Phrases You Should Never Use during a Negotiation

Clear communication is as much about getting rid of bad habits as it is about acquiring any new skills. As you look over this section, ask yourself whether you do any of the things that interfere with communications. Getting rid of those habits will serve you better than any new skill. The truth is, being clear requires periodic checkups like an annual physical. Everyone needs to look at this aspect of home and office life from time to time. Bad habits creep into communications rather easily.
Certain phrases go “clunk” against the ear every time you hear them. Here are some phrases that have little place in life, let alone a negotiation. When you hear these phrases, a yellow caution light should start flashing in your head. These phrases often indicate a situation that needs to be addressed. And if you hear one or more of these utterances come out of your mouth, stop immediately. Laugh about the slip or apologize, but don’t assume that the listener doesn’t have the same set of yellow caution lights that you do. Maybe the listener doesn’t, but you can’t take that risk.

Worst case: The deal closes

When a lack of clarity is a major factor in a negotiation, the biggest disasters occur when the deal closes and no one realizes that confusion remains. When written contracts are to follow, a lack of clarity is usually caught by the lawyers during the drafting stage, and the ambiguity can be worked out. In a less formal situation, the confusion generally isn’t discovered until much later. When that happens, both sides feel cheated and misled. People are rarely neutral about the cause of miscommunications. Blame is never far behind the discovery that the two parties failed to communicate well. Each party feels intentionally misled. The acrimony often permanently damages the relationship between the parties. The fallout often damages reputations, too. The truth of the matter is that the results of an intentional lie and a mere miscommunication are often about the same. Preventing an innocent miscommunication is well worth the extra energy expended.

The prices you pay without even knowing

Deals that don’t close are to be expected if you’re not clear during the negotiations. The harder item to assess is how the dynamic of the discussion changes when communications are not clear.
When you are not clear, the other party feels insecure. Rather than confront you on your lack of clarity, the person you’re negotiating with often just compensates in one of two ways:

• Reciprocal obfuscation: That term simply means that the other party starts to be unclear, too. (I love the irony of using a hard-to-understand phrase to describe things that are hard to understand.) The other party doesn’t know where you stand, because you are not being clear. So, they won’t feel comfortable making a clear commitment either. This situation substantially slows down a negotiation and may make productive communication almost impossible.
• Leaving lots of room to maneuver: If you are not clear, others won’t feel safe enough to tell you specifically what they want. Rather than commit to a position, your counterpart will leave lots of room to maneuver, until you clarify where you want to end up.

These consequences are almost impossible to detect. Instead, you begin blaming the lack of clarity or indecisiveness on the other party. If you run into one of these behaviors, see whether the problem didn’t start with you. Even if it didn’t — even if you are dealing with someone who is naturally unclear or reluctant to take a position — you can push that person to greater clarity or decisiveness by communicating more clearly yourself.