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In the business world, some negotiators always seem to get what they want, while others tend to come up short. What might make some people better negotiators than others? The answer may in part be that people bring different negotiation styles and strategies to the bargaining table, based on their different personalities, experiences and beliefs about negotiating. When people with different negotiation styles meet, the results can be unpredictable. By diagnosing your own and your counterpart’s negotiation styles, you will be better prepared to negotiate and work together constructively.
People’s negotiation styles differ in part due to their different social motives, or preference for certain types of outcomes in interactions with others, according to Professor Laurie Weingart of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Four basic types of social motives drive human behavior in negotiation and other competitive situations, Weingart writes. These types of social motives correspond with four basic negotiation styles, as follows.
Individualists seek to maximize their own outcomes, with little regard for their counterparts’ outcomes. About half of U.S. negotiators have an individualistic negotiating style, Weingart writes. Cooperators, constituting about 25% to 35% of U.S. negotiators, strive to maximize both their own and other parties’ outcomes and to see that resources are divided fairly.
Competitives, making up about 5% to 10% of U.S. negotiators, seek to get a better deal than their “opponent.” They behave in a self-serving manner, and often lack the trust needed to solve problems jointly. Altruists, who are quite rare, put their counterpart’s needs and wants above their own. Because individualists and cooperators’ negotiation styles are the most common, they have been studied more often than the other two types of negotiators. In their research, Weingart and her colleagues found that individuals are more likely than cooperators to make threats, to argue their positions and to make single-issue offers.
Cooperators, by contrast, are more likely to engage in valuecreating strategies such as offering information, asking questions
and making multi-issue offers. Of the four negotiation styles we’ve discussed, which is most effective? In multi-issue negotiations, cooperators are most likely to expand the pie of value for both sides, according to Professor Catherine H. Tinsley of Georgetown University and Professor Kathleen O’Connor of Cornell University. Cooperators also are better than individualists at using value-creating strategies to improve their own outcomes, Weingart and her colleagues have found.
What happens when people with different negotiation stylesmeet at the negotiating table? Interestingly, their approaches tend to converge, Kathleen McGinn of Harvard Business School and Angela Keros of Goldman Sachs have found. Negotiators with different negotiation styles tend subconsciously to mimic one another’s behaviors, Weingart’s research suggests. Our negotiation styles don’t vary only depending on our social motives. Researchers have identified other individual differences that can lead to different negotiation styles. Take the case of extroversion versus introversion. People tend to assume that extroverts — those who are outgoing and draw their energy from others — tend to be better negotiators than introverts, who generally are reserved and prefer to think thinks through on their own. Indeed, extroverts may benefit in negotiation from their ability to bring people together and respond skillfully to others’ emotions.
Nonetheless, in her book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking” (Crown, 2012), Susan Cain, a lawyer and former negotiation consultant, notes that many of introverts’ strengths can be useful in negotiation, including their common
tendency to listen closely without interruption and, for those with a fear of public speaking, possibly a greater tendency to
prepare thoroughly for negotiation. Introverts and extroverts can learn a great deal from each other. How about differences in intelligence and creativity? Do they lead to different negotiation styles?
In one study, Professor Hillary Anger Elfenbein and her colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis found that highly intelligent negotiators created more value in negotiation simulations, but claimed slightly less value for themselves. In this instance intelligence didn’t correlate with significantly better performance. The researchers found similar results for highly creative people.
How can we improve our negotiation styles to reach better outcomes? Rather than trying to give your negotiation behavior a complete “makeover,” Weingart advises working on “strengthening your natural talents and practicing the best elements of other styles.” Individualists and competitors, for example, can work on supplementing traditional adversarial bargaining strategies with the value-creating strategies on which cooperatives rely.
(Katie Shonk is the editor of Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School based in Cambridge, Mass.)
