We're all somewhat afraid of conflict, at least those of us who are not sociopaths. Men and women both want their days to pass without having accusations hurled at them, without hearing what a frenemy is saying behind their backs, and without stirring their colleagues or clients to anger.

Women, however, do tend to react to a negotiation challenge somewhat more fearful of encountering an angry response.

So what’s the solution?

One of my clients was negotiating her bargaining partners toward a million per year because that’s what everyone in her small niche was making. The men with whom she was negotiating gave her many reasons why she was an outlier and worth less than her peers (all of whom were men and most of whom were twenty years her senior).

But it was she who her peers listened to at industry conferences. She was the expert. They'd just found a cozy retirement niche. So the concessions she made were very small, as were theirs, leaving a yawning canyon of differing expectations between them.

Her bargaining partners wanted her badly and finally grew testy. One of them pitched all all-out temper tantrum worthy of a two-year old, telling her she'd never succeed and would never reach the heights of the profession she'd already scaled. He told her she was fooling herself, didn’t deserve what she wanted, told her to get a grip on herself and remember her “place” in the profession.

She was understandably rattled and immediately called.

Tit for Tat

We responded by playing"tit for tat."

It works like this.

You open cooperatively. If your negotiating partner doesn’t cooperate, you punish him proportionally until he comes back into line. When he returns, we quickly forgive and continue working collaboratively to solve what is after all a mutual problem. They wanted her and she wanted them. They just had to find a price that both could justify.

The punishment we decided on was slight. In my client’s business, the unwritten rule required everyone to return a phone call within twenty-four hours. I suggested she wait 36 instead, which she did. But he couldn’t wait. It was maybe 30 hours later that he picked up the phone to call her. And not only that, but to apologize. And not only that, but to increase his firm’s offer even though there wasn’t an outstanding counter. In other words, he negotiated against himself.

Tit for tat is one of those tactics that game theorists play. Not everyone plays it right but when they do, it is incredibly effective to bring your negotiation partner back into dialogue.

So if you're worried that your negotiation partner is going to get angry at you, don't worry. Not only is "tit for tat" a powerful game changer, but recent research cited by the Harvard Program on Negotiation shows that only low-power negotiators are strongly influenced by their opponent’s expressions of anger. Those negotiators who didn't trust their own power made larger concessions than when no anger was expressed. High power negotiators, however, barely seemed to notice the other side’s emotions; they identified their own true bargaining interests and offered only the concessions necessary to reach a good deal.

Employees certainly feel like low power negotiators, particularly women. If you don’t let the anger get to you, respond proportionally and keep your eye on your bottom line and pre-planned concessionary strategy, the chances are you’ll get the deal you want.

How to keep your head while all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you? Once again, Harvard Business School rides to the rescue. Its researchers say that the best strategy when anticipating an emotional response is to reflect on a negotiation where you felt empowered. Recall your sense of confidence and control then and lay it right over your experience now. Power, after all, is in the hands of she who not only believes in it, but acts accordingly.

If you’d like to experience the difference, consider taking our upcoming Master Mind program, with a surprise guest guru. I’ll keep you informed as our plans progress.

Good negotiating to all!

Fear Asking for a Raise? Try This.

Tit for Tat

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