Top Tips: The Power of Silence in Negotiation - Highlight Reel

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations, and we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. 6am My time. And what time is it there?

6Pm but suck it up, my friend.

I know because last time we chatted it was early for you. So this is payback. Now we're even. You have people who can, who can speak to sales and speak to negotiation, but not somebody. It's very rare to see somebody who is highly competent at both sales and negotiation. So that's a really exciting blend and I'm excited to jump into that today. And so as far as the three topics we're going to talk about, the first one is using silence as a negotiation tool. In multiple episodes. We've touched on it, but we haven't made it a specific focus. So I'm excited to jump into that. So what are some things we need to keep in mind when it comes to silence?

Yeah, crossed my mind to say nothing for about the first 30 seconds when you asked me that just so I could show, just so I could apply some stuff. But then we might have had people opt out of listening. There's something wrong with you. So silence is a really, really powerful tool and very misunderstood in selling and negotiating and what we try to do. So when you have a either, so we'll refer to them, I guess, generically, you've either got a prospective customer or an opponent that you're negotiating with. So whichever one of those, I'll interchange those words, you're looking to get an outcome. And what we're trying to do, we have our outcome in mind and someone else may or may not have an idea of their outcome. But when we're really present and in tune, we try to listen for something which I call the clues. We're looking for a clue. Everything they say, every verbal and non verbal response that we receive gives us a clue about what we've said, what we've presented, what they've seen. And so we really need to be in our selling process and our negotiating, highly alert to the clues. That is really, really difficult to do if you don't take time to slow down the discussion and really listen to what's happening. One of the biggest things that I see go wrong all the time is people talking through and breaking the silence. So they'll ask a question and then they'll jump in or they'll get nervous by nature, and you would have seen it yourself, people get quite, you know, when the pressure is high, we tend to behave out of context. So my thing is, when I get really nervous, I tend to talk quickly. So I often say to someone, just tell me to slow down, Julia, tell me to slow down. So sometimes we do ridiculous things when we're nervous and when the pressure's high, for most people in selling and negotiating, what that is, is they feel pressure to keep the conversation going. They just don't apply that silence. They just fill in the gaps.

Makes sense. And so there's so many avenues to go down for this. So let's go ahead and start off with getting comfortable with silence. Because one of the things that I've recognized we often do as negotiation trainers is we say, hey, this is what you do. But what you identified there is there's an anxiety, a feeling of pressure that leads people to do this. It's not that they go into the negotiation and say, hey, you know what? Strategically I'm going to talk through all of my questions. It's a response, natural psychological response to the pressure that they're feeling. So for the person who acknowledges, yes, I talk too quickly, yes, I feel uncomfortable in silence, how can we get them to adopt a mindset that allows them to be more comfortable and confident in that silence?

When someone feels pressure to talk through the silence or they can't apply silence, A couple of things that people can do and where they normally apply it is, is when they ask a question, and I'll give an example of this shortly, what that looks like, but when you ask a question, you need to shut up. Essentially, that's what you should be doing. And so when you ask a question, the discipline to put in place is to sit in the silence, realise and recognise yourself where the question is and then say nothing. Another way People can apply silence or practice being silent is slowing down how you answer a question. So when you're asked a question, because people can feel uneasy when there is a bit of silence and they feel the need to quickly respond, applying some silence will actually slow down the conversation. So you can both actually get towards the outcome quicker. I call it the slowdown to speed up. We tend to think that we can get to the negotiation quicker by talking lots and filling in the gaps and not having any silence. But what that does is it actually slows everything down. Because if we're filling in and we're conscious of just filling in the silence, we are most likely to be bringing in new information, going off on tangents, not listening properly and getting sidetracked. And what we're trying to do in a sale or a negotiation is get to the quickest, find the straightest route to the end. And the way to do that is to slow down the conversation. Because we want to be able to do that, ideally, in the least amount of interactions possible, ask a question or learn something about you and answer appropriately. Not tell his story here, fill something in here, then we're going sideways and it takes us a lot longer to get to the end. To the end outcome. So really important, when you're asking a question, recognise you've asked it and then stay silent. The first person who speaks loses.

This is great, because I think one of the things that really is helpful about the way that you've approached this is that you've given specific areas where people need to stay silent. You've made it abundantly clear the key areas in the conversation where silence is appropriate. When asking a question, injecting some silence there, and then when responding to a question, injecting some silence there. I think that's really incredibly helpful for the listeners, too. And you said you want to tell a story about the silence. Yeah.

So just before I do that, though, Kwame, even when another tool or another technique people can use in order to slow down, because the actual goal is to slow down the conversation by using silence. So when someone asks you a question, rather than just jumping in, stop to yourself and say, in your brain, one elephant, two elephants, three elephants, not out loud, that would be weird. But in your brain, in your mind, and then answer the question, because what you'll do. So either you're counting out loud and it was probably, you know, if you're not used to doing that, it may seem like you've been silent for a whole minute, but it really is. We're talking three or four seconds here. And what it does, though, it does two things. It shows that you're really listening. It also gives you an opportunity to think up the right answer, not just any answer. And when we don't apply silence, we move on.

So what is the deeper meaning behind we have a voice.

We all have unique thoughts, insights, expertise, and perspective.

Right?

Let's just break that down based on where you sit. If you are working with a team, let's say they're on the east coast of the United States. You are on the West Coast. You actually have a different perspective because of where you sit. And because of that, you see things that they don't. And so often I think we're reduced to, what's our job title? What's our function? Oh, you're just the lawyer in here. So don't you comment about strategy or our marketing, go to market abilities. But we as unique human beings have thoughts, insights, perspectives of our own. And that's just our thoughts. I'd take voice further to say voice is how we move through the world. And each of us is unique. Only you can be you, Kwame. Only I can be me. And I don't know about you, but I've spent so much of my time trying to be someone else, trying to be who I thought the world needed me to be or who the job needed me to be. After all, that's what I was paid to do. Versus I, Elaine Lynn Herring, actually have unique thoughts that could help someone else. And what I realized as I was facilitating workshops on negotiation and having difficult conversations was there are a lot of me's, a lot of people who are thinking, is this all there is to the world, to my job, to my work? And I'd say, no. I think we each have the ability to solve different problems, to show up in the world, to be present for the people we love. That impacts the world and makes the world the one that we want.

You're so right. And one of the things that you said when you said, we have a voice, but we're trying to be somebody else. And so there are different levels of recognition. So we might just sit there and be completely silent for a little bit. And then we say, you know what? I have a voice. And then when we first share that voice, we're sharing somebody else's voice, not our own voice. And so there are levels to it. First of all, say something if you want to say something. Then the second thing is being able to be comfortable enough in your authenticity to share your voice, not just what you think other people want to hear from you?

Absolutely. And the reason I think we all have a voice is so profound is because we all have learned silence. And this is what my book is on, so plenty more to say there. But we have learned when we need to be quiet, when we need to edit ourselves out. Because you having a thought and sharing it doesn't mean the people in that room, if you're even in the room, are going to hear it, going to like it, going to take it. And so there's good reason why we have not used our voices, have not shown up as our authentic selves. Feel like authenticity. It feels like a luxury, good for the people who have power or who are already accepted. And so the question then becomes, how do we create the spaces that you and I and everyone around us can actually have that same luxury?

Good.

To just be us, to say what we think without having to worry about the blowback, about the retaliation, about the cost that we have to incur.

I think most of our listeners can hear what you're saying and say, yes, I agree with that. My brain has comprehended that which you have said, and we know that's not enough. Right. One of the things that you said is that it's not just knowing it. Your term was feeling it in your bones. So in your experience, what is it that takes somebody from that cognitive, intellectual understanding of this to actual implementation of it?

I love that you called that out because it's so visceral, right? Our emotional reaction, our reptilian brain is going to get us every time if we don't feel it in our bones. Short answer, experimentation. You got to try. You got to try because all the people around you can tell you it ad nauseam. You and I can say it. It doesn't really matter if we don't feel it. And our lived experience is going to take over almost every time over cognitive rationale. What do I mean by experimentation? I'm not saying go to your boss and tell them what you really think about them. Right? Now, if you've got feedback like, oh, you got to really up your game because you're making life for everyone on this team.

Horrible.

Don't start there. But for me, my experiment was in a cab. I had just landed in Seattle, right? You know, you travel through the airports. It's the Pacific Northwest. I'm, like, stuck in traffic, and I'm in the back of this taxi cab, and it's like hot, sweaty, stifling. I try to click the window down to get some fresh air. Doesn't work. And I'm sitting there thinking, do I ask the cab driver whether they can open the window? I mean, this is literally how basic. And maybe some of the listeners are like, you can't even do that, seriously. But for me, I was taught to not take up space. I didn't think I could ask, right? Like, you're, for me, be a good little Asian girl. You're not supposed to ask for what you need. You just take what you can get and be thankful for it. So I'm sitting in the back of the cab, I look at the GPS and it's like, okay, 22 minutes. I can survive that. Like, it's not that big a deal to get fresh air. And then I see the red and there's more traffic and it's 32 minutes. I'm like, maybe I'll ask. And I literally do the calculation in my head of I'm never going to see this person again. So it doesn't really matter if they're mad at me. The likelihood that they're going to pull over and throw me in a ditch, that's pretty low. We're in an urban environment, on the freeway. I mean, you laugh, but this is literally negotiation with myself. So my calculation from that was, okay, this is a pretty low stakes context in which to experiment. So I'm like, sir, do you mind opening the window? It's a little stuffy in here. And without saying anything, he pressed a button, the window opened. And I think it's that moment that I come back to every time of, wow, I have a voice like, I can make the window come down when the button is not working, when I try to press it. How did I do that? By actually expressing a need and making a request. And so I've had to unlearn the silence that told me or made me believe that I didn't have a voice in the first place. But it's those small wins under your belt when you're experimenting that make you think to this.

So where should we start when we're talking about silence.

Silence. Oh, boy. It's a really interesting concept, and it's one that I really first started thinking about when I was sitting across from the car dealer the very first time I went to go buy a car. And I don't know if others have had this experience, but I found myself bargaining against myself because I couldn't keep my mouth shut, whereas the dealer just sat there calmly and quietly, didn't say anything, and let me talk myself into the price that he had offered to sell me the car for. And that was really my first experience many years ago with the value of silence as a negotiating tool. Since then, I've really noticed that the person who sits back truly listens to what the other person is saying and allows the other person to bring out and bring forth more information is usually in the driver's seat in a negotiation.

Yes. And it's so counterintuitive. But the thing that's interesting is that people will toss that around all the time. Oh, silence is an important part of negotiation. Silence, silence, silence. We hear that and we know that. But what makes it so hard for people to actually do it?

It's actually psychology. And there are a number of studies out there that show how difficult it is for us to, From a social perspective, a social norms perspective, to stay silent. And we view silence as awkward and uncomfortable. And we move in to fill that airspace because those silences, to most of us feel very, very weird and very, very uncomfortable. So if we can learn to be comfortable with that silence and that quiet, we can actually gain a great deal of information. But it comes from very early stages. If you go to almost any societal gathering, any gathering of two or more people, there is an ebb and flow to the conversation in which there are very few pauses.

It's interesting. Okay, so it takes practice. And then we recognize that there's that psychological drive to fill that silence with something. And really, there's. If you try to utilize silence, what you're going to notice is that there's going to feel almost. Almost like anxiety, some pressure building up in that moment when. When you should be silent, but your body is saying, say something, Anything, just anything. And so when we're at that moment where we recognize it's an important part of a negotiation and we should say, stay silent, but our body and mind are saying, no, say something. What is it that you do that helps you to maintain that discipline?

Breathe. That's the easiest and best answer I can give you, is just take some time to focus on breathing and being present in the moment. And if I can do those two things, it allows me to get through those pauses without feeling like I'm doing nothing. Other people don't realize what I'm doing, but I'm concentrating on my breathing. And I'm doing it quietly and subtly, but it really gives me the ability to get through that. That time without feeling like I have to do something because I am doing something, and it's doing something that's putting me in a positive state in two ways. First of all, it's making me more aware of the moment and more present in the moment. And the other thing it's doing is it's giving me that diversion that my brain needs.

That's great. And you sound like somebody who meditates. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.