An Open Letter to the Women I Negotiated With
By: Lark Yan
Tags: Cooperation, Negotiation, Lessons Learned, Lessons In Life

Dear Madam:

When I think back to this day, I remember the angry yelling. I remember the barrage of calls, back and forth text messages, your threat to take legal action that caught me off guard. What began as a simple inquiry into subletting my apartment devolved into an ugly argument that I won’t ever quite forget.

When you first texted saying you were interested in subletting my apartment for your incoming, College-freshmen daughter, I was already head-deep in offers. Everyone, it seemed, was desperate for housing, especially after our university had announced a few hours prior that we’d be fully remote and that on-campus housing was canceled.

I kept tally on each interested party, wanting to leave with the best offer I could get. We texted back and forth and exchanged a few calls to work out the delegation agreement. When I received a better offer than yours, I decided to go with that deal instead. I texted to let you know, and I remember you immediately called. I answered, expecting an amicable exchange where I would explain to you why and how we agreed to sublet to a different party, oblivious to the naivety in my thinking.

It’s been nearly four months since our encounter. I’ve grown much since we last talked. I’ve completed a negotiations course, which I had registered for back in the spring when I was blissfully unaware of what was coming my way.

I’ve completed almost a dozen mock negotiations with my peers since. I’ve been a recruiter, a talent agent, a representative for the French government. I’ve negotiated my way through emotionally-charged accusations and I’ve sold myself short as a bumbling buyer. I’ve successfully defended my own interests as an entrepreneur selling her business and witnessed oil competition destroy cooperation in the absence of communication.

As I’ve taken on each role, it’s been impossible for me to ignore the first, high-stakes negotiation I’d ever experienced. Ours was my first taste of just how messy real-life negotiations can get.

I know you were, and perhaps still are, angry at me for walking out of the deal. Perhaps you still believe that there was no negotiation at all, that I was simply a “dishonest” kid who cheated you of a deal rightfully yours.

What I didn’t convey to you then and what I want to tell you now is this– I understand your anger and frustrations. With the wisdom of hindsight and a well-stocked toolbox of negotiation skills under my belt now, I can clearly see the costly mistakes I made – small missteps that snowballed into deteriorating relations and misfired accusations.

Before I write anything else, I want to apologize to you for these mistakes. However unintentional, they nonetheless led to poor miscommunication, and I know that cost you. For that, I am truly sorry.

To me, it was always a negotiation. We both brought underlying interests to the table– you wanted my apartment, I wanted to sublet it out for the best price I could get.

Here’s where my first mistake happened. I should have been more transparent about my underlying interests. Had I done so, our negotiation might have had the chance to become more value-driven; if we both specifically knew what each other wanted most, we could have mutually worked to maximize the payoffs in such a way that creatively addressed those desires.

In my negotiations class, we refer to this as “growing the pie”. I could’ve charged a lower rent in exchange for you paying utilities in full. You could’ve paid higher rent in exchange for more flexible move-in/move-out dates. If we only knew what the other wanted most, we could have increased the overall shared pie, so that we each might have left full and satisfied with our own large slice. Instead, we left with no deal, our stomachs empty from the nonexistent pie to be shared and the ghost of a slice to be claimed.

Throughout the negotiation, I kept my underlying priorities hidden, never telling you that price was the driving factor of my decisions. I did so because I thought that by revealing my aspiration price of full rent, you would lose interest and we’d have no deal. I also didn’t tell you that I was simultaneously negotiating with several other groups on their offers, again afraid that I’d lose our deal.

What’s clear to me now is how timidly I approached my negotiation– my second costly mistake. There were clear objectives I had in mind, but I was hesitant to claim them for myself, afraid that by doing so our deal would fall through.

I let you set the price levels and establish the terms of the agreement, opting for passivity instead of active value-claiming because I knew the latter would inevitably lead to more grueling, nitty-gritty negotiating. I favored easy complacency instead of hard-won advocacy at the cost of my own interests.

Four months later, and I now know to enter negotiations with a strong sense of what I want. Unlike before, I have the aptitude to advance my own interests. I know to start off high and anchor hard, to always go in expecting more out of a negotiation, and to never settle for less.

It’s been a practice of quiet confidence these four months, especially for someone who tends to placate situations by sacrificing her own interests and ambitions. I’ve grown to artfully advocate for myself.

Because I didn’t tell you that I was fielding other interested groups, you thought I was set on the deal we had. When I texted to tell you we just gave our apartment to someone else, you called. Writing this now, at least on my end, it’s obvious how my errors catapulted us into this explosive argument.

You told me I was “morally wrong” for having backed out of our agreement. You criticized and judged my actions, repeatedly and forcefully telling me that “I couldn’t do that”. You even threatened me with legal action, telling me your husband was a lawyer who would “figure it all out,” supposedly in your favor.

We learned in class how to deescalate emotionally-charged negotiations like the one we were having. I even mock negotiated in a case that was written deliberately to fan angry emotions and expedite hostile accusations. In the safety of the classroom, I learned how to actively empathize with my accusor without giving ground on my own account and agenda. I practiced handling angry rhetoric being spat my way and massaging it into words of reason and level-headedness. I steered away from a deficit mindset and looked to the solutions instead.

It was hard trying to create shared value under a heavy blanket of hostility. But in the process, I also discovered the beauty of reciprocated trust that blooms when both parties recommit themselves to finding an agreeable solution – the progress that comes when we decide to step away from angers’ control.

In the fictional world of these mock negotiations, it is so much easier to remain cool and collected because our personal identities aren’t being targeted. The stakes are low.

I can’t say the same about ours. As your accusations rolled in, my responses bit back. Rather than empathize with your frustrations, I claimed you simply couldn’t understand the inevitable chaos from managing dozens of incoming housing requests. I shifted blame onto the system, knowing full well that my lack of transparency was partly responsible for our misunderstanding.

The impetus of a poor negotiation is never unilateral though. I firmly believe we both are at fault for contributing to the explosive argument that happened. Likability is key to persuasion and reciprocity of trust paves the way for shared value-claiming. Looking back, we never once appealed to likeability and trust when things turned south. Neither of us was interested in preserving future relations, and that’s something I regret perhaps the most from that day. After all, as we learned in class, negotiations always boil down to relationships, relationships, relationships.

It’s been roughly four months since. In the end, you didn’t take legal action. In the end, I still sublet to a different group. We never did quite reach a restoration of relations, though I suppose if we had, I wouldn’t be writing this open letter to you.

Time moved on and with it our lives. It seems like a small blip in my life now, an encounter I hope to not relive. As the days keep marching forward, I’m sure we’ll both forget much of what happened that day. Even now, my memory starts to fade on the specific details. So, I write this letter to you now admittedly out of partial selfishness; I want to preserve a few of the lessons I’ve learned from that negotiation in this letter to you.

You inadvertently taught me that my words carry weight and that I need to take ownership of and responsibility for my words. You viscerally showed me how hard real-life negotiations are and how valuable it is to be an adept negotiator.

I’ve experienced how data crunching isn’t always the most valuable skill to have despite our rapidly digitizing world. At the end of the day, it’s still the soft skills– the likeability, the persuasion, the trust, the empathy– that makes or breaks a deal.

Ever since that brief intersection of our lives, I can confidently say that I’ve become better. A better negotiator, a better value-creator, a better empathizer, a better person. I’m becoming more confident in advocating for myself. I’m reaching for my aspirations and beyond. This time, I’m sticking by them.

Our lives will probably never cross again. I may never even connect a face to the voice that catapulted me into this messiness of real-world negotiations. But I’ve learned a lot these past months, and my negotiation with you had a good portion to do with it. You unknowingly launched me into my journey of becoming, and for that, I owe you one.

Sincerely,

Lark Yan