Move past initial reactions
Our initial reactions can change with time, new information, or new circumstances.
Newsletter Friends, this month I’m going to remind you to look past initial reactions and think about the bigger picture.
But first, news and events:
Julie Vick interviewed me about negotiation tips for creatives in her Substack newsletter, Humor Me.
This Thursday, October 5th, I’ll be in conversation with Hilary Zaid at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA about her new novel, Forget I Told You This, about data surveillance, queer love, and illuminated manuscripts.
Negotiation tip of the month: Initial reactions can change.
We’ve all experienced this: an immediate reaction can change when you get more information, have more time to process, or are in a different emotional state.
For example, a parent snaps at their child to stop asking questions. The parent regrets it later; they just didn’t have the resources to deal with an interruption in that moment. But the child is unaware of any change. Later, the child refrains from asking another question, even though the parent would have welcomed it.
The same dynamic plays out in business settings. “That isn’t possible,” one negotiator might say, or “We never do that.”
This may be true, but you don’t have to take it at face value. It could be a reaction, rather than a reasoned argument. Or it could be a reasoned argument that is based on false assumptions.
Instead of immediately accepting the initial reaction as true, you can seek to understand by asking questions. Pick any of the following, or make your own!
Open-ended: Can you tell me more about why that wouldn’t work?
Confirming: So you have never done this before? Or – So, there is no situation where you would do this? (This is likely to elicit either a strong “No” or “Well… there was that one time, and that other time.”)
Information-seeking: Is it impossible because … [take a guess here – you don’t have the right people, you don’t have the funding, etc.] (This will help you understand whether it really is impossible, or whether there are obstacles that could potentially be removed.)
The answers to these questions may show your negotiating partner that their initial reaction was too strong. But the point isn’t to change their mind; it’s to learn about constraints and obstacles that will affect the possible solutions to the problem you are trying to solve in this negotiation.
Later, you might say, “You said earlier that X makes things difficult; could we instead do Y?” Or – “Your initial reaction was that this wouldn’t work because [reason]. Do you still have those concerns?”
In personal conflicts, the initial reaction is often an emotional one or a snap judgment. (“You’re marrying HIM?”) With time to think and process, that reaction may change. So try not to hold eternal grudges about the thoughtless thing they blurted out, or to wake up nightly at 2 a.m. fretting over the thoughtless thing you blurted out.
See you around Halloween for a spooooky negotiation tip! (I don’t actually have any, but maybe in a month I will.) And as always, I love to hear from you with reactions, questions, or tales of that time you negotiated a 200% increase in your salary but when you arrived for work on Monday, the company was gone and all the neighbors claimed it never existed.
