements of Negotiation Negative Emotions Tend to Foster: Positive Emotions Tend to Foster:

  Relationship A tense relationship filled with distrust A cooperative working relationship

  Communication Communication that is limited and confrontational Open, easy, two-way communication

  Interests Ignoring interests; clinging to an extreme demand; conceding stubbornly if at all Listening and learning about each other’s concerns and wants

  Options Two options: our position or theirs Creating a lot of possible options that might accommodate some interests of each

  Doubts that options for mutual gain are possible Optimism that with hard work mutually beneficial options can be created

  Legitimacy A battle of wills over why we are right and they are wrong Use of criteria that should be persuasive to both why one option is fairer than another

  Fear of being “taken” A sense of fairness

  BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) Walking away from a possible agreement even if our BATNA is worse Commitment to the best we can get, as long as it is better than our BATNA

  Commitments No agreement,
or commitments that are unclear or unworkable Well-drafted obligations that are clear, operational, and realistic

  Regret for making (or not making) the agreement Contentment, support, and advocacy for the agreement

  Consider the experience of “Michele,” a researcher who was just offered a job at a big pharmaceutical company. She was initially excited about her compensation—until she discovered that two other recent hires had been offered higher initial salaries. She was upset and confused. From her point of view, her qualifications far outshone theirs.

  Michele decided to negotiate for a higher salary. When asked what her negotiation strategy was, she said, “I plan to negotiate ‘rationally.’ I’m not going to let emotions enter into our conversation. I just want to ‘talk numbers.’” She tried to persuade a company executive that if others of equal caliber received a higher salary, she deserved a similar compensation. Good, principled approach. Unfortunately, the negotiation did not go well. Her emotions failed to stop during the negotiation, even though she presumed she had them under control.

  As Michele recalls: “The tone of my voice was more abrasive than usual. I didn’t want it to be that way. But it was. I felt upset that the company was trying to hire me for less money than the other two new hires. The company’s negotiator interpreted my statements as demands. I was surprised when the negotiator said that he refused to be arm twisted into giving a salary raise to anyone, let alone a new hire. I wasn’t trying to coerce him into a salary raise. But my emotions just didn’t switch off the way I had hoped.”

  In most circumstances, negotiators would be foolish to turn off emotions even if they could. Stopping emotions would make your job harder, not easier. Emotions convey information to you about the relative importance of your concerns. They focus you on those things about which you care personally, such as respect or job security. You also learn what is important to the other side. If the other person communicates an interest with great enthusiasm, you might assume that that interest is important. Rather than spend days trying to understand the other side’s interests and priorities, you can save time and energy by learning what you can from their emotions.

  Ignore Emotions? It Won’t Work.

  You ignore emotions at your peril. Emotions are always present and often affect your experience. You may try to ignore them, but they will not ignore you. In a negotiation, you may be only marginally aware of the important ways that emotions influence your body, your thinking, and your behavior.

  Emotions affect your body. Emotions can have an immediate impact on your physiology, causing you to perspire, to blush, to laugh, or to feel butterflies in your stomach. After you feel an emotion, you might try to control the expression of that emotion. You might hold back from a smile of excitement or from crying in disappointment. But your body still experiences physiological changes. And suppressing the emotion comes at a cost. A suppressed emotion continues to affect your body. Whether an emotion is negative or positive, internal stress can distract your attention. Trying to suppress that emotion can make it harder to concentrate on substantive issues.

  Emotions affect your thinking. When you feel disappointment or anger, your head clogs with negative thoughts. You may criticize yourself or blame others. Negative thinking crowds out space in your brain for learning, thinking, and remembering. In fact, some negotiators become so wrapped up in their own negative emotions and thoughts that they fail to hear their counterpart make an important concession.

  When you feel positive emotions, in contrast, your thoughts often center on what is right about you, others, or ideas. With little anxiety that you will be exploited, your thinking becomes more open, creative, and flexible. You become inclined not to reject ideas but to invent workable options.

  Emotions affect your behavior. Virtually every emotion you feel motivates you to take action. If you are exuberant, you may feel a physical impulse to hug the other side. If you are angry, you may feel like hitting them.

  Usually you can stop yourself before you perform a regrettable action. When you feel a strong emotion, however, careful thinking lags behind, and you may feel powerless to your emotion. In such moments, your ability to censor your thoughts or reflect on possible action is severely limited. You may find yourself saying or doing things that you later regret.

  Deal Directly with Emotions? A Complicated Task.

  Negotiators are often advised to become aware of emotions—both their own and those of others—and to deal directly with those emotions. Some people are naturally talented at dealing directly with emotions, and most can improve their ability. If a negotiator habitually gets angry, for example, he or she can learn helpful skills to recognize and manage that anger.

  Yet even for a trained psychologist or psychiatrist, it is a daunting proposition to deal directly with every emotion as it happens in oneself and others. And trying to deal directly with emotions is particularly challenging when negotiating, where you also need to spend time thinking about each person’s differing views on substantive issues and the process for working together. It can feel as though you are trying to ride a bicycle while juggling and talking on a cell phone.

  Dealing directly with every emotion as it happens would keep you very busy. As you negotiate, you would have to look for evidence of emotions in yourself and in others. Are you sweating? Are their arms crossed? You would have to infer the many specific emotions taking place in you and in them. (Look through the list of emotion words in Table 2 on page 13 and think how long it takes simply to read through that list, let alone to correctly identify which emotions you and others are feeling.) You would have to make informed guesses about the apparent causes, which may be multiple and unclear. Is the other person upset because of something you said—or because of a fight with a family member this morning?

  You would have to decide how to behave, then behave that way, and then notice the emotional impact of that behavior on yourself and on the other person. If the resulting emotions are negative and strong, there is a great risk that each person’s emotions will quickly escalate.

  TABLE 2

  EMOTION WORDS

  Positive Emotions Negative Emotions

  Excited Guilty

  Glad Ashamed

  Amused Humiliated

  Enthusiastic Embarrassed

  Cheerful Regretful

  Jovial

  Delighted Envious

  Ecstatic Jealous

  Disgusted

  Proud Resentful

  Gratified Contemptuous

  Happy

  Jubilant Impatient

  Thrilled Irritated

  Overjoyed Angry

  Elated Furious

  Outraged

  Relieved

  Comforted Intimidated

  Content Worried

  Relaxed Surprised

  Patient Fearful

  Tranquil Panicked

  Calm Horrified

  Hopeful Sad

  In awe Hopeless

  Wonder Miserable

  Devastated

  Emotions are usually contagious. Even if your emotions change from frustration to active interest, the other person is likely to be reacting still to your indignant behavior of a few minutes ago. The impact of a negative emotion lingers long after it has passed. The stronger and more troublesome the emotion, the greater the risk that both of you will lose control.

  Thus comes the question to which this book is directed: How should a negotiator cope with the interacting, important, and
ever-changing emotions of each side? Given that we cannot realistically be expected to observe, understand, and deal directly with these emotions as they occur, must we simply react as best we can?

  AN ALTERNATIVE: FOCUS ON CORE CONCERNS

  This book offers negotiators—and that means everyone—a powerful framework for dealing with emotions. Whether or not you acknowledge emotions, they will have an impact on your negotiation. As the following chapters suggest, you can avoid reacting to scores of constantly changing emotions and turn your attention to five core concerns that are responsible for many, if not most, emotions in a negotiation. These core concerns lie at the heart of many emotional challenges when you negotiate. Rather than feeling powerless in the face of emotions, you will be able to stimulate positive emotions and overcome negative ones.

  CHAPTER 2

  Address the Concern,

  Not the Emotion

  Rather than getting caught up in every emotion you and others are feeling, turn your attention to what generates these emotions.

  Core concerns are human wants that are important to almost everyone in virtually every negotiation. They are often unspoken but are no less real than our tangible interests. Even experienced negotiators are often unaware of the many ways in which these concerns motivate their decisions.

  Core concerns offer you a powerful framework to deal with emotions without getting overwhelmed by them. This chapter provides an overview of how to use them.

  FIVE CORE CONCERNS STIMULATE MANY EMOTIONS

  Five concerns stimulate, for better or worse, a great many emotions that arise in a negotiation. These core concerns are appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role.

  When you deal effectively with these concerns, you can stimulate positive emotions both in yourself and in others. Because everyone has these concerns, you can immediately utilize them to stimulate positive emotions. This is true even if you are meeting someone for the first time. You reap the benefits of positive emotions without having to observe, label, and diagnose the scores of ever-changing emotions in yourself and others.