Don't reward bad behavior 🍬

Do you find yourself negotiating like this often?
As the nagging child or the compassionate mom?

Rewarding a tantrum with a sweet suggests that... we “like” tantrums and should get more of them!
Over time, the sweet 🍬 becomes a video game 🎮, a mobile phone 📱, a car 🚗, a house 🏠 ...
And we’re lucky if tantrums don’t escalate to more aggressive behaviors.

In general, in negotiations, when we reward bad behavior (e.g., threats, delays, unreasonable demands, last-minute pressure) with substantive concessions, we teach the other party:
“This works! I’ll do more of it!”

Our responses to others’ demands always teach something.
What do we want to teach?

It can be helpful to consider the separate Three Negotiations that exist in every negotiation:
📦 Content = what we are negotiating
🔄 Process = how we negotiate
❤️ Relationship = how we treat each other

If the problem is how we’re negotiating (process), fix the process.
If the problem is how we treat each other (relationship), address the relationship.
Don’t pay for better behavior with a concession on content.

Check the tool in the Impact Negotiations Toolkit: The Three Negotiations

What behaviors do you want to reward in your negotiations?