Do Negotiators Tilt?

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