2nsr019 Make Your Emotions Work for You In Negotiations
NEGOTIATIONS.
Make Your Emotions Work for You
in Negotiations
by Shirli Kopelman
MAY 16,
04
Your emotions matter in negotiations. They fuel your behaviors, energize you, and allow you to
strengthen-or distance and damage-telationships with the people you're negotiating with. But too
often, people refuse to acknowledge their full range of feelings because they’re afraid of losing the
ability to think rationally and act strategically. So researchers and experts in the fields of psychology
and business have offered solutions to help people manage, defeat, or even ignore their emotions.
However, in my two decades of research and work with thousands of executives, I’ve found that
emotions shouldn’t be managed or overcome. Rather, positive and negative emotions are valuable
resources that you can use to your advantage.The key is to recognize during the negotiation what
emotion you're feeling, then quickly evaluate whether it will help or hinder you, and without taking
abreak, intensify or decrease the feeling, or in some cases change the emotion altogether.
‘That may sound easier said than done, so here’s a five-step approach that I’ve developed to make the
best use of your emotions during a negotiation:
Step 1: Be mindful. Mindfulness is the first step. This means noticing and accepting what’s
happening around you from the expressions on other peoples’ faces to any emotions you're feeling
in that moment, such as anxiety or pride.Imagine that you’re at a monthly executive meeting proposing a strategy to market anew
product.As you present your idea, you simultaneously notice that you feel a sense of pride because
you’ve prepared a solid presentation, but you're also frustrated because it seems that some people
aren’t buying into your proposal. Compassionately noticing these feeling is the first step. Then you
need to evaluate them.
In this case, you would ask yourself whether feeling — and expressing — your frustration will help or
hinder your goals. If it will help — and in some cases it could — then that’s a useful emotion. Go
ahead and feel it. However, if you think it will get in the way of what you're trying to achieve, try to
redirect that emotion.
‘That’s where the next steps come in. Your goal in steps 2-4 is to genuinely feel the emotion you want
to experience, whether it’s frustration, anger, empathy, or happiness, because you believe it will be
productive.
Step 2: Identify your emotional trigger and focus on something else. Once you've identified the
emotion you want to change, find the source of it. For example, you might survey the room -
observing the people in it, their reactions, and the environment. While watching, you might realize
that the man sitting across from you is raising his eyebrows and frowning during your presentation
and this is what’s causing your frustration.
If you can precisely identify what triggered your emotion, then you can choose to focus on other
things or people. There’s a reason why psychologists suggest that if we want to feel relaxed, we
should close our eyes and imagine being on a beach. Changing what you focus on has the power to
change your emotion. In this case, you might ignore the frowning man and focus instead on the CEO
who's nodding and smiling at you. You effectively seek out a trigger that causes a more helpful
emotion.
Step 3: Reinterpret the trigger. Often our initial interpretation of a trigger is based on what we most
fear. You might see the man who raised his eyebrows and frowned as a critic because you're worried
that your presentation isn’t good enough. But you can reinterpret the trigger to help spark anotheremotion. Imagine instead that he forgot to wear his contact lenses and was squinting to read the
small font on your slide. This alternative interpretation of the same exact data — his facial
expression — could replace your frustration with relief or empathy.
Step 4: Alter the emotion by changing its physiological expression. If steps 2 or 3 don’t work for you
— pethaps the emotion is already full-blown or others have sensed you're feeling frustrated — there’s
another option. You can alter physiological things like your facial expression, body posture, or
breathing to decrease, intensify, or replace the emotion. If you've already started showing
frustration, then you could try turning toward the projector and directing your frustration at the
small font size. Or, if you want to feel calm instead of frustrated, then you can try slowing down
your speaking pace.
Step 5: Take action that others will see. For the most part, the previous steps happen internally and
are ideally invisible to your counterparts. But feeling the right emotion isn’t enough - your actions
need to reflect those emotions. You can do this verbally — for example, by apologizing to the raised-
eyebrow man for the small font size— or non-verbally— displaying a curious look rather than
frowning back, Or you could do it both ways and smile at the man and ask him if something is
wrong. Mastering your emotions in step 2-4 will make it easy to take this constructive next step to
move the conversation forward.
Emotions will inevitably arise during negotiations but instead of letting them happen to you or
trying to overcome them, use them genuinely and strategically to get what you want and create
value for everyone.
Shirli Kopelman is a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. She is Faculty Director of Business
Practice at the Center for Positive Organizations, Executive Director of the International Association for Conflict
Management, and author of Negotiating Genuinely: Being Yourself in Business.
This article is about NEGOTIATIONS@ rottow THis toric
Related Topics: MANAGING YouRSELF
Comments
Leave a Comment
Post
10 COMMENTS
disqus_ETNBV9cHgj 5 years ago
‘Although | am not a chief officer or manager in a well defined organization yet. | realize controlling my emotions will
to my success. Sense practice makes perfect; | am grateful for your directions and insight. Thank you!
REPLY oGop
‘\V JOIN THE CONVERSATION
POSTING GUIDELINES
|we hope the conversations that Lake place on HAR. org will be energetic, eonstructive, and thought-provoking. Te comment, readers must signin or
register. And to ensure the quality ofthe discussion, our moderating team will view all comments and may edit them for elariy length, and relevance.
‘Comments that are overly promotional, mean-spirited, or off-topic may be deleted per the maderators judgment. All postings became the property of
Harvard Business Publishing
hitpshororg/2014/05/make-your-emetions-work-for-yourin-negotiations aa