Life is an endless series of conflicts and negotiations. To be great at anything – a great manager, a great employee, a great CEO, a great spouse – you have to be a good negotiator.
Two little genies in our head control most of our negotiation capability. The first genie wants you to not only stand up for yourself but it wants you to rebel and lash out and yell. In short, be the jerk. The second genie tells you to nod, smile and give up or just do what others want you to do – be the nice guy.
Anthropologists know these two behaviors as fight-or-flight responses, two deeply ingrained traits in ancient parts of our brain.
In the modern world, a third genie is needed that doesn’t pick flight or fight as the default response when faced with conflict but rather embraces conflict as the basis of effective negotiation.
Here are some ideas to nurture and train the third genie:
- When you sense a conflict rising, speak less and listen intently. This sounds simple but takes practice to implement. When you sense tension bubbling up in your voice which is an indicator of conflict, default to speaking less, thus giving yourself space for listening and thinking.
- The third genie loves it when you provide real-time evidence that you are listening by briefly repeating the accusations that the other party is hurling at you. The repetition shows your counterpart that you are getting it! This also allows you to slow down and think through your options instead of spending all your mental energy on the next smart thing you want to say.
- Separate the person from the situation. The adversary is not the person, but the situation. Making it impersonal can diffuse a conflict into something more manageable such as a misunderstanding or an inconvenience.
- Ask open ended ‘how’ and ’what’ questions to uncover constraints and hidden desires. Uncovering the hidden information will enable the thoughtful genie to find creative new solutions to the problem. Open ended questions force the sparring parties to think together and improve their respective understanding of the other’s constraints and goals.
- Get together with your counterpart outside a formal environment. The first two genies of fight or flight are subdued in a safe informal atmosphere. This allows the third genie to think, understand and empathize, revealing overlooked ideas and new solutions.
- Take a time-out and use that down time to widen your perspective about the situation in it’s entirety. Do some role play where you put yourself deep into the other party’s shoes and argue for their position. It may help spark new ideas on diffusing the conflict.
