GUILTY!

A senior business leader approached me after I had given a talk on negotiation to a networking group last year. Looking a little pained and embarrassed, he quietly told me.

“I’m guilty of being a bit of a people pleaser.”

This is something I hear a lot and let’s be clear about this; if you fall into the trap of making concessions in a negotiation to please the other side, it is not ok.

You will lose the respect of the other side and undermine the value you get from the deal. That should be obvious to most people, but this next bit might not be; making this mistake will not even succeed in pleasing the other side. In fact, it undermines their satisfaction with the deal! If you make the negotiation too easy for them, they will suspect the deal they got was easy for you. In other words, they will believe you profited excessively at their expense.

This will cause problems. On top of that, whatever you gave them for free this time (for whatever reason), they will expect to keep getting for free from now on. So, if this is where being a people pleaser leads you in your negotiations, that should be enough reason to stop it; you cannot please people by being a generous negotiator.

Having said all that, even if you are falling into this trap, do not feel guilty about it.

Guilt and shame are not helpful emotions. If you are entering into negotiations already feeling bad about yourself, it is going to have a negative impact on your performance. Instead of feeling bad or reproaching yourself for this behaviour, consider why you’re doing it and then make the necessary changes. We’ll start with why you’re doing it.

Another way of framing “people pleaser” in business is “problem solver”.

The desire to solve your customers’ problems is a great strength in a commercial career. It drives constructive behaviours such as questioning, listening, and thinking creatively which are never inappropriate. Many people who feel guilt about “people pleasing” are very successful because they are great at solving problems for their clients. They do need to be mindful of the risks of being too amenable in negotiations but should not feel guilt. The only reason to feel guilty would be if, having recognised the issue in their own performance and gained understanding of the root cause, they did nothing about it.   

You are who you are, and you are ok. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and a strength in one context can often be a potential liability in another. The challenge (and the opportunity) is to be mindful of your biases and work around them, rather than letting them affect your behaviour and undermine your value. Once you take that step, you will find that there is an important role for a problem solving mindset in negotiation. When your skill and passion for solving problems is properly directed, you can turn it into a negotiating superpower.

Is there a guilty secret that is holding back your negotiation success? Whatever that secret is, there’s probably an opportunity to leverage it for self-improvement, opportunity and growth. To do that you need to talk about it, and that starts with shedding the guilt.

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FREEZE!

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OBJECTION!