Negotiation

Introversion and extraversion as understanding vs. negotiation

Exegesis

From an extraverted perspective, you see everything that someone does as an attempt to negotiate with others.

From an introverted perspective, negotiation has nothing to do with it. What is good is good, and that's why you do it.

So, for example, extraverts (people for whom an extraverted perspective is their "home base") typically interact by putting something on the table for others to react to, whether they like it or not.

Introverts (people for whom an introverted perspective is their "home base") typically interact by first asking permission to enter another person's space. You view each person as trying to understand and practice the good in his own way, and this process is not something to interfere with lightly.

Examples

From an extraverted perspective, one sees truth as a matter of agreement: by the rules of the social game, will people agree that a certain proposition is true? If no one will be convinced of a proposition, why bother saying it?

From an introverted perspective, one sees truth as a relation between your mind and the subject matter. Facts are not open to negotiation. Neither are ethical principles, causal laws, or anything else that the mind judges.

...more examples, anyone?...

A problem with this exegesis

It seems that ENTJs are often solitary, and take great pride in judging true or false, or better or worse, oblivious to other people's opinions. Perhaps this is their introverted side, but this seems part and parcel of their extraverted persona.

Possible explanation: These ENTJs are usually quick to jump to a false conclusion, after which they demand that someone else debate them out of it before they change their mind. However, if someone can "win" in fair debate against their proposition, they will immediately concede and change sides. Note that "fair" debate is an entirely social distinction, having nothing to do with the subject matter, though it might not seem this way to the participants.

Negotiation Basics

If Extraverted attitudes show you the world primarily as a place to negotiate (as proposed on Negotiation Exegesis and Saints-and-Politicians Exegesis), maybe we could learn something about Lenore's ideas by looking at different ways to negotiate.

Know your alternatives

The basic principle of negotiation is to know your alternatives. If you know of another offer, you know for sure when to leave the negotiation table: if the other person refuses to give you at least that much.

It follows, then, that to negotiate, you need to know what else is available for you in the world right now. You also need to know how you rank those options.

Negotiation is empirical discovery

A deep principle of negotiation is that it's a process of discovery, not simply a process of getting your way. You can find out how much someone is willing to bend only by pushing them that far. You take what's takeable, not what you've decided is proper by some kind of a priori criteria.

Force a choice

Negotiation is forcing a choice. You take a position; the other party must accept, refuse, or counteroffer. You could take other positions, of course. But you don't. You take a position that favors your self-interest as far as you think you can push it while still offering the best alternative for the other party.

Different interests

Your interests and those of the other party are not the same. There is some commonality, which you exploit to make a deal, but each of you has different options available to you and different ways of ranking them. In contrast to an Introverted approach, the object of negotiation is not to find a right way of valuing things, which everyone should see and conform to, it's to exploit the existing differences and commonalities between the way you and the other party really value things.

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See also the Negotiating Pattern Language, a set of wiki pages mostly written by an ENTP (Peter Merel, a friend of Ben Kovitz; the type guess is just my call).