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Sportsmen and women choke but apparently poker players “tilt”. I came across this term in Nate Silver’s excellent book the Signal and the Noise. Tilting is defined as over aggressive play brought on by a lack of perspective, or playing without discipline. A number of tilts are listed and could just as easily apply to negotiating.
Among them are:
- Too loose
- Too tight
- playing too long
- Playing too tired
- Entitlement
- Distracted
- Scared
- Too much money
- Too little money
- I gotta get even.
If we can apply this to negotiating then just as players grab their throat when an opponent appears to choke a skilled negotiator can just start leaning ever so slightly when their counter-party tilts.
Keith Stacey
