The Sunday, February 15, 2009 Washington Post ran a fascinating article about truth telling and trust. Researches at MIT’s Media Lab found that body language, vocal pattern and pitch are so critical to human trust that the researchers could predict the success of a sales pitch by reading body language alone. They didn’t even have to hear the content of the pitch.

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 I have a confession to make – I listened in on someone else’s conversation at a Starbucks. In fact, I listed as two lawyers, who I am guessing worked as in-house counsel for one of the large Seattle based corporations, complained about a particular negotiation. What’s more, I was so happy to listen to them, that I was delighted to get a text message that my colleague was running late. I listened to them with my negotiation coaches’ hat on. Here was the rhythm. #1 Guy started by asking #2 Guy what their next move should be at the bargaining table. #2 Guy complained about the personality of their counterpart. #1 Guy agreed and added a few words. #2 Guy added that their counterpart’s requests were unreasonable. #1 Guy agreed and complained again about their counterpart’s personality. And on it went for 15 minutes. Then they left.

My pet peeve with the negotiation literature is that all too often authors refer to concessions and tradeoffs interchangeably, meaning they talk about tradeoffs but call them concessions or worse, call concessions tradeoffs. Mixing these terms creates confusion in the literature and during the actual back and forth bartering. Unskilled negotiators don’t distinguish between offering something without an expectation of getting something in return, and offering something with the explicit understanding that the only way their counterpart will benefit is to offer something in return. I see many negotiators make concessions believing that they are making tradeoffs just to become disappointed or upset that they did not get anything in return.