Author: Cindy Watson

Negotiations can sometimes feel like a high-stakes poker game, with each party guarding their cards closely and strategizing their next move. But what if, instead of focusing solely on winning, we shifted our approach to one centered around empathy?

By leading with empathy, you disarm the situation, creating a space where both parties feel heard and understood. Instead of doubling down on your demands, I invite you to pause and genuinely consider the other person’s perspective, to listen actively, acknowledging their concerns and emotions without judgment. Doing so builds trust and lays the foundation for mutually beneficial agreements.

Debunking the Myth

Sadly, we’re conditioned to see empathetic approaches as a sign of weakness, or ‘giving in’. This is a destructive misconception (and one that led me to create the Art of Feminine Negotiation™ method and models as a modern alternative). Empathy doesn’t require abandoning your own goals or principles; rather, it encourages to find common ground and explore creative solutions that meet both parties’ needs. Confronting conflict does not require a need for competitive attitudes; instead, addressing empathetic aspects, valuing cooperation, and maintaining relationships can be a more positive change to navigating negotiations. Setting a positive tone is often undervalued in negotiations, but an active pursuit of a resolution does not also mean sacrificing the merits of empathy.

Put Yourself in the Shoes of the Other Party

Incorporating empathy into negotiations involves cultivating a mindset of genuine understanding and connection. This means taking the time to put yourself in the other individual’s shoes, recognizing their perspective, motivations, and underlying concerns. By prioritizing empathy, potential conflicts can be diffused and pave the way for more collaborative or sustainable agreements.

Listen & Understand

To listen to the other party and acknowledge the root of the issue also means to understand their position as much as you understand your own. Active listening is a crucial factor in reaching a resolution with efficiency. By adopting empathy in your negotiating approach, negotiations do not have to solely be about winning or losing but can be about finding shared interests to achieve an equitable resolution.

Diffuse Emotion

Negotiations can be intense and high stakes, often involving conflicting interests and strong emotions. In this dynamic environment, the power of empathy can be a game-changer. In situations that can become tense or confrontational, especially when parties feel defensive or misunderstood, empathy acts as a natural antidote to tension by creating a safe and respectful environment. Demonstrating genuine empathy by understanding and acknowledging the other person’s perspective creates a connection based on mutual respect. This connection lays a solid foundation for constructive dialogue and collaboration, making it easier to navigate through challenging negotiation issues.

Uncover Hidden Needs

An empathetic approach can lead to uncovering underlying needs and motivations. Actively listening to concerns can gain valuable insights into what truly matters to the other party. This understanding goes beyond surface-level demands and allows you to identify creative solutions that address everyone’s interests.

Find Common Ground Through Caring

Empathy is a powerful tool for fostering win-win solutions in negotiations. By genuinely caring about the other party’s needs and aspirations, you can collaborate more effectively towards outcomes that benefit both sides. Empathetic negotiators are skilled at finding common ground, exploring creative options, and generating agreements that satisfy everyone involved. This collaborative approach not only leads to better deals but also strengthens relationships for future interactions.

Enhance Communication Through Empathy

Effective communication is at the heart of successful negotiations, and empathy plays a central role in enhancing communication skills. When you approach negotiations with empathy, you become better at articulating your own interests in a way that resonates with the other party. When you demonstrate empathy during negotiations, you show that you value the relationship and care about the other party’s well-being. This sets the stage for ongoing collaboration, trust, and respect in future interactions, leading to more productive partnerships over time.

In short, incorporating empathy into your negotiation approach is a powerful strategy for achieving positive outcomes while fostering meaningful relationships. By embracing empathy as a guiding principle in negotiations, you can transform conflicts into opportunities, elevate your negotiation skills, and cultivate a reputation as a collaborative and effective negotiator.

Negotiation is one of the most important skills you’ll ever learn. I go so far as to say that all of life is a negotiation – from negotiating your own mindset, to interactions with your kids or intimate partner, to big business deals. Yet sadly, we’re not taught to negotiate. Or to the extent we’re taught, the lessons are largely based on myths that don’t serve you. As a result, it’s not surprising that most people don’t know how to judge if their negotiations are effective. Or, we judge our success based on the wrong criteria.

Here’s a quick checklist of my recommended criteria of the most overlooked factors for assessing whether your negotiation was successful and effective:

I. Does the agreement meet everyone’s needs?

We’re conditioned to see negotiation as a win/lose proposition. In my view, this is the wrong lens. Negotiation shouldn’t be about winning vs losing, but rather about winning better. When we approach a negotiation from a place of ego, seeking to meet only our needs, we seldom achieve best outcomes.

Instead, if you can bring empathy to the table, truly seeking to understand and meet the needs of the other party, you’ll get better buy-in, longer lasting agreements, better relationships, build trust and get more creative outcomes that exceed your expectations. Getting a short-term gain where the other party walks away feeling bitter rarely serves your long-term interests.

Remember that the stated needs in any given negotiation are usually the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Get curious and seek to uncover the unstated needs that lie below the surface. In that way, you get to the real heart and can collaborate to find more creative mutually beneficial solutions.

II. Did the negotiation strengthen the relationship?

When you think about the outcome you’re seeking in any negotiation, don’t fall into the trap of only considering the substantive outcome you’re looking for (i.e. the ‘thing’ you want to achieve). That kind of narrow focus seldom leads to best outcomes.

More importantly, that kind of narrow focus ignores that relationship outcomes are often the most critical (but sadly, the most often overlooked). Sometimes the relationship is more important than the ‘thing’ or issue you’re negotiating about.

Be intentional about the relationship outcome you desire in any given negotiation. By making this part of your negotiation preparation, you’ll position yourself to get better results across the board. Ideally, you always want to strengthen the relationship coming out the back end of a negotiation.

III. Did you learn something from the negotiation?

As humans we need to grow.

As William Burroughs said: “When you stop growing, you start dying.”

I invite you to raise your awareness about the lessons you learn from each negotiation. Did you learn something about more effective communication? Or pick up a valuable perspective on improved conflict resolution. Did you find a way to bring curiosity to the table in a deeper way? Did you gain insight on particular strategies or tactics (either because they were effective, or equally important as a learning tool, because they were not effective).

Doing a personal debrief after each negotiation to consider what you learned will fast-track the improvement of your negotiation prowess and allow you get better end results.

IV. Was the negotiation efficient?

Many negotiations are inefficient. As a long-time labour lawyer, collective bargaining negotiations come to mind. Parties take an inordinate amount of time posturing and delaying, believing they’re gaining some advantage in doing so. It should not be a badge of honour that you took a long time to get a deal. It does not mean you wore the other party down to get a better deal.

Tied to this, try to avoid over-complicating your agreements. As a lawyer, I’ll be the first to confess that our profession often does a disservice to our clients by focusing on unnecessary deals that get in the way and/or that make the agreement more difficult to implement or enforce.

Ideally, you want to reach an agreement in as reasonable an amount of time as possible and you want the deal to be practical and workable for all parties.

Sadly, many negotiations fail if measured by this set of criteria. This applies to both your personal and professional negotiations.

I encourage you to keep these three simple questions handy when you embark on a negotiation. At the outset, ask yourself how you can best achieve each of these criteria. As the negotiation is in process, keep checking in whether the direction you’re heading will allow you to be successful as defined by these factors. You’ll almost certainly get better outcomes and it will allow you to negotiate a better life.

Speak More Slowly to Get Better Negotiation Outcomes

I’m a fast talker. Always have been. I’d always seen it as a benefit as I could get more information out in a shorter time. Turns out I was wrong. Fast talking gets you less. If you want to strengthen your bargaining position, the key is to slow down. Speaking more slowly gets better negotiation outcomes.

Why is that?

It makes sense when you think about it. Negotiation is a delicate dance. You don’t want (or enjoy) a partner who whips you around the dance floor so you can’t get your footing. Listen to the music. It’s a dynamic process. Allow yourself adagio rather than allegro.

Rapport

Building rapport is key to effective negotiations. This requires relationship building. Speaking quickly is less likely to build rapport. It increases the cortisol response in the other party, increasing stress reactions. The other party is not aware of this consciously – they just feel a resistance and negative charge.

Trust

Trust-building is also critical to getting best negotiated outcomes. Whether justified or not, fast talkers are viewed as less trustworthy. They remind people of used car salesmen (a group who notoriously get a bad rap). The immediate assumption is that you’re trying to baffle with B.S. or dazzle with empty rhetoric. Tied to that is the assumption (whether conscious or unconscious) that you’re trying to hide something – to bury the rotten egg in all the words.

Instead, allow yourself the gift of fully formulating your thoughts so you can best frame your position. Equally, if not more importantly, allow the other party the opportunity to fully process and understand what you’re saying.

Lower Guard

By contrast, slower speech puts people at ease. They don’t feel rushed and accordingly are less likely to have those defensive walls built to maximum height. It allows the time to contemplate, which allows for a certain relaxation and lowers the guard reflex.

Some people talk fast hoping to deprive the other party of the chance to think too deeply, believing that more time decreases the likelihood of the other party giving what they want. The opposite is usually true. Tied to that, effective negotiators seek genuine buy-in to allow for longer-lasting agreements and better relationships. Trying to jam a deal does not achieve these goals.

Comfort

Tied to trust, is comfort. Negotiation is stress-inducing at the best of times for many people. This causes some people to speed talk, wanting to get the uncomfortable process over as soon as possible. This is a mistake. Fast talking adds to this stress – both for the speaker and the receiver.

The mood of a negotiation can be a key factor in determining outcomes. Setting an ambience where both parties are comfortable can get better results and build for long-term relationships with longer term benefits.

Getting a Good Read

In any negotiation it’s important to get a solid ‘read’ on the other party, the situation, both the stated and unstated needs, the likely obstacles, etc. If you rush, you miss out on valuable information, innuendo, subtlety, motivations, the deeper why, other opportunities and more.

Curiosity is key. Engaging in speed-dating negotiating styles doesn’t allow you to dig. Asking questions helps uncover hidden motivations, desires, or blocks. This information is pure gold in a negotiation allowing for more creative solutions. Rushing the process doesn’t allow these hidden gems to surface.

Allows Space

Sometimes the gold is in the empty spaces. Silence can be a tremendously effective tool in negotiations. Allow the space for silence. Be sure to pause. Be sure to truly listen. Contrary to popular belief, the person talking the loudest and longest is not ‘winning’ the negotiation. To the contrary, they have lost control of the negotiation.

Added to that, slowing the pace allows you to control the process. Pacing can be a powerful ally in negotiations. Slow and steady builds momentum while simultaneously building trust and relationship.

Space also allows room for creative juices to flow and for out of the box options to crystallize and form.

So the next time you’re about to negotiate, whether in your personal or professional life (and make no mistake, all of life is a negotiation) take a breath, slow down, and speak more slowly to strengthen your bargaining position.

Flexibility is the Key

Do you remember the fitness tests we used to have to take in elementary school? Flexibility was always a key aspect of those tests. It struck me recently that while we teach and recognize the value of flexibility in our physical health, we don’t consider the importance of flexibility in our mental health and approach to life.

Ignore flexibility to your detriment. All of life is a negotiation and flexibility is key to better negotiated outcomes. It’s one of the reasons flexibility is a cornerstone of my Art of Feminine Negotiation™ programs.

 Here’s just a few reasons why I’m a cheerleader for flexibility…

Perspective

As humans we are notoriously bad at perspective-taking. Sadly, we don’t recognize this weakness. We tend to assume that our perspective on any given issue is the only one – or at least the correct one. We don’t allow for the legitimacy of differing views and the basis on which they’re built.

Our perspectives are clouded by our past experiences. We tend to hold on to our old opinions, and even the opinions of other influences in our lives (i.e. parents or strong authority figures). We don’t hold them up to check for cracks or flaws. And so, we become too attached to ideas that may not have a solid foundation.

 Yet, if we approached negotiations (and all our interactions) with a genuine desire to understand the perspectives of others, it opens the door for deeper understanding and better outcomes.

Preconceived Ideas

Tied to perspective, I invite you avoid starting with preconceived ideas in your negotiations. We’re all guilty of this. I encourage you to open your mind and your heart to receiving new ideas. When preparing your ‘arguments’, always consider perspectives and positions that challenge your view and your pre-existing ideas. Be open to the possibility of an ever-expanding range of approaches.

Be Open to Multiple Solutions

Tied to expanding ranges of options, I champion the approach of actively seeking out multiple solutions to any given problem or issue. Don’t become too attached to your approach as the only approach. Be open to the possibility that there are likely multiple solutions available in any given situation and that they may be equally good if not better.

When we look for only one answer and believe in the idea of a single perfect solution, it gets in the way of finding alternative resolutions that could be superior. There is rarely only one answer. Be on the lookout for more.

Be Creative

Tied to being on the lookout for more, I also advocate creativity. Be open to out of the box thinking and ideas. This is where the gold usually lies. This is where true ‘win better’ solutions are born. It requires a certain level of curiosity and vulnerability (both of which are often discouraged under traditional negotiation models).

Avoid Judgment

All of the above ideas require a suspension of judgment. Cultivate an approach where you avoid judgment of the person you are negotiating with. Judgment inhibits open communication and exchange of ideas.

Also avoid judging ideas (at least until you have several on the table). Judging each possibility as it arises, inhibits the type of creativity I advocated above. It inhibits the process. To allow for full creativity to get best outcomes requires the space to let ideas flow. The analysis should come after a free-flow exhaustion of options. Think of the increased range of possibility if you don’t judge whether any given idea is suitable until after all possibilities are on the table.

Look For Best Outcomes For All

Seek solutions that result in mutual gain and maximum benefit for all. Actively seek solutions that consider the needs of the other party. This seems counter-intuitive based on our conditioning to view negotiations as a win-lose proposition. When we show up with limited perspective, holding onto our preconceived ideas about the issues and potential results, we miss out on outcomes that can achieve better buy-in, longer lasting agreements, better relationships, and more positive impact.