Beyond Reason

by Roger Fisher

  Conclusion

  We all have emotions all the time. Yet during a negotiation we have so many things to think about that we give little or no thought to emotions. We become so busy thinking that we let our emotions take care of themselves.

  Most negotiators treat emotions as an obstacle to clear, rational thought. As a result, we do not realize the opportunity afforded by positive emotions. Although the Declaration of Independence emphasizes the “pursuit of happiness,” there seems to be remarkably little organized common sense about that pursuit.

  If we disagree with someone, how can we interact in ways that stimulate positive emotions in both of us? It is against this background that our book advances two big propositions:

  First, take the initiative. If you are dealing with someone with whom you disagree, don’t wait for emotions to happen and then react.

  Second, address the concern, not the emotion. Rather than try to understand every current emotion and its possible causes, focus on five widely shared concerns that can be used to stimulate helpful emotions in others and in you. These core concerns are:

  Appreciation. Feeling unappreciated puts people down. We can appreciate others by understanding their point of view; finding merit in what they think, feel, or do; and communicating our understanding through words or action. We can appreciate ourselves, too.

  Affiliation. Rather than having each negotiator feel alone and disconnected, we can try to build structural connections as colleagues and personal connections as confidantes.

  Autonomy. Recognize that everyone wants freedom to affect or make a great many decisions. We can expand our autonomy and avoid impinging upon theirs.

  Status. No one likes to feel demeaned. Rather than compete with others over who has the higher social status, we can acknowledge everyone’s areas of particular status, including our own.

  Role. An unfulfilling role leaves us feeling trivialized and unengaged. Yet we are free to choose roles that help us and others work together. And we can expand the activities within any role to make them fulfilling.

  The ideas in this book will not go to work by themselves. It takes a live human being to understand them and put them into practice. You can act in ways that meet the core concerns in others as well as in yourself. Express appreciation. Build a sense of affiliation. Respect each person’s autonomy and status. Help shape roles to be fulfilling.

  We are confident that using the core concerns wisely will improve the quality of your relationships at work and at home. You can turn a negotiation from a stressful, worrisome interaction into a side-by-side dialogue where each of you listens, learns, and respects the other. You improve your outcome. And instead of inspiring resentment, the process inspires hope.

  V

  End Matter

  Seven Elements

  of Negotiation

  In diagnosing a patient, a medical doctor finds it useful to identify which of the major parts of a body may be causing the symptoms. Is it the digestive system, the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system, or the skeletal system? Similarly, in diagnosing what may be going wrong with a negotiation, the Harvard Negotiation Project has identified seven elements that comprise the basic anatomy of a negotiation. On page 208 these elements of negotiation are in boldface type down the far left column of the page. For each element, diagnostic questions are suggested in the middle column, and some illustrative prescriptive advice in the right-hand column.

  These seven elements form the structure of any negotiation, including “interest-based negotiation,” the method described more fully in Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement without Giving in, by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton (New York: Penguin, 1991). The chart on page 208 does not do Getting to YES justice, but it does, we hope, offer you some idea of what that book is about. We also hope the ideas stimulate those of you who have not read the book itself to find the time to do so.

  THE SEVEN ELEMENTS:

  THE ANATOMY OF A NEGOTIATION

  Element Some Diagnostic Questions Some Prescriptive Advice

  Relationship How does each negotiator think and feel about the other? Build rapport and a good working relationship with fellow negotiators. Work together, side by side.

  Communication Is communication poor, deceptive, one way? Are negotiators telling one another what to do? Build easy two-way communication. Inquire, listen, be worthy of trust. Avoid fuzzy promises.

  Interests Are negotiators making demands and stating positions while concealing their true interests that underlie them? Respect the interests of others. Understand and disclose your own interests. (You need not disclose how highly you value what you want.)

  Options Does the negotiation look like a zero-sum game where each side’s choice is between winning or losing? With no commitment, jointly brainstorm possible ways of meeting legitimate interests of both.

  Legitimacy Does no one seem to care about being fair? Are they simply haggling by saying what they are willing or unwilling to do? Look for and request external standards of fairness that will be persuasive to both.

  BATNA

  (Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement) Is each side threatening the other without knowing what they will do if no agreement is reached? Consider your walk-away alternative as well as theirs. Recognize that any agreement must be better for both than walking away without an agreement.

  Commitments Have negotiators demanded unrealistic commitments from the other side? Have they failed to draft commitments they would be willing to make? Draft fair and realistic commitments that each side could make.

  Glossary

  “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

  “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

  “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

  —THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, LEWIS CARROLL

  Scholars have proposed literally hundreds of definitions for words like emotion. To clarify how we use some of the key terms in this book, we provide a short glossary. There are two sections—one to define emotions and another to define core concerns.

  I. WHAT ARE EMOTIONS?

  Emotion. An experience to matters of personal significance; typically experienced in association with a distinct type of physical feeling, thought, physiology, and action tendency.

  Often a person can choose one emotional response or another, whether to see a rainy day as depressing or as a good day to read a romance novel.

  Positive emotions. Uplifting emotions usually resulting from a concern being satisfied. Examples include enthusiasm, hope, and joy. Positive emotions tend to stimulate cooperative action.

  Negative emotions. Distressing emotions usually resulting from a concern being unmet. Examples include anger, fear, and guilt. Negative emotions often stimulate competitive action.

  Feeling. Used in two ways in this book:

  • A physical sensation, such as the feeling of hunger or pain

  • An emotion-laden belief, such as feeling included or appreciated

  A feeling (defined as an emotion-laden belief) differs from an emotion in an important way. An emotion is a response that is unarguably true from the perspective of the person experiencing the emotion, regardless of the belief of others. Thus, an emotion is something that we feel and that we are. Anger, for example, can be categorized as an emotion: “I feel angry” is the conceptual equivalent of “I am angry.” A feeling, on the other hand, is true from the perspective of the person experiencing the emotion but not necessarily from the perspective of others. Feeling included, f
or example, fails to meet the criteria of an emotion. A negotiator who feels included may not actually be included by others.

  This distinction between an emotion and a feeling holds practical relevance for a negotiator. Because a single feeling often has multiple emotions associated with it, the feeling is pregnant with much more emotional information than any single emotion. Instead of a negotiator having to wade through a huge list of emotion words to identify a person’s emotions, that negotiator more easily can use a smaller list of feelings to become aware of a negotiator’s emotional experience. In fact, each core concern has a limited set of feelings associated with it. For example, the feelings associated with affiliation range from feeling included to feeling excluded.

  Focusing on feelings instead of on emotions risks a loss of precise understanding, but that risk is balanced by the great challenge of any negotiator realistically having the time and attention to become aware of the host of emotions that continually are stirred within any negotiation.

  II. WHAT ARE THE CORE CONCERNS?

  Core Concern: A human want of personal significance, usually arising within a relationship.

  Core concerns are core because they touch upon how we want or expect to be treated. A small action affecting a core concern can have a big emotional impact.

  There is overlap, but not complete congruence, between the concept of a core concern and the concept of a need as used by conflict resolution theorists like John Burton and humanistic psychologists like Abraham Maslow. A need is a physiological or psychological requirement for our well-being, such as food or water. No matter if one is negotiating with the president of a country or with a child, a person will still need food, water, and a sense of belonging—and hunger for it if that need goes unmet. A core concern can, perhaps, be considered a more nuanced version of a social need. A core concern usually arises within the context of a relationship and varies in intensity depending upon those with whom one is interacting. A diplomat may experience minimal sensitivity if her child demeans her status but experience great offense if the president of a country demeans that same status.

  Appreciation: Used in two ways in this book:

  • As a core concern, it is a sense of valued recognition.

  • As an action, it involves understanding someone’s point of view; finding merit in their thinking, feeling, or actions; and communicating that understanding.

  Affiliation: One’s sense of connectedness with another person or group; connections can be structural or personal.

  Autonomy: The freedom to affect or make decisions without imposition from others.

  Status: One’s standing in comparison to the standing of others; social status is one’s general standing in a social hierarchy, whereas particular status is one’s standing within some narrowly defined substantive field.

  Role: A job label and corresponding set of activities expected of a person in a specific situation.

  Works Consulted

  This section provides information on literature that has helped inform our understanding of the emotional dimension of negotiation. The literature on the science of emotion is vast, and this section is not meant to be comprehensive. We have included only those writings that heavily influenced our thinking and those specifically referenced in the text.*

  In addition to the literature on the science of emotion, there is a large and growing scientific literature on the specific role of emotion in negotiation. Because that literature is well documented in other places, we have not included most of that research in this section. Some good starting places to learn about cutting-edge research on emotions and negotiation include The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator (Leigh Thompson, 3rd ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005) and The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (M. L. Moffitt and R. C. Bordone, eds., San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005).

  There are many ways you can use this section. You can read through this entire section to learn more about works related to our core concerns framework. You can get references that peak your interest and read them to keep learning about emotions. If you teach negotiation, you can draw upon some of the resources listed.

  1 EMOTIONS ARE POWERFUL, ALWAYS PRESENT, AND HARD TO HANDLE

  What Is an Emotion?

  The literature on emotions is complex. To learn more, a good place to start is with a book edited by Paul Ekman and Richard Davidson called The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

  To simplify the ideas in our book for practical use, we make no clear distinction between emotions and moods; yet there are differences (e.g., see page 410 of Fiske and Taylor’s social psychology classic, Social Cognition, 2nd ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991). Compared to moods, emotions generally are seen to be of shorter duration, greater intensity, and greater complexity. As philosophers point out, emotions also have “intentionality”—they are directed toward a specific person or object, whereas the object of a mood usually is more diffuse. For example, you wake up on a Monday morning, find yourself in a grumpy mood, and are irritated at anyone who crosses your path.

  The quote illustrating the challenge of defining emotions comes from B. Fehr and J. Russell in their 1984 article, “Concept of Emotion Viewed from a Prototype Perspective,” in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 464–86.

  Emotions Can Be a Great Asset

  In 1986, Alice Isen and Peter Carnevale conducted a landmark study showing that a positive mood is associated with creative problem solving in a negotiation (“The Influence of Positive Affect and Visual Access on the Discovery of Integrative Solutions in Bilateral Negotiations,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 37, 1986, 1–13). For a review of experiments that link positive affect and decision making, see Isen’s excellent chapter, “Positive Affect and Decision Making,” in the Handbook of Emotions (M. Lewis and J. M. Haviland-Jones, eds., 2d ed., New York: Guilford Press, 2000, pp. 417–35).

  A new branch of psychology, called “positive psychology,” offers evidence that positive emotions enhance rapport, creativity, and social relations. For starters, check out the research of Barbara Fredrickson (“The Role of Positive Emotions in Positive Psychology: The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions,” 2001, American Psychologist, 56, 218–26). She suggests that whereas fear, anger, and other negative emotions narrow our attention and prepare us for a specific action (such as to run in fear or fight in anger), positive emotions do just the opposite. They broaden our repertoire of possible actions and thoughts, and they build up reserves we can draw upon when encountering a threat or opportunity. Inspired by Fredrickson’s work, Martin Seligman, a past president of the American Psychological Association, proposes that negative emotion evolved to help us in win-lose situations, whereas positive emotions are the basis for successful navigation in win-win interactions (see Martin E. P. Seligman, Authentic Happiness, New York: The Free Press, 2002).

  The work of Fredrickson and Seligman is consistent with assumptions behind our core concerns framework. We believe that positive emotions stimulate a variety of helpful effects, including rapport, good relations, openness, friendliness, and creativity—all of which make it easier to create a mutually satisfying agreement.

  A great deal of research has emerged on the power of “emotional intelligence.” For background, we refer you to the work of P. Salovey and J. Mayer (e.g., 1990, “Emotional Intelligence,” Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9, 185–211) and D. Goleman (Emotional Intelligence, New York: Bantam, 1995).

  We illustrated the power of positive emotions using Carter’s negotiation with Begin and Sadat. That example is drawn from Carter’s book Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press, 1995, pp. 298, 318, 350, 408, and 412). William Quandt describes Carter’s and Begin’s relationship in less positive terms, at times characterized by mistrust and irritation (see his book Camp
David: Peacemaking and Politics, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1986, p. 184). He attributes the success of Camp David in great part to Carter’s perseverance and optimism as well as to his good relationship with Sadat, whom Carter both liked and admired (p. 258). In Keeping Faith, Carter himself acknowledged that there was some tension in his relationship with Begin. These hurdles, however, did not prevent Carter from using emotions to create as positive an environment and relationship as possible.

  Stop Having Emotions? You Can’t.

  Daniel Shapiro suggests that we are in a state of “perpetual emotion” during social interactions (“A Negotiator’s Guide to Emotion: Four Laws to Effective Practice,” Dispute Resolution Magazine, Vol. 18, #6, September 2001), and studies in social psychology offer supporting evidence. For example, John Bargh has conducted innovative research showing that we have automatic emotional reactions—often without even being consciously aware of those reactions (e.g., J. A. Bargh and T. L. Chartrand [1999], “The Unbearable Automaticity of Being,” American Psychologist, 54 [7], 462–79).

  While we suggest that a person cannot stop having emotions, there are exceptions. For example, feelings may be absent from individuals with particular kinds of brain damage. Such a condition can reduce effective decision making. Antonio Damasio describes a case where a brain-damaged patient lacking emotion spent half an hour deciding when next to meet Damasio. He lacked a gut feeling to help him decide. (See Antonio Damasio’s excellent book Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, London: Picador, 1995.)

  Ignore Emotions? It Won’t Work.

  Research suggests a clear link between emotion and thinking, physiological change, and behavior. Consider the concept of an “action tendency,” developed by Nico Fridja (The Emotions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). An action tendency is the kind of behavior that an emotion directs us to do. Fear gets our body and mind ready to run. Anger gets us ready to fight. We may not follow through with the tendency, but our body and mind prepare us to do so. Thus, an emotion affects us whether we like it or not.