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48 FEDA News & Views should start to ring and lights should start to fl ash. Do not allow people to do that to you. Understand also that the longer you can keep the other side involved in the negotiation the more likely the other side is going to move around to your point of view. The Power of Patience The next time you're in a situation in which you're starting to think that you'll never budge the other side, think of the tugboats in the Hudson River off Manhattan. A tiny tugboat can move that large ocean liner around if it does it a little bit at a time. However, if the tugboat captain were to back off, rev up its engines, and try to force the ocean liner around, it wouldn't do any good. Some people negotiate like that. They reach an impasse in the negotiations that frustrates them, so they get impatient and try to pressure the other side to change their mind. Think of that tugboat instead. A little bit at a time, it can move the liner around. If you have enough patience, you can change anybody's mind a little bit at a time. The Other Side of the Coin Unfortunately, this works both ways. The longer you take in a negotiation the more likely you are to make concessions. You may have fl own to San Francisco to negotiate a large busi- ness deal. At 8 o'clock the next morning, you're in their offi ce feeling bright, fresh, and determined to hang in and achieve all of your goals. Unfortunately, it doesn't go as well as you hoped. The morn- ing lingers on without any progress, so you break for lunch. Then the afternoon passes, and you've reached an agreement on only a few minor points. You call the airline and reschedule for the midnight fl ight. You break for supper and return deter- mined to get something done. Look out. Unless you're very careful, by 10 o'clock you'll start making concessions that you never intended to make when you started that morning. Why does it happen that way? Because your subconscious mind is now screaming at you, "You can't walk away from this empty-handed after all the time and effort you've spent on it. You need to be able to put something together." Any time you pass the point where you're prepared to walk away, you have set yourself up to lose in the negotiations. Time is comparable to money. They are invested, spent, saved, and wasted. Do invest the time to go through every step of the negotiation; do use time pressure to gain the advantage, and don't surrender to the temptation to hurry a conclusion. Power negotiators know that time is money. About the Author Roger Dawson is a negotiation consultant and a sales and management speaker. He is the author of "Secrets of Power Negotiating". For more great negotiating tips, visit negotia- tions.com/training/ How Time Affects continued How Time Affects continued