Section VI: The Spoken Word Is 10% of Negotiation
The Spoken Word Is 10% of Negotiation is completely new since this book’s 2006 predecessor. Beginning with two chapters on listening—one arguing that listening can be used in a disciplined way to avoid either cooperating or competing too much, and the other demonstrating findings from clinical psychology on actually understanding that which you listen to—the third chapter in the section goes on to explain why, and how, the best among salespeople listen far more than they talk.
Next is a chapter on how much of the negotiation may be influenced, or even predetermined, by something you may not even be aware of: your facial features, and those of your counterpart. Concluding the section is a chapter that analyzes nonverbal communication as a whole, showing just how many different forms it takes, and how you can employ them consciously.
29. Listening to Transcend Competition and Cooperation
Brian Pappas
The author offers a supposedly basic tool, that of actually listening to your counterpart in a negotiation, as an answer to a supposedly basic dilemma—whether to cooperate or compete. He argues that negotiators tend to adopt one or the other as a general approach, but that neither outright competition nor excessive cooperation actually works to produce good results. A disciplined approach to active listening, he argues, is key to unlocking your latent ability to perform in the parts of negotiation with which you are less naturally comfortable. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Itzchakov and Kluger on Listening & Understanding.
30. Listening with Understanding in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Guy Itzchakov and Avraham N. Kluger
You think that you listen to your counterparts in negotiation—but do you really understand them? In this chapter, Itzchakov and Kluger offer a unique, research-based perspective on the power of listening-with-understanding, based on Carl Rogers’ theories in clinical psychology. This approach can change speakers’ attitudes, making them more complex and less extreme, and help promote more integrative solutions. The authors outline specific tools to help us all become better listeners.
31. What Negotiators Can Learn from Modern Sales Theory
Ava J. Abramowitz
For many negotiators, a self-concept of professionalism seems to militate against learning from sales, a field they appear to devalue. Yet sales is the central setting of negotiation for all sorts of firms, particularly when what is sold is a complex and high-end service, or multimillion-dollar equipment. Not surprisingly, since sales is also the lifeblood of these firms’ survival, there has been a great deal of research and theorizing about it. In the best of selling, it turns out, forceful statements are largely replaced by thoughtful questions about every aspect of the customer’s needs. Here, Abramowitz takes a classic of sales theory and shows how it applies to negotiation in many other domains.
32. Facing Off across the Table: Negotiators’ Facial Features Affect the Agreements They Reach
Kathleen O’Connor and Margaret Ormiston
Does your face determine your fortune at the bargaining table? Some of us profoundly hope not; but O’Connor and Ormiston review work from economics, psychology, and organizational behavior, and find three categories of facial features that have been found to make a difference. Each of these facial features has a unique and important effect in negotiation. In particular, these facial features affect how counterparts perceive negotiators.
33. Non-Verbal Communication in Negotiation
Jeff Thompson, Noam Ebner and Jeff Giddings
The authors first review the research indicating that what most negotiating advice focuses on—what should be said or written, and how, and when—amounts to about 7% of communication. The other 93% is nonverbal....and is mostly ignored by proponents of better negotiation. They then set out to remedy this situation by analyzing different modes of nonverbal communication, and offering a matrix of ways to understand it, and employ it more consciously and more effectively.
Next is a chapter on how much of the negotiation may be influenced, or even predetermined, by something you may not even be aware of: your facial features, and those of your counterpart. Concluding the section is a chapter that analyzes nonverbal communication as a whole, showing just how many different forms it takes, and how you can employ them consciously.
29. Listening to Transcend Competition and Cooperation
Brian Pappas
The author offers a supposedly basic tool, that of actually listening to your counterpart in a negotiation, as an answer to a supposedly basic dilemma—whether to cooperate or compete. He argues that negotiators tend to adopt one or the other as a general approach, but that neither outright competition nor excessive cooperation actually works to produce good results. A disciplined approach to active listening, he argues, is key to unlocking your latent ability to perform in the parts of negotiation with which you are less naturally comfortable. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Itzchakov and Kluger on Listening & Understanding.
30. Listening with Understanding in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Guy Itzchakov and Avraham N. Kluger
You think that you listen to your counterparts in negotiation—but do you really understand them? In this chapter, Itzchakov and Kluger offer a unique, research-based perspective on the power of listening-with-understanding, based on Carl Rogers’ theories in clinical psychology. This approach can change speakers’ attitudes, making them more complex and less extreme, and help promote more integrative solutions. The authors outline specific tools to help us all become better listeners.
31. What Negotiators Can Learn from Modern Sales Theory
Ava J. Abramowitz
For many negotiators, a self-concept of professionalism seems to militate against learning from sales, a field they appear to devalue. Yet sales is the central setting of negotiation for all sorts of firms, particularly when what is sold is a complex and high-end service, or multimillion-dollar equipment. Not surprisingly, since sales is also the lifeblood of these firms’ survival, there has been a great deal of research and theorizing about it. In the best of selling, it turns out, forceful statements are largely replaced by thoughtful questions about every aspect of the customer’s needs. Here, Abramowitz takes a classic of sales theory and shows how it applies to negotiation in many other domains.
32. Facing Off across the Table: Negotiators’ Facial Features Affect the Agreements They Reach
Kathleen O’Connor and Margaret Ormiston
Does your face determine your fortune at the bargaining table? Some of us profoundly hope not; but O’Connor and Ormiston review work from economics, psychology, and organizational behavior, and find three categories of facial features that have been found to make a difference. Each of these facial features has a unique and important effect in negotiation. In particular, these facial features affect how counterparts perceive negotiators.
33. Non-Verbal Communication in Negotiation
Jeff Thompson, Noam Ebner and Jeff Giddings
The authors first review the research indicating that what most negotiating advice focuses on—what should be said or written, and how, and when—amounts to about 7% of communication. The other 93% is nonverbal....and is mostly ignored by proponents of better negotiation. They then set out to remedy this situation by analyzing different modes of nonverbal communication, and offering a matrix of ways to understand it, and employ it more consciously and more effectively.
Section VI authors:
A former assistant U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ava J. Abramowitz mediates for the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A Professional Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School, she is co-chair of the ABA Dispute Resolution Section Mediation Committee.
Noam Ebner is a professor in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program, at Creighton University’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. An attorney and a mediator, he has taught mediation and negotiation around the world. He was among the first teachers to engage in online teaching of negotiation and conflict studies. Noam’s research interests include online negotiation and dispute resolution, trust, and negotiation pedagogy. Noam can be contacted at NoamEbner@creighton.edu; his work can be found at ssrn.com/author=425153.
Dr. Jeff Giddings is a Professor of Law at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He convened the Graduate Program in Dispute Resolution at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia from 2005 to 2015. He has practiced, taught and researched in the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution for 30 years.
Guy Itzchakov completed his B.A in Psychology and Economics at the Open University of Israel, and received his M.A in Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University in 2011. Guy is currently a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School of Business Administration. Guy's research draws on Carl Rogers' theory and focus on how attentive and non-judgmental listening facilitates an appeal to the speaker's emotions and cognitions. His research has appeared in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Social Psychology, and International Journal of Listening. Guy can be reached at guy.itzchakov@mail.huji.ac.il
Avraham N. (Avi) Kluger is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has studied for more than 20 years the destructive effects of performance feedback (telling people something about their performance with the often false hope that it will improve performance). Recently, he began researching what happens if instead of telling people things, people are given the opportunity to be listened
to. In his ongoing meta-analyses of listening he found that good listeners are good performers, are perceived as good leaders, generate satisfaction among their spouses, subordinates and patients, reduce depression, and are liked by their interlocutors. For updates about his listening research, visit http://avikluger.wixsite.com /avi-kluger.
Kathleen O'Connor is an Associate Professor at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and a visiting faculty member at London Business School. She has studied questions related to negotiators' reputations, the advantages in negotiating in teams, the influence of past successes and failures on subsequent negotiations, and the negative impact of stress on deal quality. Recently, her efforts have focused on how negotiators' physical features are interpreted by partners in ways that either improve or undercut the quality of their deals. She holds a PhD in social and organizational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Margaret E. Ormiston (mormiston@gwu.edu) is an Assistant Professor of Management at George Washington University. Prior to that she held a position at London Business School. She received her Ph.D. in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley. Her current research interests are in strategic leadership, the role of person perception (e.g., impressions of others based on facial features), and diversity in teams.
Brian Pappas, Ph.D., LL.M.,J.D., is Associate Clinical Professor of Law and director of the Conflict Resolution Clinic at Michigan State University’s College of Law. A mediator and mediation trainer, Brian has mediated hundreds of cases, and trained over one thousand mediators in court, community, business, and criminal justice contexts. Brian’s research interests lie at the intersection of law, dispute resolution, and public administration, and examine how formal and informal processes interrelate. His writings on dispute resolution have been published in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology, and the Denver Law Review.
Jeff Thompson, Ph.D., is a professor at the Institute for Conflict Management at Lipscomb University. His work in crisis and conflict includes as a detective, hostage negotiator, mediator, crisis communication trainer, and researcher. He conducts research and training in crisis communication in a variety of contexts including policing, hostage negotiation, terrorism, international kidnapping, and mental health. As a practitioner, he has been
engaged in a variety of crisis incidents ranging from barricaded perpetrators, large-scale incidents, and terrorist incidents. He can be reached at mediator.jeff@gmail.com.
A former assistant U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ava J. Abramowitz mediates for the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A Professional Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School, she is co-chair of the ABA Dispute Resolution Section Mediation Committee.
Noam Ebner is a professor in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program, at Creighton University’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. An attorney and a mediator, he has taught mediation and negotiation around the world. He was among the first teachers to engage in online teaching of negotiation and conflict studies. Noam’s research interests include online negotiation and dispute resolution, trust, and negotiation pedagogy. Noam can be contacted at NoamEbner@creighton.edu; his work can be found at ssrn.com/author=425153.
Dr. Jeff Giddings is a Professor of Law at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He convened the Graduate Program in Dispute Resolution at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia from 2005 to 2015. He has practiced, taught and researched in the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution for 30 years.
Guy Itzchakov completed his B.A in Psychology and Economics at the Open University of Israel, and received his M.A in Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University in 2011. Guy is currently a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School of Business Administration. Guy's research draws on Carl Rogers' theory and focus on how attentive and non-judgmental listening facilitates an appeal to the speaker's emotions and cognitions. His research has appeared in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Social Psychology, and International Journal of Listening. Guy can be reached at guy.itzchakov@mail.huji.ac.il
Avraham N. (Avi) Kluger is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has studied for more than 20 years the destructive effects of performance feedback (telling people something about their performance with the often false hope that it will improve performance). Recently, he began researching what happens if instead of telling people things, people are given the opportunity to be listened
to. In his ongoing meta-analyses of listening he found that good listeners are good performers, are perceived as good leaders, generate satisfaction among their spouses, subordinates and patients, reduce depression, and are liked by their interlocutors. For updates about his listening research, visit http://avikluger.wixsite.com /avi-kluger.
Kathleen O'Connor is an Associate Professor at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and a visiting faculty member at London Business School. She has studied questions related to negotiators' reputations, the advantages in negotiating in teams, the influence of past successes and failures on subsequent negotiations, and the negative impact of stress on deal quality. Recently, her efforts have focused on how negotiators' physical features are interpreted by partners in ways that either improve or undercut the quality of their deals. She holds a PhD in social and organizational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Margaret E. Ormiston (mormiston@gwu.edu) is an Assistant Professor of Management at George Washington University. Prior to that she held a position at London Business School. She received her Ph.D. in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley. Her current research interests are in strategic leadership, the role of person perception (e.g., impressions of others based on facial features), and diversity in teams.
Brian Pappas, Ph.D., LL.M.,J.D., is Associate Clinical Professor of Law and director of the Conflict Resolution Clinic at Michigan State University’s College of Law. A mediator and mediation trainer, Brian has mediated hundreds of cases, and trained over one thousand mediators in court, community, business, and criminal justice contexts. Brian’s research interests lie at the intersection of law, dispute resolution, and public administration, and examine how formal and informal processes interrelate. His writings on dispute resolution have been published in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology, and the Denver Law Review.
Jeff Thompson, Ph.D., is a professor at the Institute for Conflict Management at Lipscomb University. His work in crisis and conflict includes as a detective, hostage negotiator, mediator, crisis communication trainer, and researcher. He conducts research and training in crisis communication in a variety of contexts including policing, hostage negotiation, terrorism, international kidnapping, and mental health. As a practitioner, he has been
engaged in a variety of crisis incidents ranging from barricaded perpetrators, large-scale incidents, and terrorist incidents. He can be reached at mediator.jeff@gmail.com.