Harvard negotiation gurus Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman suggest that negotiators too often confuse hidden interests and constraints with irrationality.  The mistakes and solutions when this is the case?  

• Mistake No. 1: They are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Interests — find out what they are and you may well be able to resolve the dispute and settle the litigation without putting any more money on the table or making any further concessions;
• Mistake No. 2: They are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Constraints — keep one ear to the ground for hidden constraints, explore them with the mediator, opposing counsel or the opposing party; often those constraints can be problem-solved away;
• Mistake No. 3: They are Not Irrational; They Are Uninformed — listen and respond; respond and listen.  You will find that EACH of you is uninformed about something that will likely make a genuine difference in the manner in which the litigation is resolved.

This observation points to the tendencies of negotiators. That’s a key point, Malhotra and Bazerman reference the behaviors of people referred to as negotiators. Generally speaking, negotiators enter situations where they have the opportunity to research the other person’s position and to plan a strategy for the negotiation. While I have not read this particular work, I imagine that many of the situations considered as they wrote it involved a good number of experienced negotiators - attorneys, mediators, and business owners with training and/or experience that should help them overcome the natural tendencies the authors reference.

Negotiators with the time to research and prepare a strategy struggle to overcome the tendency to draw false conclusions about the other party’s rationality, ethics, or intentions. So, what hope does the average work team member with little or no training in negotiation and mediation skills and forced to respond to rapidly changing situations have to overcome this natural human tendency? If they insist on assessing other team members intentions when conflict arises, not much. If they focus on the specific behaviors they see in the other person, pretty good.

For the sake of clarity, I’ll define the difference between a behavior and an interpretation by quoting from another article I wrote:

• Rude, inconsiderate, disrespectful, arrogant, obnoxious, flighty, unfocused, smart aleck, and pushy are interpretations.
• Interrupting, rolling eyes, speaking loudly (or softly), shrugging shoulders, looking away, walking away, and tone of voice are specific behaviors. 

When you force yourself to focus on specific behaviors rather than on your interpretation of the other person’s intention, you stand much better odds of remaining in control of your emotions to find a reasonable resolution to most workplace conflicts.

 Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     An attitude of judgment says:

• “They’re trying to take advantage of me!”
• “Why are they doing that to me?”
• “They always get angry.”
• “They never listen to me.”
• “I can’t trust them.”

     An attitude of curiosity says:

• “I wonder what they want from this situation. I should ask them to clarify their intentions.”
• “I wonder what I did to trigger that response?”
• “Are they angry or are they passionate about this topic? I should ask them so that I understand better.”
• “I wonder if they don’t feel like I heard them? Maybe they are interrupting me because I didn’t communicate my understanding of their perspective properly.”
• “I wonder what they see that I don’t see? Maybe I don’t understand why they said (or did) what they said (or did).”

   Your attitude towards another person affects your tone, your word choice, and your body language. An attitude of judgement will probably communicate “I am a threat” to the other person. If they perceive you as a threat, they will seldom respond well. An attitude of curiosity communicates “I want to understand” to the other person. When people sense your desire to understand them, they seldom behave in ways that escalate the conflict. 

   I am not suggesting that people can always be trusted or that they never have harmful intentions. If you find someone like that, I recommend staying as far away from them as possible. The perspective that I am advocating applies to close relationships at work and at home. Very rarely do these people want to harm you. You may see things differently, you may have different desires, and you may want to see different outcomes. These differences do not necessarily imply bad intent. I suggest that you start your interactions and conversations about these differences with the “I wonder…” approach rather than the “I already know…” approach.

Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer