Counter-Cultural Negotiating
From the time we are born, our culture trains us to get along with people; we’re taught to shy away from conflict and nod our head and say yes. In today’s more collaborative business world, many people see arguments as obstructive. To avoid undermining the deal, they try to eliminate discord and soften competition as much as they can.
But according to academic research, this seemingly logical approach may be dead wrong. In a study published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 74 dating couples and 32 mixed-sex pairs of complete strangers worked through a simulated negotiation on three potentially related issues. Here’s what they wanted to find out: Which group would make the more mutually advantageous deals?
The results might seem counter-intuitive. The dating couples, the journal noted, “had lower outcome aspirations, less frequently generated offers which facilitate the discovery of mutually beneficial outcomes, less frequently engaged in pressure (dominance) tactics, and more frequently exchanged information about profit values and priorities”—in other words, they were more honest and less aggressive. But the strangers were superior collaborators. Their friction generated better deals for both sides.
What’s more, the more fiercely committed the dating couple (as calibrated by something called the “Rubin’s Love Scale”), the less effectively they negotiated.
Push Back, Lean In
Which leads us to our conclusion: Differences drive the creative process. In their eagerness to preserve harmony and minimize any conflict, the romantic couples came to premature agreement. By refusing to push back and risk getting “stuck,” they shut off their problem-solving creativity. As a result, both sides left value on the table.
It’s not easy to express disagreement. It’s even harder when you work closely with your opposite number and feel invested in the business relationship. But stop and think about it: We wouldn’t need to negotiate in the first place if we had no differences. In my view, competition and disagreement aren’t necessary evils; they are healthy and essential elements for reaching a better deal. Assuming hostilities don’t get out of hand, it’s the clash of ideas that fosters imaginative thinking and the most lucrative solutions.
Mobus Creative Negotiating trains people to lean into their differences instead of smoothing over them. In our next newsletter, I’ll look at an example of Creative Conflict from personal experience.