How to Keep Yourself Safe in Any Negotiation

Safe decision making is essential for any negotiation. If the outcome is to be meaningful and profitable, you must make solid decisions, your team, and the adversary. Unfortunately, sometimes we can get into trouble and make poor decisions. When we do just that, we get into trouble.

Why we get in trouble 

The first step toward poor decision making in a negotiation is your mindset. Your mindset is how you think and feel about any person, place, thing, or event. Control your thoughts and emotions, and you’ll control your actions. Work on developing a growth mindset when you’re negotiating, and you’ll go a long way towards avoiding the display of neediness and fear at the table. When you don’t feel fear, your decision making becomes clearer and safer.

The next step is to avoid having any assumptions and expectations. These two stumbling blocks come from a fixed mindset; one in which you believe you have all the answers and know exactly how the negotiation will proceed. When you walk into a negotiation with assumptions and expectations, you will behave and think in such a way that will prove your assumptions to be correct whether they are or not. When your expectations aren’t being met, fear and suspicion will creep into your thinking and foul up your decision making.

Every action we take is preceded by a thought or feeling. No matter the action we take, we experienced an emotion or thought before we took action. Control your thoughts, and you’ll control your decision making and keep yourself safe. Fortunately, there are tools we can use to help keep our decision making safe from our emotions.  

How to keep yourself calm - use a checklist to prepare 

As a pilot, I’ve learned the importance of using a checklist to prepare for a flight. When I was a young physician, I relied on checklists to ensure I was ready for the event and could perform safely and get the best result possible. Using a checklist will prove invaluable to you as you negotiate for three main reasons.

1. Checklists provide guidance. I can remember going to my first code blue as an intern I was fresh out of my training, but I was still nervous. This wasn’t some practice event; it was the real deal. A patient’s heart had stopped beating. To help me through that stressful situation, I used the checklist they provided me during my training. It helped me work through the decision-making process and ultimately save the patient. In a negotiation, using a checklist will also help guide your decision making.  
2. Checklists provide safety. Before I embark on any flight in my plane, I run through the same checklist every time. I don’t skip a step but work through each item on the checklist methodically. I have the list memorized but I still refer to the written checklist. Why? Because I don’t want to drop out of the sky. When we negotiate, using a checklist will help remind of important issues at hand and help refocus our attention on the proper priorities of the negotiation.  
3. Checklists help you stay calm and craft a plan. In aviation, there are emergency checklists outlining tasks and decisions to be made in a crisis. In medicine, I use similar checklists in the same way. Running through a checklist will help you remain calm in those stressful situations and guide you towards crafting a plan for success. If you haven’t seen the movie Sully, I strongly recommend you watch it. It’s a great example of using a checklist in a stressful situation. Watch their emotions and how the crew made decisions. That is the real power of checklists. 

If you’d like to learn more about using a checklist in your negotiations for safe and effective decision making, reach out to me via LinkedIn or my website, www.davidnorrismdmba.com, and I’ll help you get the results you desire.