In New York, people speak fast. In the American South, they speak slowly. Both of them are a form of politeness, understood in a different way. In New York, you speak quickly because you respect the value of the other person’s time and you don’t want to take up too much of it. In the South, you speak slowly because you want to respect the person by showing how much of your own time you are prepared to give to them.
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They’ve learned that paying attention to someone’s body, alongside their voice, helps us hear them better. They have determined that how we ask a question sometimes matters more than what we ask. We’re better off, it seems, acknowledging social differences, rather than pretending they don’t exist. Every discussion is influenced by emotions,
Keeping this field in sight is all the more important amid exhortations to “slow down” for which one person’s slowing down requires someone else to speed up.
Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard and we risk undermining the rapport and trust we’ve built. There’s plenty of research that now validates the passage of time as one of the most important tools for a negotiator. When you slow the pro
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