How to use your emotions to negotiate successful agreements - Part 1

We cannot stop having thoughts or emotions. The challenge is using our emotions in those with whom we negotiate.

Negotiations involves both your head and your gut and both reason and emotions. Emotions affect your body, your thinking, and your behavior. Negotiators and diplomats obtain the best results by understanding the other party’s interest and working together to produce and agreement.

Emotions can be an obstacle to negotiation by directing our attention to matters that are not important and damage relationships. But emotions can be a great asset and motivate you do things more efficiently and work jointly with others to increase commitment. When you have positive emotions, you are more open to listening and learning about the other party’s interest, making a mutually satisfying outcome within your reach, as a result, your agreement is more likely to be stable over time.

FIRST RULE: Address the real interest not the emotion.

TIP: When you negotiate with others you should be aware of your current some emotional state and apply the five component criteria: appreciation, inclusion, freedom, importance, and role.

For example: As a project manager, I am always in meetings with my project team or stakeholders. Sometimes I feel like a fireman having to extinguish fires everywhere. But before I enter in meetings, I ask myself these following questions:

1- What do I want accomplish from this meeting? (the final agreement)
2- How do I feel about this meeting? (This applies to your current emotional state; if I feel insecure, apprehensive, fearful, cautious, etc.)
3- Once I recognize my current emotional state, I apply the five component criteria:
- I will appreciate others
- I will include others and welcome their criticism or compliments
- I will feel free to exercise my autonomy
- I will address the real interest and its importance
- I will exercise my role as a project manager

When I usually use these five component criteria, my emotions tend to be more centralized and less scattered, therefore I can concentrate in the real interest.

So, next time you have to negotiate an agreement, run a meeting, ask your wife/husband to do something for you, or buy a new car, think about your emotions first, then use the five component criteria (appreciation, inclusion, freedom, importance, and role), and you’ll see more positive outcome from your actions.

I will talk more about how to use your emotions to negotiate successful agreements in the following blogs to come.