OPENINGS

Open with Confidence

Introduction

Imagine that you are moments away from starting an important negotiation. You might be meeting with your boss in hopes of gaining a promotion and raise. It might be with a key customer whose business you need to land. Or maybe you’re headed a community meeting where neighbors will be arguing about a contentious issue.

Take this quick survey about how you would likely feel going into situation that matters a lot to you.

Managing Anxiety

People have varying feelings when starting a negotiation, as the results below show. For example, some individuals are more confident than others are. But almost everyone feels a degree of anxiety—for some, just a little; for others much more. Drawing on her studies, Harvard Business School Professor Alison Wood Brooks reports that “anxiety is the most commonly experienced emotion before a negotiation, more so than excitement, sadness, calmness, or anger.”

According to Brooks, feeling some anxiety can have some positive effects, provided the timing is right. “If individuals feel anxious far in advance of an event,” she says, “it can motivate effort and preparation through a process called defensive pessimism; when individuals make negative appraisals about future events, they work harder to avoid potential negative outcomes and prepare more thoroughly.”

That’s the good news. But when anxiety is felt immediately before an event—whether it’s giving a speech, taking a test, or negotiating—it is often costly as it’s coupled with a lack of confidence and a loss of control. According to Brooks, negotiators who have such feelings “tend to make decisions that inadvertently harm their performance, such as making low first offers, responding quickly to counteroffers, making steep concessions, and exiting negotiations prematurely. Not to mention that a case of nerves simply takes the enjoyment out of the negotiation process.”

Many people find it hard to overcome anxiety whenever it arises. That’s not surprising, especially if the stakes are high. An inner voice may ask rat-a-tat questions: “What if my boss says I’m not ready for promotion? What if she loses her temper? What if I fail?” Fortunately, Professor Brooks has found a simple technique for transforming such feelings into something positive.

In a ground-breaking experiment, she gave subjects a task designed to make them nervous. She told them that they would sing, Karaoke-style, a difficult song in front of an expressionless stranger. The song, one of the most frequently downloaded selections on iTunes, was “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey.

Subjects were hooked up to heart monitors and sure enough, their pulses jumped up when they learned about the assignment. Just before they began, Brooks had people in one group say out loud three words. “When you deliver your line,” they were instructed, “really try to believe it. Here is your line: I am anxious.” Subjects in a second group went through the same protocol, but instead were told to say, “I am excited.”

The excited group significantly out-performed the anxious group, as measured by software that tracked the volume, correct pitch, and note duration of their singing. What’s impressive is how this self-talk, as Brooks calls it, had a positive effect even though it was prompted by someone else, rather than being spontaneous. Along with colleagues, she has validated the result in other settings, including public speaking, and taking math tests. As she explains, the simple statement sparks are a reappraisal of both the imminent event (for us, a negotiation) and one’s own internal state.

Trying to calm down is understandable, Brooks says, yet often counterproductive since, “physiological arousal—your racing heart and sweaty palms—is automatic and very difficult to suppress.” Transforming those heightened feelings from anxiety to excitement is much easier.

For a light-hearted demonstration by a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly, see this short video: