Trust: Negotiation's Secret Sauce
Well-placed faith in your counterpart can save the day.
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.’
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In our last couple of posts, we’ve discussed the importance of trust in negotiations: how trust levels between parties can sink or save a deal, and how lack of trust can force you to take matters into your own hands.
This time, we reveal something that might at first seem shocking: If you choose wisely, trusting the other side in a negotiation can pay tremendous dividends.
Skeptical, you say? Naive, foolish thinking in this dog-eat-dog, winner-take-all world we live in?
Hey, I get it. You’re right to be suspicious.
As we’ve noted before, trust is a lubricant that helps parties overcome challenges that would otherwise lead to suboptimal results or leave a transaction for dead. Without trust, negotiations rest on shaky foundations that can crumble under the stress of conflict. In the anecdote from our last post — where, lacking faith in our well-intentioned but overmatched concierge — we called an audible and took control of the situation ourselves.
In today’s episode, something different, and surprising, happened. We actually placed our trust in someone on the other side of our (relatively minor, but urgent) conflict.
Turned out to be absolutely the right call.
But how did we get there, and what helped us make the choices we did?
What lessons can we draw about using trust in negotiations more generally?
It’s another travel saga, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Another Trip, Another Challenge
Flying back to the U.S. from a mid-sized Mexican city, we faced a little challenge.
We had been scheduled to take a mid-morning flight to Mexico City, and then to connect onto another flight home. In a nutshell, the first leg of our flight was delayed, and that, naturally, limited our time between connections. We had received text notifications from the airlines on the morning of our flight, prior to our heading to the airport. We were told that our outbound flight was running behind schedule, with scheduled departure pushed back a couple of hours.
We didn’t completely have faith in the information we’d received. After all, the year before we had received a similar message prior to an international flight, and that flight wound up being delayed multiple times before being cancelled completely. After performing some quick internet research and calling the airlines, we decided to forge ahead and see what we could do to manage our return.
At the airport, approaching the ticketing desk, we prepared for battle. We needed to get home. It was New Year’s Eve, we’d checked out of our hotel, and we had no intention of being stranded out of the country that night.
We faced a problem to be solved. We had our priorities and required assistance — to achieve our goals, we would have to work with the folks in charge of the planes.
Yes, we’d need to put our negotiation and conflict resolution skills to the test.
Managing Conflict on the Fly
At the airline counter, the woman who greeted us — Mariana — was flanked by team members on either side. I knew for a fact we were not the only ones facing obstacles getting out of town that day, and no one in that building wanted to spend NYE in an airport TGI Friday’s (come to think of it, some might have!).
So we approached the woman with a certain degree of empathy. She’d probably been yelled and cursed at all morning. It’s natural to feel frustrated in these situations, but how can taking it out on this person — whose help you need to accomplish your goals — make your situation better?
The scenario we wanted to avoid was having our late departure impact our getting home that evening. Period.
Our connecting flight in Mexico City was the issue. A delayed scheduled departure time of our first leg would theoretically give us just enough time to run to the connecting flight upon arrival in Mexico City. But that was risky, and getting our bags on that second plane was highly unlikely in any case.
Mariana and her team conferred for quite a while. They made phone calls, tapped on their keyboards, communicated on their walkie-talkies, and spoke in hushed Spanish amongst themselves.
Decisions, Decisions
Meanwhile, my wife and I discussed our options. The airline suggested that we take a rescheduled flight home from Mexico City, a couple of hours later than our original flight out. This was to give us sufficient time to make the connection and not risk losing our bags in the bowels of Benito Juárez International.
Sure, we hoped to get home as quickly as possible. Nobody wanted this situation to cost us additional money in airfare, baggage fees, or another night in a hotel.
At the same time, we knew missing a Mexico City connection could mean being stranded there for the night, with or without our luggage. We’ve lost our bags on international connections before and, well, we also knew that wasn’t fun.
“I understand you want to get home. We want to get you home, too. Believe me. But you don’t have time to get yourselves and your bags on that earlier connection,” explained Mariana.
“We really want to get on that original flight, even if it’s close. We will move as quickly as we need to to make it,” my wife implored.
I watched Mariana carefully. I observed her reaction, as her eyes darted from us to her colleagues, then to her computer screen, then back to us again. I saw the look of concern and dismay in her face, too.
At that moment, we had a choice to make: Do we trust Mariana, or not?
Was she giving us wise counsel, or simply trying to move another group of vacationers from her desk? What were her incentives, and did she have our best interests at heart?
To Trust, or Not to Trust
After a few seconds of silence, I looked back at Mariana. “What would you do,” I asked as calmly as possible, “if you were in our shoes?”
“I would take that second plane,” she responded, almost without hesitation. “That’s your best bet, and that’s what I would do.”
“I know we all want to get home,” I turned and said to our crew, “and I think taking that later connection makes the most sense.”
And that’s what we did. We made it home that night, albeit a little later than planned, in upgraded seats, no less. Our bags all made it home, too. All in time to see the 2025 ball drop and ring in the New Year.
To top it off, during the week after we arrived home, my wife contacted the airline and obtained compensation for the flight delays.
All in all, I’d say that was a productive resolution. We were forced to make quick decisions on the spot, and we relied on Mariana’s experience — based on our trust in her — to help us get home.
Negotiation Takeaways
Empathy can build bridges: Approaching Mariana with empathy, recognizing the stress she was surely under, created a more positive environment for collaborative problem-solving. We knew our agenda, but what was hers? In negotiations, understanding the other party’s perspective and challenges can pave the way for mutually beneficial outcomes. Understanding that Mariana would be more likely to help people that showed her respect and made an effort to appreciate her circumstances, why antagonize her rather than acknowledging her efforts?
Trust is a two-way street, and sometimes you have to go first: We chose to trust Mariana’s advice, even though we had no prior relationship with her. We built rapport with a bit of chit-chat at the counter, but ultimately we had to take a risk. This leap of faith, based on Mariana’s demeanor and our assessment of the situation, proved to be the right call. Fortunately, we made good choices here (trusting Mariana’s guidance) and also in our last real-world adventure (electing to be skeptical of our concierge’s final word). Sometimes, extending trust, even when it feels risky, can yield surprising rewards.
Asking the right questions can reveal hidden information: Asking Mariana what she would do in our shoes provided valuable insight beyond the surface-level information about flight schedules. It gave us a glimpse into her expertise and her genuine concern for our situation. Strategic questioning is a powerful tool in negotiation, and this question forced Mariana to view the alternatives from our perspective. We knew she had access to “inside information” that was more accurate and current than anything we could access online or by phone, so it made sense to seek her judgment here. Asking Mariana’s advice not only opens the door to our receiving better data, but also conveys our deference to her expertise and thereby builds rapport.
Trust doesn’t mean blind faith: We didn’t blindly accept the airline’s initial suggestion. We weighed the risks and rewards, considered the potential consequences of missing the connection, and ultimately made a decision based on Mariana’s advice. Trust should ideally be informed by reason and careful consideration, even when time is of the essence.
Sometimes, the “slower” path is the faster route: This last point isn’t directly related to trust but is of tremendous value to negotiators. Choosing the later flight, while seemingly counterintuitive, ultimately got us home faster (with our luggage) and more comfortably (upgraded seats). What we initially wanted wasn’t what we actually needed. Pushing for the earlier flight, with even the slightest further delay or mishap, could have easily left us stranded, with no luggage . . . or both of those things. In negotiations, don't always assume the quickest solution is the best one. Sometimes, patience and a willingness to explore alternative options can lead to better results.