Amazing Negotiation Tip - Mirroring
In graduate school, I was able to take a negotiation class taught by a former FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss, one of the Bureau's top negotiators. Although the class was a great hands-on course with plenty of example negotiations, Chris distilled a lot of his secrets into a book, 'Never Split the Difference', which I highly recommend. But, if you wanted to just get the highlights, I've listed some of his quick tips and concepts from my class notes below to help out any negotiators out there on Steemit.
"Empathy is defined as the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart and the vocalization of that recognition." - Chris Voss
To preface, the core of Chris' techniques was empathy - taking the time to understand and relate to the customer and/or terrorist and communicate that understanding. This focuses negotiations on a Win-Win scenario and the satisfaction of both parties. The ideas and concepts listed below are much more about information gathering and active listening than the adversarial nature of most negotiations. A large goal is to extract "asynchronous information" to best understand your counterpart.
"Empathy is defined as a demonstrating an understanding of the other side’s needs, interests and perspective, without necessarily agreeing." - Mnookin’s “The Tension between Empathy and Assertiveness”
Verbal Mirroring
Mirroring is a way to seek out more information or clarity by leveraging the customer's own words. It typically causes the client to provide more information or detail concerning their original point. Mirroring is simply repeating the last few words of a customer with an upward or downward inflection to denote clarity or confusion . It can be used as a replacement to phrases like "Please, go on." or "What do you mean by that?"
(For fun, try this with a spouse or significant other.)
E.g.
Customer: "I do not feel your offering is quite as good."
You: "Quite as good?"Signficant Other: "I don't think we should go to the BBQ place."
You: "The BBQ place?"
Physical Mirroring
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There is also an aspect of physical mirroring that helps successful negotiators. This "Chameleon affect" taps into the idea that people like people that are like them. So, standing in a similar manner, using similar hand gestures or a sitting position, and using similar language or grammatical structures in your your email can all provide a mirror effect and more positive outcome.
Researcher William Maddux and colleagues conducted an experiment wherein MBA students were instructed to subtly mirror their partner during negotiation (e.g. lean back if the other person does) or not asked to mirror their partner. When one party was instructed to mirror the other, the two parties reached a deal 67% of the time. When they weren’t told to mirror the other, the parties reached a deal only 12.5% of the time. - BehaviouralDesign.com
Conclusion
Hope these tips and tricks were helpful, and you are more successful your future negotiations. Whether for a raise, for a new job, new vendor, or with your significant other. These little tips and tricks go a long way to help you empathize with your counter party and understand what they need and why. It helps you navigate those needs by helping them feel understood and heard. That feeling of understanding helps create trust and a stronger negotiation and conclusion. How do you think you'll use these methods in the future?
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Great tool for dealing with others thanks.
Thanks. Let me know how the tricks work for you!
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Interesting advice, which mirrors (!) other training I've had in client relationship management and relationship based selling over the years. The mirroring technique you refer to is also used by those who use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) as a way of persuading others (could be manipulative and creepy depending on motive!), and the use of open questions (e.g. starting with the words who, what, where, when, why, which, how in response to a client's statements) building on the client's own previous comments are an excellent way to help them articulate their own challenges. I like the idea of asking an open question on an up tone to elicit a response 😊.
Thanks for the info. Over a few posts, I was going to share a few other learnings from the class and the book. Open-ended questions is a great empathetic and investigatory method.
I've noticed Steemit isn't always a fan of long content, so I figured a few digestible bites was likely going to be more successful.
Thanks for the vote and resteem!
Hi @somethingsubtle (love the handle), I look forward to further learnings from the FBI negotiator - helps to get advice from someone who can point to evidence of success, like hostages not dying & getting released instead :-).
I agree with you about Steemit not liking long posts, but sometimes I've said "damn the torpedoes" and just posted a long one. Not advocating others do it, but it's a personal preference given I'm here for the long term. If I'd been sharp enough to use my name in my handle instead of the one I chose, I might get some SEO benefit from a longer post since Google apparently weights those higher if the quality is there. I think. And I wouldn't have a clue how if it would be able to link my handle back to me in the end...and I'm not sure I'm that fussed about it anyway. This is an enjoyable way for me to get back into writing! Hope you're enjoying your time on the platform too. A pleasure to upvote and resteem good stuff.
I think people have an inherent bias that you agree or understand their position, even if you don't give them much to go on. Oftentimes people think you are "On the same side" unless you say otherwise - we generally want to help each other, which is important to remember.
I would agree. Most people are likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. I think it is because we always view interactions through our own filters; so, we assume others are working with the exact same filters and understanding as a mental shortcut.
Nice nice good work and very useful post @somethingsubtle keep it up post...GOD BLESS YOU
Thanks. I'll keep the career and negotiation stuff coming!
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