I'm willing to bet you'll find these statistics surprising!
If you do not really understand where your counterpart is coming from and the underlying reasons why he/she holds a certain position or opinion, it will be much more difficult for you to succeed in your negotiations.
This is why virtually all negotiation training emphasizes the importance of listening. Because if you don't stop talking for a while and listen to what your counterpart has to say, you will never get this necessary information.
In his book Bargaining for Advantage, Richard Shell illustrates a very good experiment on the subject. The experiment studied the information gathering behavior of good and skilled negotiators and the results are very interesting.
As shown in the illustration, the skilled negotiators spent more than twice as much time gathering information compared to the good ones and almost half of their time in total was spent trying to understand the other party.
If you want to become a really good negotiator, the key to success lies in your ability to truly understand your counterpart.
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