A Winner's Guide to Negotiating by Molly Fletcher

Author:Molly Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGraw Hill LLC
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

WHAT THE PAUSE ACCOMPLISHES

The pause may be only as long as a breath, or it can be any length of time before the next communication. Most of us feel uncomfortable with dead zones in conversation. A conversation—and that’s what a negotiation boils down to—is like a tightrope stretched between two people. Silence makes you look around for the net, some sort of signal that we are still in communication and nothing has gone wrong.

We don’t like ambiguity. It’s a big vacuum, and we try to fill it. In a conversation or negotiation, silence can signal ambiguity.

In that discomfort, we seek to fill the space with small talk—anything that can make us feel that we are still in a safe place with the other person. Some professions take full advantage of the human need to break for a pause. Two groups of people who will never interrupt you and will always expect you to fill the silence are attorneys and the media. Attorneys get paid by the hour, so the more you talk, the more they make. The reporters and journalists who have crossed my path know that the more information they have, the better the story. The more their source speaks, the greater the chance is of that person saying something noteworthy or even sensational.

Both lawyers and the media are criticized heavily in our culture, but that’s a tribute to their ability to use what we say to their greatest benefit. They have mastered the art of quiet, and in that space they give us every chance to help them. We can learn from them to be better negotiators by Embracing the Pause the way they do.

To illustrate the power of the pause in the extreme case, I think most of us have experienced that grace of closeness with those who are closest to us. We do not fear the silence of intimacy because we know one another so well that this level of silence is safe. We have this understanding of silence whenever we rock a child to sleep or spend time with someone who is injured and cannot speak. In everyday life, with people we don’t know as well, we are right to fear the pause because we associate silence with uncertainty.

I see this with my daughters. Like most kids, they would rather play than clean their rooms.

“It needs to be spotless before we leave for church,” I tell them.

“But Mom,” they reply, and whatever they say next is just more blah, blah, blah to me.

They keep talking. I stay quiet.

I pause. I stare at them. I’m telegraphing to them that this isn’t a six-minute mile I’m asking for, but if they don’t get their behinds up the stairs in a minute, they will be running laps around the house.

They don’t hear that. They don’t hear anything. They just know that when I’m quiet, they have reason to fear. I stand my ground, and it doesn’t take long for them to finally end their excuses because they’re not getting anywhere and they’ve started to get in touch with the fear wrapped in my silence.

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