{ "lesson": { "id": 11659415, "video_id": 5773887, "downloadable": false, "autoplay": false, "download_url": null, "html_text": "

Controlling your emotions

Over recent years, research has started to focus more on the ways in which emotions such as anger, disappointment, anxiety and excitement can impact the behaviour of parties during negotiations, and therefore the outcome of those negotiations. And the impact can be significant. I asked ex-City partner, professional development trainer, and best-selling commercial awareness author Chris Stoakes to write a forward for my Commercial Law Handbook. It was only a short piece, but he felt that negotiation – including the emotions that can underpin negotiation – was a sufficiently important topic to include the following advice:

"Negotiating isn’t slamming your fist on the table and threatening to walk out of the room. That doesn’t do your client any good. Clients want things resolved. So it’s about finding out what matters to your client (by talking to them) and then finding out what matters to the other side (by talking to their lawyers) and finding a compromise. Which can be creative."

Anxiety

The more prepared you are, hopefully the less anxious you will feel. This is important, because research shows that looking or feeling anxious tends to result in suboptimal negotiation outcomes. You should therefore do all you can to reduce feelings of anxiety when negotiating, or at least learn to control any external signs that could indicate your anxiety to the other side. Train, rehearse, and keep trying to develop your negotiating skills, as this can help negotiation to feel more routine, and therefore become less of an anxiety-inducing experience.

Anger

Research has shown that anger can disrupt the negotiation process by escalating conflict, biasing perceptions and increasing the likelihood of deadlock situations arising. It can encourage competitive behaviour, discourage cooperation, increase the rate at which offers are rejected, and ultimately result in a worse overall outcome for everyone involved. Angry negotiators are also less accurate than neutral negotiators, both in recalling their own interests and in judging other parties’ interests. So keep this in mind if you feel your temper flaring up during a negotiation. Controlling that anger, or at least limiting the extent to which you outwardly express it, should be seen as an essential negotiating strategy. 

Trying to build a rapport with the counterparty before, during and if possible, after a negotiation can reduce the chances of hostility flaring up on either side. You could also make it clear at the start that you want to work together to find a win-win solution. If anger does start to flare up during the negotiation, perhaps suggest that everyone takes a break to cool off and regroup. Resist the urge to escalate.

To that end, in legal negotiations where the parties are getting frustrated and there’s a risk of a deadlock arising, lawyers will sometimes ask the counterparty’s lawyers to check a particular point with their client before discussions relating to that point continue. This temporarily parks the point, enables everyone to calm down, and forces the other lawyers to check whether their client actually cares. This can help to avoid negotiations faltering purely because a lawyer for the other side is being stubborn for no real reason. 

Excitement

Allowing yourself to feel excessively excited about a potential deal can cause you to lose sight of what’s important and have an adverse impact on your negotiation. Moreover, even if you feel you’ve nailed it, never gloat after a negotiation. In certain situations, showing happiness or excitement can trigger disappointment or resentment in others, which can have a detrimental impact on commercial relationships in the future (or even result in the other side reneging on a deal to which they had previously agreed). The best negotiators achieve great deals for themselves, but leave their opponents believing that they too secured a great deal (even if this doesn’t reflect the reality). 

Practical tip: try all you can to control your emotions during and after a negotiation, and remain observant of the other side’s emotions throughout (as their emotions might betray their true position). You’re more likely to understand their position if you tune into their tone of voice and non-verbal communication in order to ascertain how they are really feeling. And this could help you to negotiate more effectively, perhaps by adapting your own approach.

", "video_url": "https://www.commerciallaw.academy/api/course_player/v2/contents/27872348/play/5773887", "attachment_ids": [], "download_file_ids": [] }, "attachments": [], "download_files": [], "videos": [ { "id": 5773887, "storage_location": "videoproxy", "identifier": "c504rt61h29ms4djdvs0", "primary_thumbnail_url": "https://embed-ssl.wistia.com/deliveries/036f4429cb86d76ae790adc949055b4b22309506.jpg", "encoded_state": "finished" } ] }