For success in negotiations – hack your brain.
“You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.” – Harvey Mackay
We start early and never stop, but we do it differently later
Remember the time when you were exercising your bargaining power with your parents to get your favourite treats for eating all those greens on your plate? That’s right, according to research, even children as young as two and three are skilled negotiators who use a variety of strategies to reach and change agreements during play and other activities. Interestingly, these strategies were different depending on whether the negotiations originated in agreement or disagreement. When negotiations were based on agreement (about shared play), children made efforts to understand their friends’ perspectives. When negotiations were based on disagreement, children’s play became more about power, domination and manipulation.
We continue negotiating throughout our lives. However, as discovered by 2020 research, older adults find it more difficult to compromise and achieve win-win outcomes in negotiations. While more research is needed to identify all the causes of this phenomenon, increased competitiveness and reduced ability (or increased unwillingness?) to consider somebody else’s perspective are strong candidates to make the list. Bearing this in mind, it might be useful to include younger people into negotiating teams comprising older adults to ensure that no opportunities are missed to achieve positive outcomes for all parties.
New times demand… old skills
It is OK if you had to re-read the sub-heading above. As strange as it sounds, in a post-COVID world with the rapid infiltration of technology into almost every area of human activity, negotiation behaviour changed too, particularly in the West and in commercial negotiations, according to this article. Nowadays, just like 50 years ago, there is a strong demand for observation skills, active listening skills and emotional intelligence with the new addition of a high level of technology skills essential for digital negotiations.
This article gives a great overview of 23 negotiation skills which you can enhance in 2025. You can also add a few (or all) of the following brain hacks to the mix to make you an even better negotiator.
Science informed hacks to use in negotiations
– Ensure that you have enough sleep and hydration to keep your brain it tip-top condition. Ideally, you should do it always anyway. If this is impossible for you for whatever reason, make sure that you have enough sleep and hydration for at least 5-7 days before the important negotiations. And have some food (but not overeat) before the start of negotiations. After all, you don’t want to be sleepy, thirsty or hungry at the negotiation table because, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, your basic physiological needs must be satisfied first before you can start even thinking about anything else. Also, eating before negotiations can improve brain function and self-control, and reduce prejudice and aggression.
– Negotiating is stressful most of the time so take a couple of minutes to calm your nervous system. Simple yet very effective rapid relaxation techniques include deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation – they are described in this article. You can find a few other quick relaxation techniques here. Try them to find those that work best for you and then remember to use them in stressful moments.
– If you host negotiations, address physical comfort of your counterparts to create a sense of safety – this could be as simple as offering people hot or cold drinks, or adjusting air conditioning or central heating to their liking. This article offers fascinating insights on how physical comfort and other aspects of a physical environment affect negotiations.
– To overcome instinctive defensive attitude in your counterparts, start with the statement of your best intentions and desired positive outcomes.
– Put an effort into building rapport and trust – find and emphasise similarities and common ground. Using mirroring techniques, such as matching body language, tone and pace of voice will help to establish a connection. Demonstrating genuine interest in your counterparts and their concerns will help to create a positive environment and to lower their guard. Read this article to find out more about the use of body language in negotiations.
– Get a perspective on how your counterparts think in negotiations so that you can make them moreempathetic and agreeable. Greg Williams, a master negotiator and body language expert offers an interesting strategy for hacking other person’s mind in negotiations.
– Use open-ended questions to engage your counterparts’ neocortex which is responsible for managing complex cognitive functions such as sensory perception, learning, memory, language processing, decision-making, and conscious awareness. Open-ended questions will stimulate curiosity and shift the focus to finding mutually beneficial solutions. This article gives an overview of good types of questions to ask during negotiations.
– Take advantage of the anchoring bias by making the first offer in negotiations. This will set a reference point for the rest of the negotiations.
– Learn to use strategic silence in your negotiations. Silence creates discomfort for our brains by increasing tension and unpredictability. People don’t like silence in conversations and tend to fill it with information which they did not intend to disclose in the first place.
You can find more great hacks informed by neuroscience in this article by Vivian Manning-Schaffel. There is also a Huberman Lab’s episode about negotiations tactics, dynamics, tools and mindset which is worth exploring.
For those who are keen to learn more about negotiations, FeedSpot just published its list of 45 Best Negotiations Podcasts worth listening to in 2025, while Scotwork® and Program on Negotiation (PON) of the Harvard Law School have also published their lists of best negotiation books. My personal favourites are Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, The Art of Negotiation by Michael Wheeler and Negotiation Genius by Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman.
Want to know more about brain hacking? My next article will follow soon!
