When did you last find yourself questioning how you had responded to some event? “I wish I hadn’t said that”, or “I responded badly”, are both common internal monologues.
The answer for many of us will be, “recently”, and “I do it far too often”. Even if you haven’t done it yourself you may have been on the receiving end. We know it hurts relationships within families, teams, business negotiations and can create unnecessary physical conflict but we can’t stop ourselves.
One way we can help ourselves to overcome our destructive emotional outbursts is to shape how we ask questions. We all need to put calibrated questions into our tool box.
Just a bit about the Science
Over the last 10-15 years there has been a lot of study into how we think, our internal decision making processes and what causes us to act as we do.
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, has highlighted two competing processes: our emotional and fast thinking side, and our more demanding, logical, slower thinking side. Key to his observations is that we are inherently lazy and will most normally prefer the fast thinking emotional side to get on with it.
Professor Steve Peters has taken it forward in popular understanding with his book, The Chimp Paradox. Bringing it to a more ready comprehension he describes how each of us is really two beings: a human and a chimp, both working inside your brain.
You are you, the human, the person you calmly decide to be. As humans, we search for facts and truth in what is happening to us. We are logical and rely on facts to inform our decision making, and generally seek to live together in harmony with others, being driven by our need for fulfilment.
Our chimps, on the other hand, think differently. They are our emotionally charged side, have only one agenda—our survival and success—and will jump to a conclusion. They see what is happening to us but interpret it all through the lens of feelings and impressions based on emotion. They, like jungle chimps, see things in black and white, think with paranoia, are wont to take things out of context, are quick to respond, and are driven by a powerful survival instinct.
Most critically, when something out of the ordinary happens, or a possible threat arises, our chimps will think five times faster than our humans will. This means that our chimps can force the decisions we make, and dominate our physical or verbal reactions, before our human side has even considered its answer.
There are questions and there are calibrated questions
Imagine you are in a formal negotiation. Both sides want to achieve a successful outcome for themselves. While a Win Win would be ideal that is not always possible and nor is it necessarily, within the mandate of either negotiating team.
Each team has its own approach and techniques it will use to pursue its desired outcome. One such technique may very well be to get under the skin of the other side’s negotiators. They may do this through deliberate off hand comments, possibly seeking to belittle you, through highly subjective assessments of your offer, presenting them as fact, or through designed actions such as arriving late or changing meeting times at short notice.
From your point of view, in the cold light of this article, you want the negotiations to be rational, so you must do two things: firstly control your emotions and secondly, if possible, bring the other side down from their emotional approach and into a calmer frame.
Controlling your emotions
It may be challenging, but you need to:
- Control your voice. Speaking in a calm slow manner, just like a pilot when they speak to the passengers during a flight.
- Control your body. We give so much away with how we physically appear that our nervous tics, or tells, can undermine any calm voice. Regulate your breathing, and relax your posture. If you are struggling to control yourself, create an opportunity to take a break, such as going to the toilet.
- Listen and take notes. Listening to an emotional outburst can be difficult, but you must. You need to understand what the underlying situation is. Is their anger well founded or deliberately manipulative? Taking detailed notes allows you to identify intention and hidden assumptions which may cause you subsequent problems.
- Acknowledge their concerns. This doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but the act of recognising their concerns, playing them back, helps you to build empathy with the other team.
Do not:
- Fan the flames with your own emotional response. “How dare you say that,” or other such phrase will only increase the emotions. Remember their outburst may be a deliberate provocation of you.
- Negotiate when you are tired. If the negotiation is with your teenage son or daughter after you have had a tiring day, this may be difficult, but avoid it if you can. Tiredness makes our logical thinking even harder and allows our chimp a free run.
Ask Calibrated Questions
As a general rule, questions which begin with a verb lead to a subjective, emotional or incomplete response. They appeal to our quick thinking emotional side and do not force us into engaging our slower, more demanding logical side.
“Do you think you can do that?”
“Is that your best offer?”
“You don’t think you’re going to go out wearing that?”
Instead we need to ask questions which cause the other negotiating team to have to pause and start to respond using their logical side. In doing so we can take the emotions out of the negotiation. These questions are calibrated questions.
Calibrated questions tend to start with a thought provoking word: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How and Which.
The evidence is that, even in high stakes hostage negotiations, calibrated questions work.
Imagine again that you are back in the business negotiation described earlier.
Them: “If you don’t give us a 25% discount across the board this conversation ends now.” Whether you can or cannot give any discounts is not the point here. They are seeking to bully you to a concession, which may lead to further concession demands as the negotiations continue.
Your Bad Answer: “Okay, yes you can have it”, or “You’re not getting it”. In these cases you are either appearing needy, response one, or getting emotional, response two. Both responses reduce your negotiating strength and lead to it being continued on the other side’s terms.
Your Preferred Answer: “That’s quite a large discount you are asking for. Please help me to understand why you have asked for it?” Such a question may lead to a further follow up question such as “I can see your position more clearly now. You know the market well but that is still a very large discount. How do you think we can manage that?”
In both of these responses, you have bridged their demand with a recognition of their position. In so doing you are at the very least demonstrating that you are listening to them.
In your second order questions you have avoided a tit for tat negotiation like you see in so many market places. Your question has neither accepted nor rejected their demand and you have forced them to slow down and provide a response which is different to another emotional response. If it works well, you may even cause them to provide an acceptable solution for you.
Making a habit of calibrated questions will help you to take the emotions out of negotiations. They will assist you in achieving the outcomes you want. More than that, having an understanding of how they can impact negotiations will help you better understand how you respond in everyday relationships and will help you to avoid unnecessary conflict.
To find out how we can help you develop your negotiating skills, please contact us through help@streetsafethinking.com.
