Sense and Sensibility at the Negotiating Table: How to Combat Bias and Irrationality to Strike Better Deals
Posted By Kelly Bradfield, Dec 3, 2013
Negotiators are people first. So I know I’m not the only one who has found herself in the middle of a negotiation overwhelmed with uncomfortable feelings. Just some of the feelings all negotiators routinely have to deal with when resolving conflicts are fear, anxiety, anger and frustration. My personal favorite is frustration. And by favorite, I mean the one that I struggle with the most while negotiating. Usually, about halfway through a negotiation, when it’s clear the other side isn’t adjusting their counteroffers to my liking, a voice in the back of my head starts fuming: they’re crazy! What are they thinking? Don’t they know their client is on the wrong side of the law??? And before I know it I’ve half convinced myself that the other side is completely irrational, that there’s hope in reasoning with them; we may as well just walk away and go to trial.
Recent research out of Princeton University takes a closer look at what happens when I and others experience when trying to resolve a conflict with parties that we view as completely irrational. The experiment framed the issue in terms of resolving conflict with terrorist, a topic sure to produce uncomfortable feelings in even the best negotiators among us. The researchers gave half of a group of research subjects fake news articles describing terrorists as rational “warriors” deliberately pursuing specific political means, and the other half read a fake news article describing terrorists as biased and irrational, indoctrinated into a culture of revenge and religious fervor. None of the subjects ‘liked’ the terrorists or agreed with the terrorist’s worldview to any significant degree. After reading the article, both groups were asked whether they recommended negotiating with the terrorists through diplomacy or engaging with military force.
The results are striking. While both groups disliked and disagreed with the terrorists to much the same extent both before and after reading their assigned article, the group that read the ‘rational warrior’ news article were much more likely to recommend a negotiated resolution over military action. Likewise, the group that read the ‘irrational zealot’ article were much more likely to recommend military intervention. After all, the subjects seemed to think, if the other side isn’t reasonable, how can we reason with them? Instead, we have to use whatever rights and powers we have to protect ourselves.
But while there is a still-open debate among public leaders about the value of negotiating with enemies who use terrorist tactics, there can be no question that in the more common civil (or sometimes even criminal) litigation context, it is almost always to our advantage to pursue a negotiated agreement that avoids the rights- and power-based context of a full trial. So how can I and other human beings like me settle our fears, calm our nerves and otherwise remind ourselves that the human beings on the other side of the table are worth engaging with, no matter how much we disagree? Here two steps that can help us all keep a clearer head and generate better agreements for our clients.
Be Aware of Your Own Irrationality
The study discussed above highlights how news reports and other ‘facts’ contribute to whether or not we find someone to be acting irrationally. Our own biases, however, may be just as germane. We generally think of ourselves as objective, concurrently perceiving small irrationalities in everyone else. Therefore, it doesn’t take a news article to make us perceive another’s actions as irrationally biased. Simply disagreeing with us can be enough. After all, if we think we are the most objective, then anyone who differs must be somehow biased. This phenomenon is referred to as the objectivity bias, and that objectivity bias can lead us to unconsciously shut down avenues to collaboration and creative problem-solving by assuming the other person is unreasonable just because they are on the other side of the table.
Empathy, Empathy, Empathy
But it is possible to overcome an objectivity bias. The best way to do so is to truly empathize with your opponent. Start by writing down not only the weaknesses of your own case, but also the strengths of the other side. But empathizing is more than just intellectually recognizing the merits of your opponent’s arguments, but truly ‘trying on’ their point of view. You don’t have to agree with their point of view, but you do have to reserve judgment and put yourself in a place that you can feel the power of their point of view. Then, when your objectivity bias starts to kick in, you can draw upon what it feels like on the other side of the table and remind yourself that your opponent isn’t senseless or irrational. Not only will you be able to remain calmer, you will also have a better sense of what it might take to influence your opponent. You simply have to ask, what is it I would need to come to an agreement in this situation?
Most of us will never broker peace deals with terrorists in our career, but we’ll all sit down at some point with a potential deal partner that we perceive as irrational. It might be comforting to assume that the person across from us is the crazy one, but in order to become better negotiators we would do well to come to terms with the biases in ourselves first.
For more information and to read the original study, please see Pronin, E., Kennedy, K., & Butsch, S. (2006). Bombing versus negotiating: How preferences for combating terrorism are affected by perceived terrorist rationality. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 28, 385-392. Special Issue “In the era of 9/11: Social psychology and security.” This post also draws upon:
Fisher, Roger, Ury, William, & Patton, Bill. (1991) Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books
Lytle, Anne L., Brett, Jeanne M., and Shapiro, Debra L. (1999) The Strategic Use of Interests, Rights, and Power to Resolve Disputes. Negotiation Journal. Penguin Publishing Corporation.