NEGOTIATIONS

How to Negotiate with a Liar

by Leslie K. John
FROM THE JULYAUGUST 2016 ISSUE

BROSMIND

obust social psychology research indicates that people lieand lie often. One
prominent study found that people tell, on average, one or two lies every day.
Negotiators are no exception. Judging from studies done in 1999 and 2005, roughly

half of those making deals will lie when they have a motive and the opportunity to do so.
Typically they see it as a way to gain the upper hand (although it can actually cause backlash and
prevent the kind of creative problem solving that leads to win-win deals). Deception is thus one
of the intangibles that negotiators have to prepare for and take steps to prevent.

Many people assume that the solution is to get better at detecting deception. Theres a
widespread notion that one can reliably spot a liar through subtle behavioral cuesor tells, in
the parlance of poker and other games that involve blung. But the evidence doesnt support
that belief. One meta-analysis (a study of studies) found that people can correctly identify
whether someone is telling a lie only 54% of the timenot much better odds than a coin ip. Even
the polygrapha technology specically engineered to detect lies in a controlled settingis
riddled with problems and comes to the wrong conclusion about a third of the time. Humans are
particularly inept at recognizing lies that are cloaked in attery: your bosss promise that a
promotion is coming any day now; the suppliers assurance that your order is his top priority.
Were wired to readily accept information that conforms to our preexisting assumptions or hopes.

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prevention rather than detection. There are several science-backed strategies that can help you

Is there anything you can do to ensure youre not duped in a negotiation? Yes, if you focus on

conduct conversations in a way

that
makes it
moreTOdicult
your counterpart to lie. Though
NO THANKS,
I WANT
CONTINUEfor
READING.

these methods arent fail-safe, they will leave you better positioned in your deal making and help
you to create maximum value.

1. Encourage Reciprocity
Humans have a strong inclination to reciprocate disclosure: When someone shares sensitive
information with us, our instinct is to match their transparency. In fact, simply telling people that
otherseven strangershave divulged secrets encourages reciprocation. In a series of studies
that I conducted with Alessandro Acquisti and George Loewenstein, we presented readers of the
New York Times with a list of unethical behaviors, such as making a false insurance claim and
cheating on ones tax return. People who were told that most other participants had admitted
doing those things were 27% more likely to reveal that they had done likewise than were people
who were told that only a few others had made such admissions.

Humans are particularly inept at recognizing

lies that are cloaked in attery.
Reciprocity is particularly pronounced in face-to-face interactions. In experiments led separately
by Arthur Aron and Constantine Sedikides, randomly paired participants who worked their way
through a series of questions designed to elicit mutual self-disclosure were more likely to become
friends than were pairs instructed to simply make small talk. (One couple assigned to the

disclosure exercise eventually married!) Inducing a close relationship is not the primary goal of
most negotiations, of course. But other research, by Maurice Schweitzer and Rachel Croson,
shows that people lie less to those they know and trust than they do to strangers.

A good way to jump-start reciprocity is to be the rst to disclose on an issue of strategic

importance (because your counterpart is likely to share information in the same category). For
example, imagine you are selling a piece of land. The price it will command depends on how its
developed. So you might tell a potential buyer that you want to sell the land for the best use. This
could prompt her to divulge her plans; at a minimum, you are encouraging a conversation about
interests, which is critical to creating mutually benecial deals. This strategy has the added

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breakthroughs.

benet of letting you frame the negotiation, which can enhance your chances of nding

2. Ask the Right Questions

NO THANKS, I WANT TO CONTINUE READING.
Most people like to think of themselves as honest. Yet many negotiators guard sensitive
information that could undermine their competitive position. In other words, they lie by
omission, failing to volunteer pertinent facts. For example, consider an individual who is selling
his business but knows that vital equipment needs replacinga problem imperceptible to
outsiders. It might seem unethical for him to withhold that information, but he may feel that by
simply avoiding the topic, he can charge a higher price while still maintaining his integrity. If the
buyer had asked me, I would have told the truth! he might insist.

The risk of not getting the whole story is why its so important to test your negotiating partners
with direct questions. Schweitzer and Croson found that 61% of negotiators came clean when
asked about information that weakened their bargaining power, compared to 0% of those not
asked. Unfortunately, this tactic can backre. In the same experiment, 39% of negotiators who
were questioned about the information ultimately lied. But you can go a long way toward
avoiding that outcome by posing your queries carefully. Research by Julia Minson, Nicole Ruedy,
and Schweitzer indicates that people are less likely to lie if questioners make pessimistic
assumptions (This business will need some new equipment soon, right?) rather than optimistic
ones (The equipment is in good order, right?). It seems to be easier for people to lie by arming
an untrue statement than by negating a true statement.

3. Watch for Dodging

Savvy counterparts often get around direct questions by answering not what they were asked but
what they wish theyd been asked. And, unfortunately, we are not naturally gifted at detecting
this sort of evasiveness. As Todd Rogers and Michael Norton have found, listeners usually dont
notice dodges, often because theyve forgotten what they originally asked. In fact, the
researchers discovered that people are more impressed by eloquent sidestepping than by answers
that are relevant but inarticulate.

Dodge detection is improved, however, when listeners are prompted to remember the question
for example, when it is visible as the speaker replies. In a negotiation, therefore, its a good idea to
come to the table with a list of questions, leaving space to jot down your counterparts answers.
Take time after each response to consider whether it actually provided the information you
sought. Only when the answer to that question is yes should you move on to the next issue.

4. Dont Dwell on Condentiality

Research shows that when we work to assure others that well maintain their privacy and
condentiality, we may actually raise their suspicions, causing them to clam up and share less. As
early as the 1970s, the National Research Council documented this paradox with potential survey
participants: The greater the promises of protection, the less willing people were to respond. This
relationship holds up in experimental research. In studies conducted by Eleanor Singer, HansJrgen Hippler, and Norbert Schwarz, for example, fewer than half of the people who received a
strong condentiality assurance agreed to complete an innocuous survey, whereas about 75% of
those given no such assurance agreed to do so.

My colleagues and I have discovered that strong privacy protections can also increase lying. In
addition, weve found that when questions are posed in a casual tone rather than a formal one,
people are more likely to divulge sensitive information. Imagine you are negotiating a job oer
with a prospective employee and would like to assess the strength of her other options: Does she
have competitive oers? Shes likely to be more forthcoming if you avoid or at least minimize
condentiality assurances and instead nonchalantly broach the topic: We all know there are tons
of great rms out there. Any chance you might be considering other places? Of course, you
should still properly protect any condential information you receive, but theres no reason to
announce that unless asked.

5. Cultivate Leaks

People inadvertently leak information in all kinds of ways, including in their own questions. For
example, suppose you are in charge of procurement for a rm and youre about to sign a contract
with a supplier who has promised to deliver goods within six months. Before signing, he asks you
what happens in the event of late delivery. The question could be innocent, but it might also
signal his worries about meeting the schedule. So you need to pay attention.

When people leak mindlessly, the information tends to be accurate. Astute negotiators realize
that valuable knowledge can be gleaned simply by listening to everything their counterparts say,
even seemingly extraneous or throwaway commentsin the same way that interrogators look for
statements from criminal suspects that include facts not known to the public.

Even if your counterpart is determined to

In the Hot Seat: Handling

Tough Questions Honestly

withhold information, you can still encourage

Information exchange is integral to

creating win-win deals, but it must be
carefully managed. Disclose too much
and your counterpart might take
advantage of you; disclose too little and
you miss opportunities to discover
mutually benecial trades. So what
should you do when youre asked a
question that, if answered truthfully,
would put you at a bargaining
disadvantage?

collaborators and I found that people are much

WHAT NOT TO DO

the ethicality of various behaviors using one of

Lie. You will be tempted to lie. Dont.

Setting aside ethical, moral, and legal
arguments, if you get caught, it can
damage your reputation and your
relationship with your counterpart and
potentially put the entire deal in peril.
Research shows that many positive
interactions are required to restore trust
after a single breach, and breaches
entailing deception are among the most
difcult to recover from.

two scalesone scale if they themselves had

Palter. Another common but misguided

approach is what Todd Rogers and
colleagues call paltering, or using
truthful statements to convey an

leakage. In a series of experiments, my

more likely to let slip information about their
engagement in sensitive behaviors than they are
to explicitly divulge it. In one study, we probed
New York Times readers about matters such as
lying about their income. We directly asked
people in one group if they had ever engaged in
specic activities. We took an indirect approach
with the other group, asking participants to rate

engaged in the behavior and a dierent scale if

they had not. Participants in the latter group
were roughly 1.5 times likelier to admit (tacitly)
to bad behavior than were people asked pointblank about their conduct.

In a negotiation, you might use similarly indirect

tactics to glean information. For example, give
your counterpart a choice of two dierent oer
packagestwo possible ways of dividing the

inaccurate impression. The researchers

give the example of former U.S. president
Bill Clintons answer to a question about
whether hed had a sexual relationship
with Monica Lewinsky: There is not a
sexual relationshipthat is accurate.
Technically that statement was not a lie,
because his involvement with Lewinsky
was in the past. But research shows that
people view such legalistic skirting of the
truth as unfavorably as they view
outright lying.
Abstain. A third common workaround is
to abstain from answering the question.
However, Kate Barasz, Michael Norton,
and I have shown that this tactic leaves a
worse impression than disclosing even
extremely unsavory information. For
example, in one study, participants
viewed people who had confessed to
frequently stealing items worth more
than $100 as more trustworthy than
those who had simply refused to answer
the question.

WHAT TO DO
Redirect. In the short term, the
strategies deployed by politicians, who
routinely face tough, direct questions,
can be instructiveparticularly for oneshot negotiations (when you are unlikely
to meet your counterpart again). A
familiar tactic is to dodge the question
by changing the subject to something
seemingly related. As noted earlier,
people are generally not very good at
detecting dodges, so you have an
opportunity to selectively disclose
information of your choosing. A second
strategy is to turn the tables and
question the questioner. Responding in
this way can deect attention and enable
you to take control of the topic.
Share carefully. If youre playing a longer
game, disclosure can work in your favor;
it can foster trust and facilitate better

spoilsboth of which would be acceptable to

you. If she expresses a preference for one over
the other, she is leaking information about her
priorities and giving you insight into her relative
valuation of the issues up for negotiation.

Heres one more strategy that might encourage

your counterpart to inadvertently show her
hand: Request contingency clauses that attach
nancial consequences to her claims. If she
balks at agreeing to them, it may be because
shes lying. At a minimum, such a reaction
should prompt you to probe further. Suppose,
for example, that your business is negotiating
the acquisition of a small start-up. Your
counterpart gives you sales projections that
strike you as optimistic or even impossible. You
could propose a contingency clause that would
tie the acquisition price to the sales level
achieved. That would motivate your counterpart
to provide realistic sales projections, and it
would protect you if shes wrong.

Lying surrounds usand can be a real

impediment to the creation of value in
negotiation. The good news is that deploying
science-backed strategies can go a long way
toward bringing out the best in negotiations
and in the parties involved.
A version of this article appeared in the JulyAugust 2016
issue (pp.114117) of Harvard Business Review.

outcomes through collaboration and

joint problem solving. To avoid being
exploited, however, negotiators should
start small: Share a substantive but not
critical piece of information. Only if your
counterpart reciprocates should you
continue the tit for tat; disclosure
without reciprocation leaves you
vulnerable to your counterparts valueclaiming tactics.

Leslie K. John is an associate professor at Harvard Business School. Twitter: @lesliekjohn.

This article is about NEGOTIATIONS

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11 COMMENTS

Aditya Sedani

a month ago

A very good read for negotiation and managerial conversation as well. At times, while negotiating it is helpful if
you anchor the deal on extreme your level and then apply the "pessimistic assumptions" mentioned in the article.
It creates additional pressure and also give other cues to know how much condent the person is in making his
statement.
But good to read and mane of such incidences we do observe or recall.

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