What Makes a Good Negotiator? Maybe Not What You Think
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1. Beliefs about negotiation.
Those who think negotiators are born with innate skills didn’t perform as well as those who think people can improve their ability to negotiate. Just being aware that your results can improve can have a positive impact on your talks.
Research also finds that those who approach negotiations with a positive attitude and high expectations tend to do better.
2. Selfishness and selflessness.
Negotiators who are the most concerned about their own outcomes achieve higher performance scores than others.
Experiments have compared “proself ” negotiators (those who focus primarily on their own outcomes) and competitors (who want to “beat” the other side) and “prosocials,” (those who focus on maximizing outcomes for both parties (maybe they’d be better off as mediators)). Several studies show,
- Prosocials are more generous than proself toward others,
- While in other studies proselfs made more concessions than did prosocials. They responded with concessions when their counterparts expressed disappointment with offers. These seemingly selfish negotiators furthered their self interest by increasing the odds of a resolution, which makes them look good.
3. Intelligence and creativity.
In one study, highly intelligent negotiators created more value than others, but they also claimed slightly less value for themselves.
As a result, higher intelligence didn’t significantly improve negotiators’ performance. Negotiators who scored high on creativity measures were better at uncovering innovative tradeoffs, but their overall scores did not rise above average.
These findings back up a 1998 study of individual bargaining differences which found that very smart negotiators were good at creating opportunities for joint gain but didn’t have an edge when dividing the pie of resources.
4. Sensitivity to slights.
If you criticize a negotiator’s argument or question his or her motives, you risk threatening the negotiator’s “face” or social image. Such threats to self-esteem can trigger embarrassment, anger and competitive behavior in your counterpart. Some people are more sensitive to these social slights than others.
More thin-skinned, self-conscious individuals work hard to control the way others perceive them. What happens when they negotiate?
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