As wonderful an ideal as it is for people to strive for open communication, honesty, and collaboration, there inevitably will come times where varying degrees of deception are introduced into a negotiation process or even most any other interaction between two individuals or parties. Why a person may engage in a deceptive action may vary, but however it may come about, its worthwhile to be cognizant of when deception may be happening and what the consequences may be for the person being deceived, the deceiver, the issue in question, and so on.
Much of working around or protecting against deception involves evaluating the information being received, and the class' Wharton text on decision making outlines how to go about this in different stages of negotiation, among the most pertinent stages being within the actual negotiation. Four notable techniques includes asking direct questions, listening carefully, noting nonverbal cues, and keeping written records.
According to the text, a study indicated "...subjects were significantly less likely to lie when asked a direct question," citing a statistic of 61% revealing the problem, 39% lying by commission, and none lying by omission. But, when not asked a direct question, none revealed the problem, 25% lied by commission, and 75% lied by omission (Hoch et al, 2001). In short, by not asking a question directly related to a potential problem an opportunity is given to the seller to simply let something go without being addressed "because no one ever asked." Particularly in a sales position, the selling party is highly unlikely to address their shortcomings or outright failures, giving further cause for one to follow the old adage of "buyer beware," especially in situations where there may not be the protections of a written contract or other service commitment.
Second, one should listen carefully to the other party. Its important first off that the representative is someone who is actually a subject matter expert and has a greater depth of knowledge, or that the person actually wields a nominal level of authority within their organization. From there, its important to listen to the answers of any questions, not just to infer the veracity of what is said but also consider what hasn't been said (Hoch et al, 2001). Did they cover all the relevant specifications of a component, or did they not mention a limiting factor that would be of high interest to you?
Tied into that, it is known within the realm of communication studies that an individual can convey additional information of what they are thinking via nonverbal cues, which is generally more difficult to mask or manipulate than verbal information. These cues can include actions such as increased blinking, fewer gestures, hesitation in speech or increased fillers, and other actions that generally lend an appearance of there being something else on a person's mind (Hoch et al, 2001).
Finally, it is advisable for one to write down any particularly important details and claims or commitments, as well as to conduct any records checks or insist on guarantees for particularly important issues (Hoch et al, 2001). As the text illustrated in its example, if something isn't put into writing where there is no room for plausible deniability, or there isn't any legal "teeth," that presents an opportunity for one or both parties to move forth as they see fit and potentially get by with a general attitude of "nobody lied, the truth changed."
Speaking from experience, there have been some occasions where I've received information that wasn't up to the highest degree of accuracy, and in my line of work there's almost a necessity for "expectations management." I remember I was working with a friend in one of our client units, and she had asked me to check back with our planning function on a line of paperwork she needed to have processed. I did this, and the planning shop said she still needed to give them some data points in order to proceed forth. Going back to my friend, she said the planning function needed to be working yet another line of documentation before she could move forth on getting the data. At the end of the day, I was left with no forward progress after playing go between, with both sides absolutely adamant that they were doing their job and the other side wasn't. I, unfortunately, didn't have background on the problem nor did I know what the process should have looked like, so I was not able to effectively determine if I was getting all the information, nor could I ask particularly specific questions or verify the information I was being given.
As for when I've overstated a claim, I've had plenty of occasions where a client would want a specific time frame for when a fix action would be completed. Something I was very quickly mentored to do was never to use the word "will," but instead say "should." For example, we always say "we should be able to get this worked by the afternoon." This is a philosophy we've dubbed as expectations management, and frankly speaking, our clients do it as well with their partner organizations to a certain measure. Generally we've gotten pretty good at sticking to our estimates on time or what needs fixing, but when something falls through, we can still say with a straight face that we "thought" something "should" be doable within a set of parameters, but now we have to work with another set. Maintaining this, I hate to say, is somewhat critical as even under those circumstances I've had a member of client leadership outright accuse us of lying when in fact the situation had just evolved.
Regarding the question of how far I would want to go to leverage a position, I expect I wouldn't stray too far from the common practice of wanting to highlight strengths and positives whenever possible. However, given my line of work, I would also want to be prepared to note any issues that would impact what we have going on, and I would ideally want to be ready to propose possible mitigation strategies or highlight the need to look at the issue when feasible. I fully expect that I would never lie by commission, although admittedly there are occasions within the office where we consider it better to pass up or down the chain only information that's need to know, and only disclose to the fullest extent when we have additional context or a way ahead. I suppose as long as I'm in the military, while there is a level of politics to contend with, I would hesitate to do much in the way of leveraging due to the common expectation of intrinsic trust that comes with the profession. If we ever got into the habit of having to stop and assess everything said by all of our members, or worse yet didn't trust anyone, I would imagine it would create a significant slowdown in the conduct of our business. A high level of trust, I believe, is one of the things that helps us do what we do everyday with any reasonable level of efficiency.
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