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Communication · a life skill

Advanced Negotiation Pauses

step back from your own side

Most of us give a friend wiser advice than we give ourselves. In a heated negotiation that gap is expensive: up close you see an insult, from a step back you'd see a person with a problem. The advanced pause is a deliberate step back: call it out loud, think about yourself by name, and come back with what you heard and what you propose.

  • Challenging
  • Life-Changing impact
  • Learn it: 30 days
  • 4 questions, asked from outside
up close, then a step back
The same quarrel, seen up close and from a step back Up close, in the first person: “They're insulting me. I'm not budging.” Then a pause, using your own name. From a step back, in the third person: “Why does Sam want to walk out? What doesn't Sam know yet?”, with four questions: What can't Sam know? Is there a middle way? How do they see it? How could this unfold? Back at the table: “Here's what I heard. Here's what I propose.” Up close · first person “They're insulting me. I'm not budging.” Pause, then use your own name A step back · third person “Why does Sam want to walk out? What doesn't Sam know yet?” What can't Sam know? Is there a middle way? How do they see it? How could this unfold? Back at the table “Here's what I heard. Here's what I propose.”

An illustration, not data. The four questions are how Grossmann and Kross (2014) scored wise reasoning; using them mid-negotiation is our step. Hover a step to see where it happens.

The method

Leave the room in your head first.

  1. Notice the heat

    A tight jaw, a sentence that starts with “Look,”, wanting to win the point more than the deal. That's you reasoning up close.

  2. Call the pause out loud

    “I want to answer that properly. Can we take ten minutes?” Say why and say how long, so it reads as care, not retreat.

  3. Talk to yourself by name

    In the corridor, swap “I” for your own name: “Why is Sam this angry?” It sounds odd. That's the point: it puts you a step outside.

  4. Run the four questions

    What can't you know from where you stand? Is there a middle way? How would they tell this story? How could it unfold from here?

  5. Come back with one sentence

    What you heard, and what you propose. Then stop talking and let them answer.

    Heat, pause, name, four questions, one sentence.

Example: Not “That's insulting, we're done”, but “I want to answer that properly. Can we take ten minutes?”, and back at the table: “What I heard is that the timing worries you. What I'd propose is a smaller step now and a review in June.”

The step back

Rewrite the hot thought, then ask from outside.

1 · The row

Up close

A step back

4 · Call the pause

Say

5 · The four questions, about Sam

Back at the table

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The research behind it

Wiser for a friend, until people stepped back.

King Solomon was famous for his judgement and, the story goes, made a mess of his own life. The psychologists Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross tested that pattern. Adults in relationships imagined a partner being unfaithful: either their own partner, or a friend's. Then they reasoned about what should happen next.

The reasoning was scored on four things: seeing the limits of what you know, looking for a compromise, taking other people's points of view, and thinking about how things could unfold. In the first experiment, people reasoned more wisely about the friend's problem than their own. In the second, people who thought about their own problem from a third-person view, as if from outside, closed that gap.

The studies were about relationships, not negotiation, and nobody was across a table. Taking the step back mid-negotiation, and using the four facets as questions, is our step. The pause is what makes room for it: it's hard to stand outside a conversation while you're still talking.

The shape of the finding: in experiment 1, wise reasoning was lower about your own conflict than a friend's. In experiment 2, your own conflict seen in the third person reached about the level of a friend's. Experiment 1 Your own conflict A friend's conflict Experiment 2 Your own conflict, from a step back less wise reasoning more
The shape of the finding, not the paper's numbers: the bars show which way the results went, not how far. Grossmann & Kross (2014), “Exploring Solomon's Paradox”, Psychological Science, 2 experiments.

The idea

Why it works.

When something feels personal, your attention narrows to the threat: the tone, the slight, the need to answer it. From outside, the same moment has more in it. There's what they might know that you don't, what they need, and what happens next week if this goes badly.

You can't easily get outside while you're in the room and talking. A short, named break gives you somewhere to stand, and your own name gives you a way to look back in.

When it goes wrong

Habits that help.

  • Pause before you're sure you need to. By the time you're certain, you've usually said the thing.
  • Don't leave without a time. “Can we take ten minutes?” is a plan. Walking out without one is a move.
  • Write the four answers down. On a phone or a scrap of paper. Answers in your head drift back to the insult.
  • Open with what you heard. Before your proposal, say their side back in a sentence. It shows the pause was for them too.

Go deeper

Keep going.

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