Human beings are reaction machines
HUMAN beings are reaction machines. The most natural thing to do when confronted with a difficult situation is to react instinctively rather than rationally, said William Ury, one of our lecturers at the Program of Negotiation.
Here are some common reactions:
Striking back. Striking back is an impulsive reaction. When the other side attacks, you instinctively react to attack back, to fight fire with fire, and give them a taste of their own medicine. If they take a rigid and extreme position, you do the same.
The other problem with striking back is that people who play hardball are usually very good at it. They may actually be anticipating you would attack them. If you do, you put yourself on their home turf, playing the game the way they like to play it.
Striking back rarely advances your immediate interests and usually damages your long-term relationships.
More often, however, this reaction lands you in a futile and costly confrontation. You provide them with a justification for their unreasonable behavior. They think: “Ah, I knew that you were out to get me. This proves it.” Escalation often follows in the form of a shouting match, a corporate showdown, a lawsuit or a war.
Giving in. Giving in is the opposite of striking back. The other side may succeed in making you feel so uncomfortable with the negotiation that you give in just to be done with it. They pressure you, implying that you are the one who’s causing the problem. Do you really want to be the one responsible for dragging out the negotiations, disrupting the relationship, missing the opportunity of a lifetime? Wouldn’t it just be better to say yes?
Ury said: “Many of us make agreements only to wake up the next morning slapping our foreheads and exclaiming: How could I have been so stupid! What did I agree to? For example, many of us sign a contract when buying a car without reading all the fine points.
“Sometimes we are intimidated and appeased by people under the illusion that if we give in just this one last time, we will get them off our back and will never have to deal with them again.
“There is a saying that an appeaser is someone who believes that “if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will eventually become a vegetarian.”
Breaking off. A common reaction is to break off relations with the difficult person or organization. If it’s a marriage, we get a divorce. If it’s a job, we resign. If we are involved in a joint venture, we dissolve it.
At times, avoidance is a perfectly appropriate strategy. Sometimes it is better to end a personal or business relationship if continuing means being taken advantage of or getting into fights again and again.
But the cost, both financial and emotional, of breaking off the relationship is often high: a lost client, a career setback and a shattered family. Breaking off is frequently a hasty reaction that we come to regret later. We all know people who take a job or enter a personal relationship, become frustrated with their boss or partner, and then leave without giving it a chance.
Dangers of reacting. Even if reacting doesn’t lead to a gross error on your part, it feeds the unproductive cycle of action and reaction. The bad news is that you contributed to the vicious cycle of action and reaction; the good news is that you have the power to break the cycle at any time, unilaterally. How? In physics we learn that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Newton’s law, however, applies to objects, not minds. Objects react. Minds can choose not to (Ury, 1991).
There are dozens of tactics, but they can be grouped into three general categories, depending on
whether they are obstructive, offensive or deceptive:
Stonewall. A stonewall tactic is a refusal to budge. The other side may try to convince you that they have no flexibility and that there is no choice other than their position. Stonewalls can take the form of a fait accompli: “What’s done is done. It can’t be changed.”
Tricks. Tricks are tactics that dupe you into giving in. They take advantage of the fact that you assume your counterpart is acting in good faith and is telling the truth. One kind of trick is manipulating the data using false, phony or confusing figures.
Attacks. Attacks are pressure tactics designed to intimidate you and make you feel so uncomfortable that you ultimately give in to the other side’s demands. The most common form of attack is to threaten you with dire consequences unless you accept their position: “Do it or else!” Your opponent may also attack your proposal: “Your figures are way out of line.” Or question your authority: “We want to talk to the real decision maker.” Attackers will insult, badger and bully until they get their way.
How to counter the tactics
Ury stressed that the key to neutralize a tactic is “to recognize not only what they are doing but also what we’re feeling.
“Many ploys depend on your knowing what is being done to you. Suppose your customer tells you that he loves the deal but that his partner won’t let him sign the contract without substantial changes. If you don’t realize that he is using his partner as a ‘bad guy,’ you may agree innocently to the changes.
“Lies are the hardest tactics to recognize. You need to watch for mismatch between their words, on the one hand, and their previous words or actions, facial expressions, body language and tone of voice, on the other. Liars can manipulate words, but they cannot easily control the symmetry of their facial expressions.”
To be continued
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com