The Intelligent Negotiator (12 page)

Overstating and Understating Value

Do not forget that fellow negotiators—even friends and business associates in some cases—may employ deceptive bargaining tactics to obtain an advantage. They may overstate or understate the value of certain items for strategic reasons. As you might do yourself (as discussed above), when your bargaining counterparts think you value something they don’t care about, they may indicate an interest in that term. Conversely, if they believe you don’t want something, they may suggest a similar lack of interest in that topic, even though they actually value it. This behavior,
puffing
and
embellishment,
is an inherent part of most negotiations. As long as the
puffing
and
embellishment
do not go entirely beyond the bounds of propriety, few would consider such tactics reprehensible.

When you prepare for negotiations, it is important to ascertain the reputations of your counterparts with respect to honesty. Are they individuals who can be trusted when they talk about what you have the right to know? Do they shade the truth in inappropriate ways? While some disingenuousness is to be expected, outright dishonesty is not. If you have reason to mistrust particular negotiators, be wary of what they tell you. Try to obtain independent verification of important representations, and only believe what you are able to confirm. If you believe the lies of people you know are dishonest, the fault is your own.

Another way to gauge truthfulness is to listen carefully for verbal leaks that may provide important clues to the speaker’s real values. Also look for nonverbal signs that may confirm or contradict what is being said verbally. For instance, when the verbal and nonverbal signals are congruent, you can usually believe those consistent signals. When, however, the verbal and nonverbal signals conflict, you can generally rely on the nonverbal messages since actions and facial expressions are more difficult to fake than words. Trust your feelings; they often reflect subconscious reading of nonverbal clues. When discrepancies do arise, proceed to ask more questions, and apply common sense. Does it make sense to think your opponent doesn’t value something you believe is important or prefers something you think is worthless?

Determining Your Important Information

When you prepare for your bargaining encounter, you must determine what information you plan to disclose and how you can most effectively disclose it. Do not forget
to also determine what information you would prefer to withhold, and how you can best protect it. Consider these issues
before
you interact with opponents, to avoid mistakes caused by incomplete planning.

Controlling Disclosure of Your Own Information

During the information exchange, both parties have to disclose some information or the negotiation process is not going to develop effectively. But you are naïve if you divulge your important information up front, even if your intention is to demonstrate your straightforward bargaining style. You might find manipulative disclosure strategies distasteful, and therefore try to avoid them; however, you will also stand a good chance of being disappointed in the results you achieve. Volunteering your own important information too quickly without obtaining similar candor from your counterparts will create an information imbalance favoring your counterparts, who now hold more important information about you than you have about them.

Such straightforward disclosure may create an additional problem. It might not even occur to your counterparts that a proficient bargainer would be so quick to unilaterally disclose such important information. This produces
reactive devaluation,
in which your counterparts jump to the conclusion that you are trying to confuse them by withholding other more critical information. As they look for the information that has not been addressed, they may miss what was actually said and devalue what they heard.

Intelligent Negotiators who want counterparts to hear and respect their important information should play
the game. Don’t volunteer critical information. Instead, let your information out slowly in response to your counterpart’s questions. When people ask questions, two things happen:

1. The questioner listens more intently to what you have to say because your answers pertain to their questions. They thus hear more of what you are saying.
   

2. They attribute your disclosures to their questioning ability and accord what they hear greater respect. If you want your counterparts to hear and respect more of your valuable information, make them work for it. Let it out slowly in response to their inquiries.
   

A friend recently provided me with a great example of
reactive devaluation.
While representing his company in collective bargaining talks with the union representing firm employees, he and the union agent had proposed different language for a new seniority system that would determine employee job security and affect promotional opportunities. He did not like the union proposals, and they did not like his suggested terms. In an effort to break the deadlock, he reiterated his primary concerns and told the union agent he would accept any provision they formulated in good faith. Several days later, the union negotiator gave him their new proposal. The company negotiator examined it and indicated the reservations he still had. He then indicated that he would accept their good faith effort to resolve the matter. At this point, the union agent rose, tore up his own proposal, and said: “If it’s acceptable to you, it must not be good for us.” He stormed out of the office. Even though he had drafted the
provision in question, the union representative figured that if the proposal was all right for the company, it should be rejected by the union!

Using Blocking Techniques to Avoid Answering Sensitive Questions

What can you do when people across the table ask questions about topics and areas you would prefer not to discuss? You can use
blocking
techniques to avoid answering without making it obvious that you are not responding. For example, you can simply ignore a question you don’t like and continue the discussion where it was before. If you do this casually, your counterparts may become reengaged in the talks you have continued and forget that you never responded to their inquiry. When you are given a compound question containing several parts, you can focus on the portion of the question you like and ignore the rest. As counterparts become involved with your limited answer, they may fail to return to the unanswered portions of their initial question.

To be effective, strive to maintain a calm and pleasant demeanor when using blocking techniques. You may be able to over- or under-answer questions you don’t like. If someone targets a specific issue, you can provide a general response. For example, when discussing the possible starting salary for a new position, if you are asked the exact salary you would need to get to make the job attractive, you could respond that you would expect to be paid what other workers at this firm or at comparable firms are paid for such work. At the other end of the spectrum, you might be asked your general employment goals over
the next ten years and respond with a desire to learn the tasks associated with the immediate position before you contemplate other opportunities.

You can occasionally misinterpret a question you don’t like and answer the inquiry you have reformulated. For example, a prospective employer may ask you about your current salary, which you think does not reflect your true value. You could suggest that the questioner really wants to know what salary you must receive for the position you are considering and respond to the rephrased inquiry. If you do this adroitly, the asker may forget to seek further information about your present salary. You could alternatively respond to such a question with a question of your own. When asked about your current salary, you could ask the questioner about the compensation range for the position you are discussing. If you can induce that person to talk about this issue, she may fail to realize that you never responded to her initial inquiry.

In rare cases, potential employers may ask about information you consider personal or confidential, such as questions about your family care arrangements, or questions they may have no legal right to ask, such as your age. Don’t be afraid to let them know that you consider this an inappropriate question that you will not answer. If you state your position politely, but forcefully, the questioner will probably yield to your desire for privacy and not take offense by your unwillingness to reply.

If you plan your use of blocking techniques in advance and prepare to vary them, you will be amazed how often you can avoid responding to questions you believe will undermine your situation. You might ignore one question, partially answer a later inquiry, and misinterpret a subsequent probe. If you learn to use blocking devices naturally, opponents will rarely recognize what you
are doing. Watch good politicians on Sunday morning talk shows. At the conclusion of their appearances, ask yourself what specific information they have provided. They are masters at avoiding difficult questions without being obvious that they are not being forthright. This is a skill that all proficient negotiators should know how to use.

Remember the psychological impact of gain-loss framing that was discussed in
chapter 2
as you begin to discuss the particular items to be exchanged. This can be quite helpful as a persuasive technique to bolster your arguments. Frame your answers in terms of
sure gains,
rather than
probable losses.
When people are forced to choose between the two, they normally select the certain benefits.

For instance a recent encounter between my wife, Katey, and a street vendor selling flowers graphically demonstrates this. She was contemplating the purchase of a lovely bouquet, but considered the $15 asking price excessive. She attempted to talk the vendor into a lower price, but he refused to budge. She finally took a $10 bill out of her pocket, held it in front of herself, and said that was all she had. The seller focused on the $10 bill and decided that a certain gain was preferable to the mere possibility of a greater gain from a future buyer. He thus took her $10 bill and handed her the bouquet!

Finding Common Ground

Too many negotiators are purely adversarial, as we discussed in
chapter 1
. They lock themselves into set positions and defend those positions with strident arguments. They try to intimidate their opponents into complete capitulation. They ignore counterparts’ statements that conflict
with their preconceived ideas and fail to acknowledge alternative proposals that could prove mutually beneficial.

When a fairly broad settlement range exists between two or more parties’ respective bottom lines, the parties should be able to achieve mutual accords. But adversarial behavior, or bargaining in a closed and competitive manner, lessens the likelihood that negotiators will be able to do so. If you and your counterparts have developed a more open and cooperative information exchange, such as the Cooperator or Innovator styles of negotiating, you may discover efficient alternatives that would work to the benefit of both sides.

In bargaining situations in which the settlement range is fairly limited, you are very likely to encounter difficulty when you seek a zone of agreement. Try not to focus excessively on your areas of conflict. Instead, look for common ground—so that you can expand the pie to be divided between you and your bargaining counterpart and enhance the probability of agreement.

You can accomplish this by formulating open inquiries intended to encourage expanded participation. It is crucial that you and your fellow negotiants trust each other enough so you will be able to explore your respective interests and goals at the table. In this situation, objective questions can be quite helpful in reviewing each side’s understanding of the relevant factual and economic circumstances. If you and your counterpart can agree upon these basic factors in a noncompetitive manner, you are on your way to achieving mutually beneficial results.

Each side needs to appreciate the hidden pressures influencing the other. Are financial or emotional factors constraining your counterpart’s flexibility? Are these factors more imagined than real? If so, a careful exploration of each negotiator’s concerns may be sufficient to assuage
fears. If the concerns are valid, they have to be addressed. Don’t be afraid to tell your counterpart what is really bothering you because you have little hope of ending a stalemate if you do not.

Looking for Ways to Expand the Pie

Don’t assume that what you want is what your opponents want. While both parties may value some of the same items (money, for example), they may not value these terms equally. In addition, there are usually a number of items valued by one side but not by the other. If the negotiators can ascertain and exploit these preference differences, they can improve their respective positions. For example, a famous negotiating story features two siblings fighting over the single orange they possess. Both attempt to obtain the orange to satisfy their needs, but neither is willing to yield. They finally agree to what seems the only rational solution available to them. They cut the orange down the middle and each gets one half. Only later do they discover that one wanted the pulp to make juice, while the other wanted the rind to make zest! Had they explored these underlying interests earlier, both could have maximized their return by having one take all the pulp and the other all the rind. By not exploring their actual needs, each party walked away with far less than he or she could have satisfactorily gained.

I recall a labor arbitration in which the company had adopted a no-fault absentee policy without consulting the union that represented its employees. The parties got to the hearing I was conducting and could not agree on the issue to be resolved. The company lawyer said he could not understand what the union wanted, and the union attorney
said the company should have talked with them before adopting the policy. The company lawyer stated that the union would have opposed any policy, but the union attorney replied that they would not have done so given the firm’s high absentee rate. The company lawyer then asked
why
the union was complaining about the policy the firm had adopted. The union attorney said that if a worker were seriously ill or had major surgery, he or she would lose the job since the policy allowed no “excused” absences. The company lawyer responded that it would never apply the policy in such an inhumane way. The parties then redrafted the policy to close this unintended loophole. The company was certain the union opposed any absentee policy, but this was not the case. The union was sure the company intended to terminate workers with serious medical problems, but that was not the company’s intention. Once they understood each other’s underlying concerns, they had no difficulty drafting mutually acceptable language.