The Emotions Behind Decision Making

Try to remember a time when you went to the negotiating table armed with irrefutable facts, airtight reasoning, and common sense on your side, believing that no one could resist your masterfully constructed argument. You figured there was no other logical conclusion, and failure was impossible. Then—surprise!—the person on the other side of the table had the audacity to question your logic and propose something completely different.

You’re not alone! Many negotiators believe logic, reason, rationality, and research can sway their opponent. What they don’t realize is that the process of going from considering to deciding is 100% emotional. Logic has nothing to do with it.

This is a critical fact for negotiators to grasp. Once they accept this, it will completely change the way they interact with their respected adversary in the next negotiation.

The Neuroscience of Decision Making

Not too many years ago, a neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio conducted a study of test subjects who had suffered damage in the section of the brain where emotions are processed. He observed that although they were unable to experience emotions, they were normal in every other way—except that they were unable to make decisions!

Each test subject could articulate in logical sentences what they should be doing, but found that even simple decisions, such as what to have for lunch, were difficult to impossible. “Shall I have soup or a hot dog?” Although most of us don’t give these simple, everyday decisions a second thought, these people were unable to arrive at a decision. Without their emotions, they were stuck!

We may waver back and forth over a big decision, but at the moment it must be made, we will base our choice on emotion. In fact, even decisions we believe to be purely logical ones are 100% driven by emotions.

Why Emotions Matter to Negotiators

For those in the negotiating profession, Damasio’s breakthrough has far-reaching implications. It means that many of the whiz kids coming up through the ranks who are being trained in the cold logic of negotiation as pure science are destined to be failures, because they are not taught the real motivators driving the opposite party’s decisions: emotions.

We see that rookie negotiators who come prepared to rely only on logic end up stranded, left with assumptions, guesses, and opinions as to why they don’t succeed. They were trained to think, “If my argument is logical and theirs is not, they are sure to be won over eventually.” It never works that way. If the opposition agrees with the logic, it’s because their emotions led them to agree.

Logic, as it turns out, is not the logical answer. The most logical and successful method of negotiation is to paint a vision for the other party of their pain and problems, based on what they’ve revealed in the negotiation. Allow them to come to the conclusion that you and your proposal offer a way out of that pain, and a solution to their problem. This makes the decision to hire you, use your services, agree to your price, etc., painless. It’s an emotional decision driven by the desire for relief.

The negotiator’s job is getting them to want to agree, employing a step-by-step method of asking questions and creating a vision. You can assist them in discovering for themselves what will be most helpful to them. Let self-interest guide them and you will reap great results. That’s because self-interest, the “I want/need this!” response, elicits strong emotions, and emotions are what drive us into action.

Their decision won’t be based on logic. It will be based on the insight that it’s to their advantage to agree to your proposition. All you did was to help them feel it more clearly!

Source: http://allbusiness.com