Emotion and Fairness in Negotiation

We like to think negotiations are purely logical, but if you make the mistake of creating bad emotions and bad feelings, it can lead to bad outcomes in your negotiation.

Two things you have to understand as you enter any negotiation are the impacts of emotions and fairness. I know we like to think that negotiations are purely logical, but they’re emotional, and you have to understand how perceptions of fairness, collaboration, and even being taken advantage of can impact negotiating stances and approaches both for you as well as for your opponent.

Imagine we’re walking down the street together and I find $10 on the ground. I pick it up and I decide I’m going to give you some of that money because you’re walking with me. I want you to ask yourself how you feel right now if I say, “I’m going to give you nine of these $10.” How do you feel if I say, “I’m going to give you 18 cents of these $10?” How about if I give you six of the $10? Fairness and emotions impact your willingness to negotiate. Even at 18 cents, you should be happy because it’s 18 cents more than you had before I found the money on the ground, but it feels bad. It feels unfair even though logically it’s a great decision.

Now let’s look at this in terms of your negotiations. You don’t want to be in a situation where you create those feelings in your negotiating opponent where they don’t want to work with you because they feel like you’re unfair. We like to think it’s logical, but if you make the mistake of creating bad emotions and bad feelings, it can lead to bad outcomes in your negotiation.

I’ve felt this personally. I had a client where in the past they would pay us X dollars per class for me to go and teach. Well, a new leader came into the organization and said, “Well, we’re not going to pay you X anymore. We’re going to pay you 40% of X just because we want to because we think the price should be lower.” This was a very difficult situation for me because I took it personally. I couldn’t control those feelings in that moment because it was a personal attack. This person was telling me that I was worth 60% less just because he said so.

Now I know this isn’t what he meant. Logically, it made sense for him to push down the price that we were charging, and I had to step back from the negotiation, set aside the emotions, and approach it much more logically. However, that negotiation could have gone poorly for him because he created negative feelings with me.

Spend some time in your negotiations and think through, “How would I feel if I was on the other side of this offer?” Would I feel good, or would I feel bad? And think about how you position your offers to make sure you take advantage of feelings of emotions and fairness in the deal.

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