Have we abandoned the art of negotiation?
Picture this: two humans negotiating with one another, face to face, without a tech tool, explicitly exploring all possibilities of sourcing a solution, which is acceptable to both parties, a scene that is arguably becoming a rare semblance of human transaction.
Take that image a step further and imagine a collective of humans sitting together (around a campfire) sharing imaginations and creativity of how to negotiate a situation.
Whilst the communicative tools we have at our disposal would be unidentifiable to past civilisations, for the past 2000 years our brains have stayed the same, yet how we interact is altering.
Yet, the actual behaviour of negotiation according to anthropologists goes back at least 200,000 years to the very origin of our species. You’d think by now, we would have mastered it! Begs the question, do we ever learn?
If you think about it, virtually everything we do from birth depends on negotiation. That mini human that you were, whilst you may have been chained to your high chair for safety reasons, you were still able to exercise your rights and negotiate what you would eat for breakfast, ok, your negotiation skills may have been rather rudimentary and a little uncivil as you hurled that piece of rusk that you no longer want across the room, and purse your lips so tight, that the choo choo train of mashed banana is refused entry and slides down your front into a pleasant sticky mess. Finally, you get what you want, as you are handed a piece of jammy toast and butter.
You coo with utter delight, you have what you wanted! A successful negotiation for your 10-month-old self, maybe not so for your caregiver!
Your voyage of learning how to negotiate has commenced, and as you holistically learn from your environment, your negotiation skill set develops, what you are going to wear, when you are going to do your homework, how late you are allowed out, how much alcohol you can consume. Those interactive moments that require elements of negotiation form the fabric of human society.
Moments of negotiation pass us by, often we do not give them a huge amount of headspace, negotiating is the everyday, it is inherent, but, how successful we are at it, is the basis for the flourishing of human civilisation. Mmmmmm, we do not have to look very far to realise, we are far from being victorious.
How lucrative you become as a human being stems from (in part) how efficacious your personal negotiating style is. Are you the type to throw a tantrum until you win or are you a charmer that oozes allure and thus can negotiate your way out of a fraught situation. Or do you instantaneously acquiesce as you cannot bear to traverse bumpy terrain, or perhaps you’re the type to nod yes and smile repeatedly but have absolutely no intention of agreeing. Whatever your modus operandi is, a significant amount of our time is spent with some kind of technology in between us, and this is altering our traditional wisdom that face-to-face negotiating is a condition we adhere to.
Maybe your conditioning means you will make sure you engage with a human in real time, in a real place, as often as possible, but going against the tide of change is not always easy. Zoom they cry, as you shudder, not another Zoom.
Too up close and personal as you hyper gaze at the faces on your screen, but as I am speaking, I can see myself, which puts me off my trajectory. Looking at myself, is an action, which takes me about two or three minutes in the morning, but I would rather not see myself in action during a meeting, this is not conducive to my negotiating skills, as I notice a stray hair on my chin!
Zoom does to a reasonable degree give you access to nonverbal cues, as well as vocal cues, such as tone and pitch of voice, unless of course, your band width is not too clever on that particular day, and your negotiation emerges through frozen faces, as you wonder, exactly what it is you have agreed to, so exasperated and fatigued at second guessing every word, you have lost the will to live, and frankly do not care if you sign your life away at that very second.
But, what about the email, a brilliant source of communication in many ways, I write hundreds of them, have they got me anywhere, I ask myself, that’s debatable!
I love emails, because I can deliberate, I can compose, I can consider, I can amend, I can choose my tone of voice, but their effectiveness for negotiating depends on multiple factors, and whilst they can enhance a point, clarify a point, ask a point, I am not so sure they can capture the wholeness of what we are saying, for they have limitations. What about facial expressions and gazes? How we posture ourselves, use touch and gestures, work the space in the room, how much mutual eye gazing works for you? These decoding skills are prerequisites to humanity, does CAPITALISING your angry words, and deliberating which emoji face is the best fit for the plethora of emotion you wish to demonstrate the best way to negotiate? I am not convinced.
Could the way forward be in our rearview mirror? I am not for one moment condemning technology, I use it every day and would be lost without it. But the art of rhetoric as formulated by Aristotle is an art form that our modern world depends upon, words and ideas are what created it. The art of persuasion is called negotiation, and it is not a soft skill, it is a skill that can yield growth, build brands, sell products, attract investors, inspire communities and hopefully trigger progressive change for the greater good.
