To get
in the mood to discuss a darker subject matter, deception in negotiation, I
have to summon the cool styling of the 1971 psychedelic soul song Smiling Faces Sometimes by the band The
Undisputed Truth to get prepared. They melodically croon: “Smiling faces
sometimes pretend to be your friend. Smiling faces show no traces of the evil
that lurks within. Smiling faces sometimes, they don’t tell the truth. Smiling
faces tell lies and I’ve got proof.” The song continues, “beware of the
handshake, there hides a snake. I’m telling you; beware of a pat on the back.
It just might hold you back. Jealousy, misery, envy, I tell you that you cannot
see behind smiling faces. Sometimes they don’t tell the truth.”
During the course of negotiations people often misrepresent
information to gain a least a temporary advantage. It is easy to relate to a
time when you were misled. Perhaps it is less easy to conjure up a time when
you overstated a claim during your own negotiation. Not too long ago I decided
to travel to visit my family that lives in a different state. I was excited
because a childhood friend also coincidentally lives in the same town. I had
booked travel plans many months in advance and had communicated the dates of my
visit so that my friend could plan to be available for my visit. I repeatedly
checked in with my friend who kept forgetting the dates I was coming, even
saying things like oh, I might have a concert that day. Naturally I countered
with: Are you kidding me? This is the reason I have been planning with you! I
casually said that he should write it down or put it on his calendar in his
phone. As the time approached I had more in depth conversations about availability
and what plans we would want to make.
All too convincingly I was met with cooperation that the
visit was a top priority for the entire weekend. As a bonus, another friend-
who is much closer to our mutual friend decided to tag-along. We were so
excited for the reunion weekend! The first night we were able to visit. The
remainder of the weekend it was missed phone calls, late returned messages,
sudden plans that could not be altered, and even other plans that probably
could wait- like Sunday football- but didn’t. At the end of the trip I got a
little irritated about the situation. No one else felt it was a big deal, but
they also were not the person scheduling and coordinating in hopes to avoid
being let down. After the fact I see that I was being misled, thus due to the prior
reassurance that was laid on a little thick, due to me pressuring the situation.
My friend was probably doing this so I did not get angry before the visit and
during the negotiation to save him a lot of trouble and an ear-full from me. He
was probably just “lying” to make me feel at ease and to back off from my hard
ball tactics (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). The verbal and vocal cues
(2001), such as elevated pitch, overgeneralized statements, and few words in
response to my questions, were there I just wanted to believe I was getting
what I wanted.
There have been times when I have overstated something
during negotiation to leverage the desired outcome I wanted. The funny thing is
it wasn’t something I wanted for me but what I wanted for the other person, my
students. There are times when we create ideas or visions in our minds about
the state of something, such as the severity of graduate level classes. From my
experience of years working with students I know what works and what usually
does not. When something does not work there are consequences for the student.
Through their anger I am sometimes lashed out at questioningly regarding why I
did not do something to advise them better or why I cannot pick up the pieces
and fix it after the fact. There is one particular course that students really
struggle with and it has the most innocent name, it is really misleading in
itself: Management Science. However, it is an intense statistically based
course, condensed into nine weeks with an extremely heavy course load. I never
recommend this as a first course and I am not comfortable agreeing with this
course being paired with another course. The main reason is because the amount
of time that I know is needed to be dedicated in order to be successful. Time
spent is the number one reason for failure, typically. To make those scenarios
unappealing I will strongly express and overemphasize the severity and
dramatize my point. Sadly I do not feel so bad about it because I feel that my
job is to protect my students with the information that I possess. I am
certainly not lying about the situation- it is truly a tough course; I am just
making it so much more vivid through overstating during the negation. I
definitely bring the doom and gloom to the party.
I am not a person that will go very far to get what I want.
I am more of a sly fox who is strategically placing guide posts four steps
ahead to align my argument with the truth in such a beautiful way that the
option comes delivered, wrapped in a box and tied in a bow. If I was to be
called out for this, and I have been, I am brutally direct with agreeing that I
carefully designed the plan. I strategize, I do not deceive. Dishonesty is
something I am terribly uncomfortable with and try to avoid. If you tell the
truth it becomes part of your past. If you tell a lie it becomes part of your
future. I am not in the business to create circumstances where I have to sleep
with one eye open and look over my shoulder to see what is coming because I set
a lie in motion. “A final cost negotiators bear for telling lies is the
potential for feeling guilt or remorse. The degree of guilt is subject to a
great deal of individual variation” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p.
192). I may never be a very talented at winning at all costs but I would rather
be able to sleep well at night. Unfortunately I tend to operate under the
assumption that everyone is being upfront and honest with me.
“We tend to be overconfident in our ability to consider the
possibility that we were being deceived as we negotiate and make important decisions”
(Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 189). The text continues that there
is a very good chance statistically of encountering either a lie of either
omission or a lie of commission during negotiations.
If deception is a goal, the most
basic scenario requires inhibition of prepotent truth responses to make others
believe what we want them to believe. Furthermore, representation of truth
under the pretense that it is a lie is an equally common form of deception in
games, in political negotiations and in everyday life. Regardless of the nature
of a deceptive act, the process involves a series of deliberate decisions based
on several suboperations such as estimation of outcome, risk of punishment and
reward expectation. Information exchange must be monitored and feedback
assessed to build up reputation and trust. (Sip, Roepstorff, McGregor &
Frith, 2008, n.p.)
Since we are not human polygraph machines, what do we do to
guard against this? There are several methods for guarding against deception
such as cues to detect lies: vocabulary, verbal, vocal, and visual cues. An
interesting visual cue is the false smile, a technique which makes the song Smiling Faces Sometimes feel so instructive
and so right. When a person falsely smiles there is no movement around the eyes
and forehead. “The best defense against deception is taking steps to reduce the
likelihood that people will use deception in the first place” (Hoch, Kunreuther
& Gunther, 2001, p. 194). My top four tips for evaluating information
during negations are as follows:
·
Establish
trust- Work to assure the other person you will not use deception, which
will reduce the chance of others using the tactic of deception defensively.
·
Ask direct
questions- Subjects are less likely to lie when asked direct questions and
it is more likely to be able to uncover the issue.
·
Listen
carefully- Be sure the person is in a position to know this information and
after asking questions listen to what is being said. It is also important to
listen for what is not being said.
·
Pay
attention to nonverbal cues- It is not what is said that can give somehow
away but how they act such as excessive blinking, less head movement, or
nervous habits such as twitching or hair twirling.
(Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001)
A last word on establishing trust comes from a previous
discussion from this week in my course MSLD 632 Decision Making for Leaders
during the class DQ on interactive learning theories. One of the theories I
think ties in with detecting deception comes from experience-weighted
attraction (EWA). In terms of learning styles we all learn in different ways.
Once we encounter a situation, like deception, in the form of being lied to or perhaps
misled we are picking up different strategies whether we realize it or not. One
of the factors, the consideration index, allows for us to weigh payoffs from
past decisions, including missed opportunities or missed information (Hoch,
Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). When we choose to believe what the deceiver is
telling us, we are missing cues and information. After the fact, once all is
revealed and comes to light this shock is fresh in our minds and branded in our
hearts. This allows the value of the situation to weigh heavily on us, which in
turn allows for the selection of strategies for the future that will minimize
missed opportunity and regret (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). “Smart
learners have a high consideration index, which means they are actively
considering what they should have done after each move” (Hoch, Kunreuther &
Gunther, 2001, p. 163). Negotiation is a chess game with moves and counter
moves. Different phases of the game requires different skills and is mostly all
about tactics.
References:
Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. John Wiley
& Sons, Inc.
Sip, K. E., Roepstorff, A., McGregor, W., & Frith, C. D.
(2008). Detecting deception: The scope and limits. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences, 12(2), 48-53. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.11.008
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