HOW DO NEGOTIATION WORKS’ PARTICIPANTS BECOME CONFIDENT NEGOTIATORS?
Before this class, I was afraid of negotiation, and I avoided negotiations. Now, I enjoy negotiations. I learned to have a strategy, to think of the interests of the opponent, and to prepare your evidence clearly and strongly. I now have courage.
– “Kiki”, Together We Bake
How does our program give participants such as Kiki confidence that they can use negotiation strategies to advocate for themselves and work through life’s daily disputes and challenges? A dive into some of the pedagogical approaches we use and scholarly research in the field of social psychology provides insight into the forces that contribute to this success.
THE RESEARCH:
VIEWING NEGOTIATIONS AS CHALLENGES, NOT THREATS, AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS AS MALLEABLE, NOT INNATE
Research by Professors Kathleen O’Connor, Josh Arnold, and Andrea Maurizio has found that the manner in which individuals view “conflict”—as either stressful, threatening interactions or challenges that they have the resources to address—affects both negotiation performance and outcomes. The researchers explored subjects’ perceptions of “conflict” in relation to how they engaged in a simulated negotiation. In their study, they found that in situations involving integrative, or potential win-win, outcomes, the subjects who perceive negotiations as a threat demonstrated a classic “flight” response to the stress: they were passive in their approach, taking few affirmative actions to engage with the other party, and, accordingly, learned very little about their counterpart’s preferences and achieved less favorable outcomes. The researchers judged these results to be consistent with earlier findings that individuals with less confidence in their negotiation skills were less likely to be persistent when negotiating. Contrastingly, the subjects who perceive conflict as a challenge to be tackled were actively engaged in the negotiation process and able to work cooperatively with the other party. Those who see opportunities to negotiate as challenges, the researchers posit, tend to set more ambitious goals for themselves and are willing to put in much effort to achieve good outcomes. The researchers conclude that because individuals who approach negotiations as a challenge perform better than those who approach it as a threat, “the way people think about negotiation can undermine their chances for success before the negotiation even begins.”
“I’ve learned to establish and have a voice. Gaining respect and stating my needs lets others know that I know about myself and they do whatever they can to help.”
– Chelsee, Together We Bake, 8 months after completing the Negotiation Works program
A related set of studies, led by Professors Laura Kray and Michael Haselhaun, explored the relationship between individuals' beliefs about their ability to negotiate and their performance. Specifically, the researchers considered the differences between individuals who believe the ability to negotiate is malleable—meaning that they can learn strategies to negotiate more effectively—and those who believe that the ability to negotiate is a fixed, innate trait which additional training would not affect. Subjects in their study engaged in a mock negotiation between a job candidate and a recruiter, working through issues of salary, benefits, and vacation time.
The researchers found that those subjects who believe that negotiation ability can be learned negotiated more effectively than subjects who believe that good negotiators are “born that way.” The advantages experienced by the first group included: (1) persevering for longer in their simulated negotiations, (2) showing greater willingness to confront contentious issues, (3) seeking more solutions to address the interests and needs of both parties, and (4) experiencing better outcomes. The researchers hypothesize that those who believe that good negotiators are born, not made, will withdraw from a negotiation process if they think they might fail, as they don’t believe they have the skills to influence the process. Those who believe that negotiation skills are imminently “learnable”, on the other hand, are more likely to persevere when negotiating. The researchers suggest that individuals’ beliefs in their ability to learn and improve their negotiation skills influences their performance in a powerful way: they are motivated to expend effort negotiating and working through a problem, even if it seems like an uphill battle. Kray and Haselhaun conclude that “[n]egotiators who embrace the view that the pie can be expanded, that anything is negotiable, and that a wide range of traits and styles contribute to success are indeed more successful at the bargaining table.”
OUR PEDAGOGY:
WE SEEK TO REFRAME THE NATURE OF CONFLICT AND EMPOWER PARTICIPANTS WITH CONFIDENCE THAT THEY CAN LEARN NEW STRATEGIES TO BECOME BETTER NEGOTIATORS
The situations that Negotiation Works program participants face in their daily lives—such as seeking stable housing, a steady job, or improved relationships with family—necessarily involve stress. However, the prospect of using negotiation to work through those interpersonal situations doesn’t have to trigger fear, a sense of being threatened, or a “fight or flight” response.
Consistent with the findings of O’Connor, Arnold, and Maurizio, we seek to give participants a new lens through which to view conflict: as a surmountable challenge. Recognizing that many of our program participants view situations that potentially involve conflict—such as asking a supervisor for time off to attend a family funeral, having a run-in with a car rental company, or dealing with an inconsiderate roommate—as stressful or threatening, we work to demystify the process of using negotiation to address such everyday situations. We provide participants with specific elements and a framework they can use when facing difficult interpersonal situations, including identifying each party’s interests, considering each party’s walk-away plan, and listening carefully to the other party’s ideas. Moreover, each participant receives a set of worksheets that can be used to prepare for future negotiations. The worksheets contain questions, charts, and tables that break down the negotiation process into manageable elements.
Participants learn that even in situations involving parties who they perceive to be more powerful—such as landlords, employers, or other authority figures—they can wield tremendous negotiating power through understanding the other party’s perspective, communicating in a clear and direct, and straightforward way, and making a realistic assessment of possible outcomes. Participants have opportunities to practice these elements in our classes by engaging in realistic role-plays. For example, in our classes on communication, participants take part in scenarios that include seeking a payment plan on an old loan, approaching a supervisor to ask for a raise, and trying to secure a lease despite a history that includes evictions or criminal convictions. Additionally, participants share their negotiation successes and challenges with one another from week to week. Through this supportive community of classmates and peers, participants gain a sense of mastery in using negotiation strategies to address interpersonal conflicts and engage in self-advocacy. These tough situations don’t have to trigger stress, they learn, but rather can involve purposeful, intentional strategies that lead to tangible, positive results.
Additionally, reflecting on Kray and Haselhaun’s findings of the benefits of perceiving one’s negotiation skills as malleable, we strive to give program participants a sense of agency and ownership as they learn, practice and improve their negotiation skills. Moreover, we stress that the participants’ learning experience is a collective one; for example, at the end of each class meeting, we ask the participants to craft walk-away lessons, or “Strategy Tips of the Week” (“STOWs”) that they learned that day. Examples of participant-crafted STOWs include:
Know that you can always say “no” to a proposal that doesn’t meet your interests, or you can suggest modifications to it. (Options Class, Georgetown Pivot Program, 2021)
Stay aware of how you are presenting your perspective; don’t underestimate yourself or your abilities to be persuasive. (Communication Class, Together We Bake, 2021)
If you want to be trusted by the other party in a negotiation, mean what you say and say what you mean. (Trust and Reliability Class, Calvary Women’s Services, 2021)
At the end of each multi-week course, we collect all the Strategy Tips of the Week the group has developed and give each participant a keepsake copy of their collective work.
Knowing techniques on how to negotiate can be used to make your life easier, and knowledge is always powerful.
– “Carmen,” Calvary Women’s Services
Participants who go through our negotiation courses—whether they are experiencing homelessness, living in domestic violence shelters, or returning to the community from prison—learn that many disputes, even if stressful and complex, can often be addressed and, frequently, resolved through the intentional use of negotiation strategies that involve communication and persuasion. They come to view conflict and self-advocacy not as threatening situations to be avoided but rather as challenges or opportunities to move forward. Social psychology research lends further support to what we witness in our classes every day: when individuals like Kiki, Chelsee, and Carmen demonstrate increased confidence that they can and will—through their own skills and abilities—successfully self-advocate and resolve interpersonal disputes, they move closer to achieving their goals.
Do Attitudes in Negotiation Influence Results? https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/conflict-resolution/do-attitudes-influence-results/
Kray LJ, Haselhuhn MP. Implicit negotiation beliefs and performance: experimental and longitudinal evidence. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2007 Jul;93(1):49-64. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.49. PMID: 17605588.
O'Connor, K.M., Arnold, J.A. (2001). Distributive Spirals: Negotiation Impasses and the Moderating Role of Disputant Self-Efficacy, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 84 (1), 148-176. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597800929236
O'Connor, K. M., Arnold, J. A., & Maurizio, A. M. (2010). The prospect of negotiating: Stress, cognitive appraisal, and performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(5), 729–735. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.04.007
Taylor, K.A., Mesmer-Magnus, J., Burns, T.M. (2008). Teaching the Art of Negotiation: Improving Students' Negotiating Confidence and Perceptions of Effectiveness, Journal of Education for Business, 83 (3), 135-140. https://www.proquest.com/docview/202820131/fulltextPDF/675F3FB466749C1PQ/1?accountid=15172