Relationships in Negotiation: The Advantages of Rapport Building

In negotiation, a strong working relationship with your counterpart can set a solid foundation for a mutually beneficial agreement. Positive relationships in negotiation matter because they produce trust—a critical mechanism for securing desired actions from others.

Consider that any proposed action, whether raised by a negotiator at the bargaining table or by a leader in a strategy meeting, carries some degree of risk. People tend to view an action as less risky—and therefore more acceptable—when it is suggested by someone they trust.

But how important is it to cultivate trust and strong working relationships in negotiation? And how can we do so, given time and budget constraints?

Vicious and Virtuous Cycles in Negotiation

We tend to respond to others’ actions with similar actions, decades of social science research have shown. When others cooperate with us and treat us with respect, we generally respond in kind. When they appear guarded or overly competitive, we often mirror that behavior.

According to negotiation expert Keith Allred, these reciprocal exchanges can spiral into either vicious cycles—marked by suspicion and contention—or virtuous cycles, where cooperation and goodwill reinforce one another.

This reciprocal nature of trust highlights the value of investing time in relationship building before substantive negotiations begin. Early self-disclosure promotes a bond that you may need later if conflict flares. Spending time getting acquainted will also help correct inaccurate stereotypes that were triggered the moment you met.

The Building Blocks of Relationships in Negotiation
To create durable relationships in negotiation, four basic building blocks signal trustworthiness long before numbers are exchanged or concessions are made:

1. Two-way communication
2. A demonstrated commitment to the other party’s interests
3. Reliability
4. Respect for others’ contributions

Rapport Building in Negotiation

Wondering how to build trust in negotiations? By establishing a strong sense of personal rapport. Northwestern University professor Janice Nadler has described rapport as “a state of positive mutual attention marked by harmony and affinity. When two negotiators share rapport, they feel in sync with each other and focused on the interaction.”

According to Nadler, rapport can serve as a “social tranquilizer” that reduces conflict by buffering negotiators from the tendency to become irritated or upset by each other’s statements and behavior. Negotiators who have established rapport are less likely to resort to threats and ultimatums than those who have not, Nadler has found. By fostering a positive atmosphere, a strong sense of rapport encourages negotiators to engage in the type of collaboration and problem solving that can expand the pie of value.

Despite the benefits of building trust in negotiation, it would be unwise to try to establish rapport simply to win the upper hand in a negotiation. Establishing rapport “will not and should not gain one side a significant bargaining advantage over the other,” G. Richard Shell writes in Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People. Rather, wise negotiators use rapport to get their message across and hope the other party will do the same. Rapport can also be used to foster more responsible negotiation.

How to Build Rapport

When negotiators meet in person, they build rapport unconsciously by mimicking each other’s gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Maintaining eye contact, nodding in agreement, and other indications of openness and interest help us connect with each other.

While it is easier to build rapport when meeting face-to-face or via video, Nadler found in one study that pairs of negotiators were much more likely to reach agreement in an email negotiation if they had first engaged in small talk during a brief phone call. Thus, it may be especially important to establish rapport when you are negotiating online.

Negotiators sometimes establish rapport through common bonds, such as mutual friends or rooting for the same sports team. We unconsciously prefer people, places, and things that remind us of ourselves, a bias known as implicit egotism, according to Nadler. These discoveries can be happy accidents, or we can actively seek them out by researching our counterpart’s background, observing their environment, or engaging them in small talk.

You can also promote rapport through thoughtful gestures. A couple of weeks before meeting with a client to discuss renewing his contract, Ken Deeks, a director at British public relations firm The Amber Group, happened to attend a soccer game in which the client’s favorite team was playing. Deeks bought a program and gave it to the client when they met. The client was delighted.

The gesture “showed that I was thinking of him, that I’d taken an interest in him as a person, and that we shared a common interest,” Deeks told the Financial Times. “It was also small enough to be seen as a genuine gesture rather than an attempt to curry favor to gain a better contract.” Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the client renewed his contract.

Question: What techniques have you used to build trusting relationships in negotiation?

See Also: How to Deal When the Going Gets Tough – Most business negotiators understand that by working collaboratively with their counterparts while also advocating strongly on their own behalf, they can build agreements and long term relationships that benefit both sides. During times of economic hardship, however, many negotiators abandon their commitment to cooperation and mutual gains. Instead, they fall back on competitive tactics, threatening the other side with “take it or leave it” offers and refusing to accept concessions of any kind.)

See Also: Beware Your Counterpart’s Biases – After a failed negotiation, it’s tempting to construct a story about how the other side’s irrationality led to an impasse. Unfortunately, such stories will not resurrect the deal. In the past, we have encouraged you to ‘debias’ your own behavior by identifying the assumptions that may be clouding your judgment. We have introduced you to a number of judgment biases – common, systematic errors in thinking that are likely to affect your decisions and harm your outcomes in negotiation. These include the mythical fixed-pie, egocentrism, overconfidence, escalation of commitment, the winner’s curse, the influence of vivid data, and so on.

See Also: 15 Top Business Negotiations – Business negotiations tend to have lots of ups and downs—and we can learn from all of them. Here’s a roundup of 15 business negotiations from recent years that offer useful lessons.

See Also: 5 Dealmaking Tips for Closing the Deal – What to do when you’ve done everything right, but you still don’t have an agreement. Here are some tips from Negotiation Briefings to help you close the deal in your next negotiating session at the bargaining table.

Adapted from “Real Leaders Negotiate” by Jeswald Salacuse for the May 2006 Negotiation newsletter and “How to Build Trust at the Bargaining Table,” first published in the January 2009 issue of Negotiation.