A Street Style Tracker Chooses 5 Favorite Look Makers of the Summer
Over the past 10 weeks interning at Vogue Runway, I’ve
Read more...This is a story about emotional intelligence and getting what you want. It’s the kind of practical advice you’ll find in my free e-book Improving Emotional Intelligence 2021, which you can download here.
The techniques we’ll be talking about have to do with negotiating, but they apply in many other aspects of life, too. The principles carry over into almost every interaction that you have with other people.
Really, there are five key principles or rules, each based on a principle of emotional intelligence. If you keep them in mind, you’ll find you’re more likely to see positive outcomes.
I feel like this is one we’re all going to have to work on after the pandemic.
But people who have the emotional intelligence to be patient, and develop a rapport over things that aren’t critical to the conversation — in other words, engage in small talk — are far more likely to get what they want.
You don’t just have to take my word for this one. A study at the Stanford Graduate School of Business involved setting up some negotiators who conducted most of their discussions over email, and others who began with a friendly, non-agenda phone call to develop rapport ahead of time.
Since I’m citing it as support, you’ll likely guess the result:
Why does it work? Well, I’ve written before about the difference between parallel responses and convergent responses during conversations. In short:
To use an example, imagine that an employee confides that they had a very hard time coping with work during the pandemic.
One theory about why small talk becomes important in negotiations (big or small), is that they’re an exercise in attempting to reach convergence.