Life is a negotiation.Whether in private or public organisations, professionals are in an almost permanent mode of negotiation - with clients, vendors, peers, bosses, works councils, regulators, governments – not to forget the ‘back tables’ (decision-makers remaining in the background)The French expression ‘négocier un virage’ refers to the attention and the skills it takes to navigate a winding road on the way to one’s destination – also quite a fitting metaphor for the process of negotiations.Negotiation is a skill which can be improved upon. Whether you get what you deserve or whether you are leaving value on the table, depends on your bargaining position - but also on your mental disposition.Which leads us to emotions. Should you bring your authentic impulsive self to the negotiation table, or should you hide potentially contentious emotions? What about occasionally feigning an emotional outbreak, hoping that the other party hands you a concession as appeasement?The answer is that losing one’s temper at the bargaining table – whether real of faked - is counterproductive. Getting angry in a negotiation is at best showing a lack of self-control and at worst (particularly in the eyes of East Asian negotiators), leading to a loss of face.So what about emotions that may be more difficult to contain, such as anxiety? Anxiety differs from anger, in that it triggers a flight rather than a fight response. Whereas feelings of anger motivate individuals to escalate conflict, feelings of anxiety motivate individuals to escape or avoid conflict – which in negotiations often means offering unreciprocated concessions to the other party.A research study conducted at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania confirmed as much[1]: anxiety in a negotiation reduces your chances to achieve the best outcome.In three experiments, the researchers made college student participants watch a film clip featuring ropeless ‘free solo’ rock climbers to induce anxiety. Those in the control group were in for a video clip of ocean fish.Then, the participants engaged in a two-party negotiation simulation which involved a buyer and a seller.Anxious negotiators, the Wharton researchers found, did not set lower goals than those in the neutral condition, but they had lower expectations of success, which amounted to a self-fulfilling prophecy: their first offers were lower, they spent less time on analyzing offers, and achieved less favorable negotiation outcomes.In another experiment, when negotiators were repeatedly given the option to terminate the negotiation, anxious negotiators did so sooner than those in the control group.If both anger and anxiety can be self-defeating in negotiations, they are also difficult to conceal. This is due to human physiology: the body autonomously emits subliminal signals (embedded in voice, in facial ‘micro expressions’ or in stress-specific ‘apocrine’ sweat) which negotiation counterparts will register, whether unconsciously or consciously: in experiments, it took test persons listening to tape recordings less than a second to determine whether the speaker was anxious or self-confident.[2]This implies that the superficial suppression of anger and anxiety (as opposed to learning to prevent anger or anxiety from arising in the first place) is ineffective. With targeted training, executives can achieve the former, learning and practicing mental focus and control, as well as boosting their confidence, leading to better results at the bargaining table – provided of course they are prepared to take the time to properly prepare for an upcoming, sinuous negotiation. We are a team of three executive trainers based in Switzerland and in UAE, each with over 20 years of international training, teaching, and coaching experience. Our proprietary app, in combination with medical-grade neurofeedback devices tracks key biological parameters enabling trainees to monitor their progress, and our clients to quantify the outcomes of executive training. More information @ subliminalleadership.com (soon @ swissneuroleadership.academy)[1] Alison Wood Brooks et al., Can Nervous Nelly Negotiate? How Anxiety Causes Negotiators to Make Low First Offers, Exit Early, and Earn Less Profit, Organisational Behavior and Human Decisions Processes, 2011, Vol. 115, Issue 1[2] Katarzyna Pisanski et al., Human stress detection : cortisol levels in stressed speakers predict voice-based judgments of stress, Perception, 2020, Vol. 48, Issue 10