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Why Silence is Powerful When Negotiating a Deal | Ask a Negotiator with Bob Bordone | Bob Bordone | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Why Silence is Powerful When Negotiating a Deal | Ask a Negotiator with Bob Bordone
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Core Theme
Silence, often perceived as uncomfortable in negotiations, is a powerful and strategic tool that can foster creativity, emotional regulation, thoughtful pacing, and deeper listening, ultimately leading to more productive mutual gains.
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today I break the silence on silence and
negotiations and along the way I'll
share four ways in which silence can be
a useful tool in mutual gains negotiations
negotiations [Music]
so most of us experience silence as discomforting
discomforting
nerve-wracking and maybe problematic and
negotiation but the truth of the matter
is that strategically used
silence is a very important skill and
tactic it can be used to help
negotiations move forward to promote
creativity to promote listening and to
break impasse so I'm going to share with
you these four key ways in which silence
is actually useful in mutual gains negotiation
negotiation
the first is Recent research has shown
that silence actually promotes
creativity and negotiation
So This research is conducted by Jared
kerhan and his colleagues at the MIT
Sloan School of Business and what it has
shown is that using just three seconds
of Silence can actually help the
initiator of that silence adopt a more
deliberative mindset
in addition and this is a really I think
stunning finding
silence is the tactic that is most
effective at leading to breakthroughs in
negotiation so specifically when you're
stuck and when you've reached an impasse
there is this tendency I think we
sometimes have to keep blabbing blabbing
blabbing right fill the silence fill the
silence but in fact
stopping talking is the thing that often
breaks the impasse and has parties move forward
forward
now a second really key use of silence
is that it helps you and the other party
in the negotiation handle your emotional
refractory period so what is an
emotional refractory period this is that
moment in a negotiation when the other
side has said something that is
triggering and it provokes a set of very
strong emotions maybe anger maybe hurt
maybe frustration and in that moment we
have this tendency to get reactive to
defend to name call to label them in in
negative ways and part of what's causing
that is that a whole bunch of chemicals
are being released in our brain that is
overwhelming the frontal lobe of our
brain which is the more conscious
decision-making deliberative part of our brain
brain
but the use of Silence actually gives us
a chance to name to ourself the set of
emotions that we're feeling and that
naming actually helps move the brain
activity from the amygdala which is the
more emotional Center back to the
frontal lobe the more conscious Center
so Matt Lieberman who's at UCLA has
called this affective labeling so we use
the silence and we say to ourselves
okay I'm feeling angry and frustrated
and hurt and annoyed right now and just
that task
actually helps us then be more
productive in the negotiation
a third way in which silence is
incredibly helpful in negotiation is
that it can actually slow down the pace
of a negotiation so when things are kind
of going off the rails uh maybe it's
escalating silence gives us a chance to
minimize catastrophizing so one of the
things I noticed in a lot of the
coaching that I do is that when people
get emotional part of what they're also
doing is they're they're going down a
path where they see the relationship
falling apart or they see this going to
court or they see themselves getting
fired or they see themselves maybe
firing the other person
and by using silence it gives you a
chance to get a more accurate appraisal
of what's going on
yeah this isn't a great moment and we're
not in a good spot
on the other hand chances are that we'll
still eat dinner tonight and we'll
probably still wake up tomorrow morning
and go to the gym
so if we get that perspective
the Caster catastrophizing Tendencies
disappear and so silence is a really
nice way to slow things down and to
invite everyone at the table to be more purposeful
purposeful
it's actually a tactic I use a lot when
I'm mediating just kind of sitting there
letting people catch their breath and
then making a move to kind of reorient
where we are in the mediation
lastly is the Strategic use of Silence
can actually promote listening
so one of the things that is very clear
is that active listening is the stealth
weapon of a great negotiator
and you can't really be listening if
you're doing all the talking
so pausing asking a short open-ended question
question
or maybe offering a prompt like say more
about that
or I'd like to understand your thinking
a bit more and then stopping actually
gets the other side talking
and that's a really useful thing in
negotiation because when the other side
is talking
we're actually learning about what's
important to them
what they need for a good outcome what
they find to be persuasive what their
objections are to our proposals and all
of that information is critical for
whatever we're going to say next
some years ago I was actually
participating in a conversation that
involved some Palestinians and some
Israelis and there is a back and forth
going on between an Israeli settler and
a Palestinian and at some point I asked
the Palestinian to just sit and listen
quietly and I sat and listened quietly
and the Israeli settler went on and on
and on basically giving a long
historical narrative about how certain
lands in the West Bank historically
belong to the Jewish people from
literally Biblical times and onward and
that the land was rightfully part of the
Jewish people's land
and I could see the Palestinian getting
very anxious but I kind of asked him to
remain quiet and we kept listening and
listening and listening
and then finally the Israeli settler
said you know and there's one thing
If people could just understand this
fact and appreciate that this land
historically belongs to the Jewish people
people
well then in that case I could certainly
be open to the idea that this might not
be the historic time when Jewish people
ought to be living on the land
jaw drop now did that Advance any actual
negotiation no we were in a dialogue but
what it showed is if you let people say
their piece even if they're repeating
and redundant and passionate about it
that it opens up some space for them to
think differently
so to review even though for many of us
silence can be anxiety producing and
when we see it in a negotiation we might
feel anxious or panicky I want to invite
you to reorient your thinking on silence
in fact there are four big attributes
that can come from the Strategic and
purposeful use of Silence in negotiation
first it often promotes creativity
there's Empirical research to show this
related to this more than any other
tactic the Strategic use of Silence
helps parties break through impasse
second it could help you handle your own
strong emotions during an emotional
refractory period
third in that moment when a negotiation
is seeming like it's going off the rails
and everything is falling apart
silence is a way to slow down the pace
of the negotiation and helps minimize
catastrophizing and lastly when you are
silent it gives you an opportunity to
listen and any tactic that promotes
listening promotes learning
so the next time you're in a negotiation
and you're experiencing silence do the
best you can to use it as an opportunity
to breathe in
be more deliberative invite creativity
get your emotions in play and get your
emotions under control and listen well
next video which is how can I manage
strong emotions theirs and mind in negotiations
negotiations
and don't forget to like this video
please subscribe to my channel and of
course ring the bell so you'll get
notifications on all my new videos
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