Negotiating Emotions
Kimberlyn Leary, Julianna Pillemer, and Michael Wheeler have authored an article in the Jan-Feb 2013 Harvard Business Review about the emotions involved in business negotiations.
They used ZMET to understand how seasoned executives feel before and during negotiations. She found some people who view negotiations as a threat, and others who view it more like a game or a challenge. These feelings, of course, operate largely at an unconscious level. For all people, there is a lack of control, lack of predictability, and an absence of feedback. However, people react to these uncertainties in different ways.
The authors explain how each group could properly harness these emotions before and during negotiations. Included is a six-step warm up plan that can help put you in an ideal emotional state. This is important because anxiety actually leads to sub-optimal outcomes in negotiations.
You can read a preview of the article below, but you will have to either buy the magazine or purchase an electronic version of the article to read it in its entirety.