Negotiation Silence Contests

The tricky thing about a silence contest is that nobody announces, "OK, I'm going to start a silence contest." It's just that somebody says something or asks a question and then there is silence. And the silence continues and it continues and before you know it, there is a silence contest going on. The person initiating the contest hopes the other party does not have any negotiation training and will just blurt out useful information or make a big concession.

Here are some statements that you might use to initiate a silence contest:

1. ?What do you think of that ...??
2. ?That?s interesting ....?
3. ?Well....?
4. ?Hummmm....?

In each case, you just let your voice trail off into silence and wait to see what the other person will do. Be patient and be prepared to wait a bit to see it they will start talking.

Now, what do you do if the other person starts a silence contest? Some people say that the first person to talk loses. I'm not so sure that that is the best way to look at it because, if you buy into that idea, it puts huge pressure on you to win the silence contest, perhaps at even the expense of other, more important things.

So once you recognize that the other person has started a silence contest, I suggest going into denial. The goal is to send a message that we just had a thoughtful moment rather than a silence contest. You can restart the conversation by saying:

5. "Now that I've had a chance to think about that....?
6. "Well, that's an interesting idea and here is what I propose....."

You can do the same thing if you were the one who started the silence contest and it isn't working and the other person is not talking. That way you simply deny that you were even using the silence contest tactic.