In any negotiation, fair is the magic word that comes up that has the ability to dictate the entirety of the conversation. What one party perceives as fair might not be how the other party sees it. This is because fairness is subjective and based on a gathered set of facts, assumptions, and conclusions that are relative to one singular individual. How then can we agree on what is fair in a negotiation and have productive dialogue rather than bitter screaming matches? The answer comes down to something that is simple in principle yet difficult in practice.
See The World Through Your Adversary’s Eyes
Have you ever been in a negotiation where you just couldn’t get your point across? Voices and tensions rise during these types of heated discussions and it isn’t very often something meaningful actually reaches a resolution. This is because each person is perceiving the information that is being exchanged in conversation differently, using assumptions, and coming up with a conclusion that seems fair to them. They then spend the remainder of the time trying to convince the other person to see things from their point of view and get frustrated when they don’t. This goes both ways.
An art to negotiation and communication altogether is to be able to see things through the eyes of your counterpart or adversary. Have you ever stopped to consider why they feel the way they feel or have you just labeled their conclusions illogical and irrational in favor of yours? This complete disregard for the perspectives of others makes you a difficult person to get along with. It’s difficult or even impossible to make breakthroughs with people during negotiation when you refuse to see things from their perspective. Just because their conclusions and opinions differ from yours doesn’t mean they’re irrational or wrong, it just means you haven’t done a good enough job understanding them and why they feel the way they do yet. When you can uncover their perspective fully is when the real magic of negotiation begins.
The “That’s Right” Moment
In the book, Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss, seeing things through the lens of your adversary is a main point. The best way to do this is to use pointed open ended questions with genuine curiosity to elicit responses revealing motives, beliefs, and intentions. When clarification is needed, ask more open-ended questions, or practice what is called “mirroring” where you repeat the last few lines of someone’s sentence back to them in a question using a curious tone encouraging them to expand on their response. Another amazing tactic Voss uses to get people to expand on their point of view is called labeling where you use phrases like “it seems like” to preface assumptions you’ve made thus far in the conversation and allow your adversary to concur or clarify. The goal here is to be able to get to a point of summary where you can repeat the perspective of the adversary back to them using your own words and gathered information. This summary should trigger a “that’s right!” response from your adversary. At this point, you know you’ve seen the full picture. You’ve taken the time to understand the world from your adversary’s shoes. What’s fair to them finally makes sense to you, even if you don’t agree. They’re no longer abstract concepts. You can use this to move the conversation in a productive direction.
The main thing most people want out of a conversation is for their point of view to be understood. When you completely understand the perspective of your counterpart, you have this leverage. “That’s right” typically means you haven’t left any stones unturned. You have the complete perspective and the adversary feels as though their opinions matter to you. You get it. This builds rapport and gets the adversary over to your side of the negotiation table.
This is not just a tool for negotiating in business, it is just as useful for personal life. How many arguments have you gotten in with your spouse or significant other where a shouting match didn’t allow for the other’s perspective to be heard or understood? What’s fair for one party is either not known, misunderstood, or both and this leads to a buildup of resentment over time that can be catastrophic.
Real World Application
In my business of real estate, we use these skills all the time to see if we are able to help sellers solve their problems with our solutions. We build rapport by digging deep into their pain. This is our lead qualification process. We ask open-ended questions to get the story behind the seller’s home, why they’re looking to sell, what their struggles have been with the house, what they plan on doing next, what they need and why, and so on and so forth. When we dig deep enough with the tactics spoken about and get to the “that’s right” moment, we know if we have a solution that can solve the seller’s problem. Trying to cram a square peg in a round hole is how most sales calls go, constantly trying to sell people on products and features or what their service can do for them. Effective sales is so much more than that. It’s actively uncovering problems by listening and probing to reach a moment of mutual purpose. When this is discovered, fairness becomes something that both parties can agree on. This only happens when you open your world up to viewing the world through the eyes of your adversary. Only then will you be able to step across the aisle and solve the problem plaguing both parties, together.