Curiosity and imagination weave tightly together to create the insight needed to deliver future answers. Negotiation relies on other people, requiring us to imagine others intending to do their part. People imagine especially about what other people might do.
When Danger Approaches
Our family's church outside Philadelphia sponsored annual trips to rural villages in the mountains around Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The visits' focus was to build relationships and help on local projects such as digging wells or building houses. Our trips included men and women, adults, and teenagers. The parents of those teenagers duly impressed on us adults the responsibility for taking care of their kids.
Trips included church services, workshops to build cultural bridges, and spending a night or two with the farmers and their families. Simple group walks along country roads offered opportunities to chat and practice Spanish. Winding, turning, rising, and falling; the roads could have been templates for roller coasters. Little adventures, there were no maps. Invincible and carefree teens explored under the watchful eyes of adults.
One pleasant afternoon, I found myself at the front of one such strolling group. As we meandered along the road, an old man appeared from around a corner and began walking straight toward us. While he was still distant, too far away to see much detail, one thing stood out: the three-foot machete swinging in his hand.
Curiosity of a Higher Order
Animals act with purpose. Beyond the why of simple cause and effect, some reasoned determination drives them; there is an objective for their behavior. Animals developed a basic sense of another animal’s purpose as well.
However, Homo sapiens is the only animal that shows a unique capability for utilizing a range of behavioral forecasts. We attuned ourselves to the potential actions of others, in imagined futures. We expanded curiosity beyond the ‘why’ and how to include the ‘who’ and ‘when.’
Sharing Visions of the Future
When we turned our curiosity toward each other, we imagined future behaviors and the intentions behind them. Principal among these imaginations was that others could behave with at least as much intention as we did ourselves.
When we expect that others also act with purpose, this is called shared intentionality. A mutual solution to a problem cannot be envisioned without the expectation of a shared reason. Negotiation requires understanding intentionality.
Trusting in Reasoned Action
Our ability to solve problems took a dramatic step forward when we expanded our simple reasoning of immediate cause and effect to include each other.
To resolve a common problem, people expect others to act in the future toward a goal mutually understood beforehand. Negotiations aspire by creating common predictions in a mutual context.
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As the man came closer, I noticed the dirt and mud covering him, head to toe. He walked unsteadily but deliberately toward us. A bit closer, and I observed a crooked grin, displaying only a couple of teeth. Before our final rendezvous, I further gleaned that each eye pointed in a different direction.
He began speaking before reaching us. Whether due to my low fluency in Spanish, his thick accent, or lack of teeth, I understood not a single word he said. I glanced behind me at our most fluent Spanish speaker; her eyes focused intently on the approaching vision. The old man’s voice was energetic and expressive, yet friendly in tone and relaxed in body.
After he chatted for a few minutes with those having better Spanish than I, the rendezvous concluded, and we separated. The farmer had walked toward us with purpose, and we used insight to infer his intentions.
Negotiators Seek Out the Intentions of Others
While we are curious about cause and effect, another acting with purpose compels our immediate insight. Belief in shared intentionality generates ideas about what we could accomplish with others in the future. Negotiation relies on insight into whether and how to trust others to fulfill their commitments.
We aren’t born with it but it comes pretty quickly! https://youtu.be/eyKhzuI8q3E