“To hack someone’s mind, first get into their head to observe how they think.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)
“This Is How To Hack Someone’s Mind In Negotiations”
People don’t realize; they’re always negotiating.
To hack someone’s mind in negotiations, you must have a perspective of how they think. And FYI, hacking someone’s mind, in this case, is altering the way they’re thinking in the negotiations. Your efforts are to make them more empathetic to your goals for the duration of the talks. Please observe the following to gain awareness about getting into someone’s head, hacking their mind, and altering their thought process.
Perception
Are you aware of the perceptions you have, and how quick you are to judge something or someone? Before you can access the best ways to hack someone’s mind, you must recognize the mindset you possess. That will determine how you view someone and determine how you’ll interact with him throughout your negotiations. And, while you’re making that assessment, consider the fact that he’ll be doing the same of you. The judgments you make about each other’s make up will determine the success either of you will have in hacking the other’s mind.
Emotional Mind Scraping
To hack someone’s mind, be alert to what they’re thinking during all phases of the negotiation. And, you must be aware of what you’re sensing throughout the talks. Because before you can hack someone’s mind, you must understand the emotions that drive their thoughts. You can do that by evoking emotions that provoke them to actions. To accomplish that, as you speak, conjure images that sway their emotional perspective and observe how they talk, and the degree they display pleasure or dread. Those clues will be the gateway to uncovering the emotional buttons you can pound on to alter a negotiator’s thoughts throughout the negotiation, as you hack his mind.
Information Implant
When attempting to hack someone’s mind, try to replace their thoughts that don’t serve your purposes with those that fit your goals. To accomplish that task, consider the information you’ll use to alter the other negotiator’s perspective. You’ll know you’ve succeeded in your quest once he begins to doubt the validity of the thoughts he once believed to be valid.
To attain that goal, increase the doubts about his beliefs – offer as many counterpoints to his thoughts to refute his current opinions. The point about head scraping to understand the emotional aspects that drive someone’s thinking must be adhered to also. Because if you cite authority figures from whom that person perceives to be bona fide, that’ll lend insight into the best types of rebuttals to use to persuade the other negotiator to accept your premises more readily.
Contrast Fluency
To hack someone’s mind, you must offer contrastable information to affect their current thinking. If that person is thinking from a positive perspective, and it doesn’t serve your purposes, alter it. Shift their mindset to an opposing outlook.
Advertisers attempt to do this in their commercials. First, you see someone struggling with a function or task, and the next scene you witness is how easy it is to complete that function once you have the advertiser’s product. They contrast the problematic or challenging aspect to a comfortable or good theme. To enhance their effect to hack your mind, sometimes they’ll show the first scene in black and white, and the second scene in dynamic color. That effect heightens the perceptional differences per how you sense and perceive the scenes.
Remember this hack in your future negotiations, and in particular, remember the color contrast example. You can use it in numerous ways (e.g., draw attention in writing by showing a gray crossed out offer, replaced by one in green, etc.) Perfecting this hack will allow you the opportunity not only to shape the flow of the talks, but it will also allow for a more smoothly flowing negotiation.
Congruent Imagery Body States
Imagine a negotiator attempting to convince someone that his offer would lead to a fulfilling outcome, while he slouched, spoke very slowly, and continuously broke eye contact. As you contemplate that scenario, what do you think his probability might be of having his offer accepted? You probably assessed his chances to be low, diminishing the more he displayed his current body gestures and behavior.
That’s why it’s essential to maintain congruency between your words and body language. Your body language constantly emits signals about your inner thoughts, and those thoughts allow others to see what your feeling and thinking. Thus, you consistently paint images in the mind of the person with whom you’re speaking. And those images influence his thoughts. So, when you attempt to hack someone’s mind, be aware that your degree of success will depend on how congruent your words and body language are too.
Mental Acuity
Before you attempt to hack someone’s mind, know the mindset of the person you’re trying to hack. The reason being, if you talk sense to a fool, he may think you foolish per what you say. Thus, by understanding his mental thoughtfulness, you’ll have a point from which to comprehend the way he thinks, and the best thought process to engage him.
During negotiations, it’s imperative to understand the thought process the other negotiator is using to make his decisions. And if you think about that from an intellectual perspective, when you make offers and counteroffers, what you’re doing is attempting to hack your opponent’s mind. You’re doing that per the tactics you use to convince him to accept your offer. Therefore, if you wish to achieve more significant outcomes in your negotiations, you’ll consider the mental aspect of your opponent.
Identify Shame No-Shame Mindset
Another aspect that’s essential to hacking someone’s mind is understanding their propensity to lie, and doing so while experiencing a lack of shame. A person’s mind that has no remorse when deceiving others can be more challenging to hack. And it may require you to display a more devious demeanor. You’d do that to make him think you’re like him. Because people like people that are like themselves.
Reflection
It’s essential to understand someone’s mind before attempting to hack it in your negotiations and other aspects of life. That’s a fact. To enhance the probability of success in your efforts, it would help if you employed the ideas mentioned. In so doing, you’ll find it easier to hack a person’s mind in your negotiations. And everything will be right with the world.
Remember, you’re always negotiating!
Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://c-suitenetwork.com/radio/shows/greg-williams-the-master-negotiator-and-body-language-expert-podcast/
After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com
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