Negotiate Like a Pro

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Strategy & Business Model Section | 1

Negotiate Like a Pro

By Scott Walker | Harvard Business Review Magazine | March–April 2024 Issue

Extractive Summary of the Article | Listen

Over a decades-long career as a kidnapping and extortion negotiator, the author handled many sensitive cases all over the world.  Through his experiences, observations, and conversations with other experts in the field, he has developed a deep understanding of what works and what doesn’t in high-stakes negotiations. More recently, as an adviser to executives and corporations, he has learned that the same rules can be applied to yield better outcomes in everyday business negotiations—whether you’re asking for a higher salary, lobbying for additional team resources, or hammering out the details of a contract with a client or a supplier.

No matter the situation, negotiators must remember one golden rule: It’s not about you. The only way to move someone else in your direction and find a solution on which you can agree is to listen deeply and empathetically, ensuring that the other person feels seen, heard, and understood. That is particularly powerful when the two sides are in disagreement. It allows you to build trust, manage expectations, and find ways to meet the other party’s key needs. It’s what the author calls level-five listening, and it is fundamental to effective negotiation.  It takes discipline of mind and body to accomplish, particularly when emotions are running high. The right mindset and a tool kit of techniques can help.

But how, exactly, can you prove to negotiating partners that you’re paying this level of attention to their logic, emotions, perspective, and, ultimately, wants and needs so that they begin to see you as a collaborator rather than an adversary? In the author’s world we use the mnemonic MORE PIES to remember the techniques for both ensuring and demonstrating level-five listening. This is not a box-ticking exercise but a way to train your focus so that you’re better able to understand and empathize with your counterpart.  These are: minimal encouragers (very short and simple vocal prompts such as “And?” are important ways to show that you are and remain tuned in to your counterpart), ask open questions that should encourage people to speak freely and to share their side of the story, avoid questions that begin with “Why,” because they can sound accusatory and judgmental; reflecting back, or mirroring the last few words or key phrases used by your counterparts, is away to demonstrate that you’ve heard them; emotional labeling; paraphrasing; use “I” statements allow you to explain how the situation or negotiation is affecting you; use effective pauses; and summarizing.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Over a decades-long career as a kidnapping and extortion negotiator, the author handled many sensitive cases all over the world.  More recently, as an adviser to executives and corporations, he has learned that the same rules can be applied to yield better outcomes in everyday business negotiations—whether you’re asking for a higher salary, lobbying for additional team resources, or hammering out the details of a contract with a client or a supplier.
2. No matter the situation, negotiators must remember one golden rule: It’s not about you. The only way to move someone else in your direction and find a solution on which you can agree is to listen deeply (referred as level five listening) and empathetically, ensuring that the other person feels seen, heard, and understood.
3. The right mindset and the tool kit of techniques required for level five listening includ:  use minimal encouragers, ask open questions, avoid questions that begin with “Why,”; reflect back, check your emotional labeling; paraphrasing; use “I” statements, use effective pauses; and summarizing.

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Topics:  Negotiation, Decision-making, Listening