Franklin D Roosevelt gave a great piece of advice for speaking: be sincere, be brief, be seated. It’s exactly the same in negotiation - say what you’ve got to say, be clear and concise, then shut up and listen. This is a true story:
A friend of mine was a senior exec in a company that was taken over. The new owner wanted him to take a board position in the new business, but my friend was unsure and, drained by the sale process, he took his family to Orlando for a few weeks to think things over.
“I’m sure I told them I was going away” he said, “but when I got back I had seven messages waiting for me, each one with a better offer. The last few were above anything I’d have expected.”
Behold the power of silence.
Of course you need to communicate in a negotiation. You need to establish what both parties want to achieve, to make proposals and to signal where you can and can’t compromise. But I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched someone make a clear proposal then, worried that there’s no reaction, stumble into a long justification, offering further concessions as they go.
Why? Because we all have an ingrained impulse to fill the gap in the conversation, particularly when we feel anxious or vulnerable. But negotiation isn’t a social activity, it’s a process, and silence is an important part of that process. The silence after you talk is when you let your message sink in and watch their reaction. The silence before you talk is when you consider what they’ve really just said, and compose a concise and considered response. Here are three simple things you can do to improve how you use silence:
Prepare: tightly script your most important statements in advance
Practice: listen to the way that you talk, aim to become more concise
Pause: get into the habit of composing your thoughts before you speak
BOTTOM LINE: Use silence to observe, think and prepare what you want to say, giving your counterpart time to fill it with a better offer.