Why Letting Your Negotiation Partner “Win” is Helpful

People want to feel like they’ve won even if they haven’t.

The statement above is true not only in sports and other types of competition but especially true in negotiations.

Negotiations are complex, and some deals fall apart for seemingly no reason. The cause of this may be less rational than we think, and it leans more toward the emotional end of the spectrum.

According to Merriam-Webster, the term “save face” means, “to avoid having other people lose respect for oneself”. As human beings, we like to protect our status and others’ perceptions of our character. This means that there’s a subconscious drive that activates a siren in our head when we suspect someone is thinking toward us, “Look! They’re an idiot!” As you will see in the explanations below, sometimes this “someone” isn’t really another person, but it may even be an imaginary conscience strolling in our heads. In the case of negotiation, we need to manage our bargaining partner’s perceptions of saving face, or the results may be detrimental toward getting to an agreement.

Know that when negotiating, your partner - boss or manager if you are asking for a raise - may have all the means necessary to give you what you want. However, if they have felt like you sucked out every last bit of what they could afford, or, more primitively, felt like you’ve won and they lost, they might shut down the entire negotiation to prevent admitting to themselves that they got the shorter end of the stick. This exemplifies saving face in front of one’s conscience. Truth is, people don’t like to embarrass themselves in front of themselves.

The type of saving face that most people are familiar with, the one based on the definition earlier, involves guarding another person’s judgment of our character. If there is someone present whose opinion matters to your bargaining partner - maybe your manager’s supervisor - they may be incentivized to do what it takes to prevent themselves from looking bad in front of that person. Sometimes this means negotiating with threats, lies, and ultimatums, and sometimes this means killing a perfectly possible deal to prevent the need to hold up a white flag signaling, “I lost!”, to the world. This type of situation exemplifies saving face in front of an influential third party.

So, the question is, how can we help the other side save face so they don’t have to do it themselves and kill our deal? I’ll let you ponder on that, but a quick technique that I found useful back in the day consists of 2 words that cost me nothing to say to my negotiation partner…

“You won!”