In our Idea Lab sessions that we conduct with clients, we often see that It's not enough just to develop good novel ideas, but then you have to pitch or sell them, either to your boss or your clients. That often involves conflict situations and the need for crafty negotiations.
One of the key cognitive skills is the ability to step into your opponents shoes and articulate their "point of view" on the situation. But is there experimental data to show that this tactic is better?
According to the May 1st Economist magazine:
[...]....a team of researchers have come up with some intriguing answers in a series of experiments just published in the May issue Psychological Science.
Adam Galinsky of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois, and his colleagues looked at two related approaches often used to understand the opponent in negotiations: perspective-taking and empathy. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, they are different. Perspective-taking is the cognitive power to consider the world from someone else's viewpoint, whereas empathy is the power to connect with them emotionally.
They conducted a series of experiments using more than 150 MBA students who had just enrolled on a ten-week course on negotiations—so they were novices. The students were divided into pairs. One played the part of the seller of a petrol station and the other the buyer. They were told to strike a deal, but this could not be done on price alone, because the maximum the buyer was allowed to pay was lower than the seller's reserve price. So only a creative deal would work (made possible because the seller needed to finance a sailing trip but would later want a job, and the buyer needed to hire managers to run the petrol station). Just over two-thirds of the pairs managed to reach a deal. Analysis showed that when the buyer in particular had a perspective-taking ability it could predict a successful outcome.
The experiment was then re-run, with the pairs split into three groups. In the perspective-taking group the buyers were told to try to understand what the petrol-station owner was thinking and what his interest and purpose was in selling. The empathy group was told to understand what the seller was feeling and what emotions he might be experiencing. The third group was a control; the buyers were told simply to concentrate on their own role. Again, it was the pair with a perspective-taking buyer who were more likely to strike a deal (76%) than the empathisers (54%), followed by the control group (39%).
In a third and different experiment, lots of issues had to be negotiated and trade-offs made, with one student playing the role of a job candidate and the other a recruiter (with the recruiters randomly assigned as perspective-takers, empathisers or a control). In terms of a joint gain, 40% of the pairs with a perspective-taking recruiter scored maximum points; 22% of the empathisers did and 12% of the control group. However, in terms of an individual gain, the perspective-taking recruiters did far better—pushing the empathetic recruiters into last place.
What this shows is that even with one negotiator having perspective-taking abilities it can produce a better overall outcome for both sides. “You want to understand what the other side's interests are, but you do not want to sacrifice your own interests,” says Dr Galinksy. “A large amount of empathy can actually impair the ability of people to reach a creative deal.”
ABSTRACT The current research explored whether two related yet distinct social competencies -perspective taking (the cognitive capacity to consider the world from another individual"s viewpoint) and empathy (the ability to connect emotionally with another individual) --have differential effects in negotiations. Across three studies, using both individual difference measures and experimental manipulations, we found that perspective taking increased individuals' ability to discover hidden agreements and to both create and claim resources at the bargaining table. However, empathy did not prove nearly as advantageous and at times was detrimental to discovering a possible deal and achieving individual profit. These results held regardless of whether the interaction was a negotiation in which a prima facie solution was not possible or a multipleissue negotiation that required discovering mutually beneficial trade-offs. Although empathy is an essential tool in many aspects of social life, perspective taking appears to be a particularly critical ability in negotiations.
N. B. The next Master class on the Idea Lab and the Opportunity Clinic will be on May 30th in Toronto. Details to follow shortly
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