Resolve: Negotiating Life's Conflicts with Greater Confidence

Nobody loves conflict. Whether we’re negotiating a salary increase or trying to settle on which in-laws to spend the holidays with, there’s a lot at stake in any dispute beyond the points being argued over. While both sides are pushing for the result they want, there’s a very good chance that someone will feel unjustly treated, hurt or embarrassed along the way. Sometimes one or both parties lose their cool completely, doing damage to the relationship or on their own reputation. Even formal negotiations with nothing personal at stake can feel fraught with risk to the people involved.

Many individuals go through life avoiding conflict and dreading confrontation. And yet, there is no escaping the need to negotiate with family members, employers, business partners and tradespeople. What if you could approach your next difficult conversation with genuine confidence that you can reach the best possible resolution without losing face or damaging your relationship with your counterpart?

Confidence is not the same thing as self-esteem or bravado, according to psychologist and negotiation expert Hal Movius. To handle all of life’s negotiations more effectively and with less stress, Movius says, we need to develop confidence along three key dimensions:

Mastery: The ability to plan for and to deploy optimal behaviors during a disagreement or negotiation
Poise: The capacity to manage emotions in the moment
Judgment: The knowledge to avoid the most common traps that befall negotiators — and the rest of us — as we think about the problem at hand and the other side’s behaviors

In Resolve: Negotiating Life’s Conflicts with Greater Confidence Movius provides effective tools to boost confidence in all three of these critical areas so you can be more effective in resolving any type of conflict, from spontaneous flare-ups at home to planned business negotiations.

Drawing on decades of research in interpersonal psychology and recent advances in social neuroscience, Movius blends science-backed insight with practical techniques developed in his 25-year career as a mediator, negotiation trainer and coach.

Readers will learn:
That genuine confidence can be acquired, regardless of personality traits
How to transform all sorts of conflicts, including influence challenges, into negotiations in order to resolve them more satisfactorily
Strategies to use when the conflict is about beliefs or behaviors
How to think like a negotiator, with strategies for planned conversations as well as spontaneous conflict How to recognize and respond to difficult emotional and manipulative tactics in counterparts
How to cope with emotional flooding if you feel yourself becoming flustered in a dispute
How to recognize common errors in judgment that we make before, during and after negotiations
What drives the differences in how women and men negotiate

The book also shares advice on bargaining with counterparts who act as if they don’t care about the relationship (and indeed may not); negotiating on behalf of others; and settling differences with those we are close to. Whether you negotiate for a living or only in your personal life, Resolve is the only guide you need to get safely and comfortably to the other side of any dispute.

Hal Movius, founder and president of Movius Consulting, provides coaching, consulting, and negotiation training for Fortune 500 companies and global NGOs. An applied psychologist, Movius is also an expert in emotional intelligence, self-regulation, leadership, and interpersonal processes, and is the co-author of Built to Win: Creating a World Class Negotiating Organization. He lives in Charlottesville, VA.