dyslexiaA November 2025 study followed 400 UK employees in full- and part-time roles. Dyslexia traits predicted a real rise in workplace execution errors. That's the moment you act on information, not just remember or notice it (Smith-Spark & Huang, Behavioral Sciences, published 18 November 2025).
That extra risk held up after the researchers controlled for ADHD symptoms, personality, workload, and mental wellbeing. Dyslexia traits alone explained a further 2.3% of the gap in execution errors, on top of everything else measured.
Live negotiation runs entirely on that function. Someone states a number or a term. You're expected to act on it immediately, out loud, with no time to reread anything.
Why the table is harder than your inbox
Email gives you time. You can reread a figure, check a clause twice, and draft a reply before sending it. A live negotiation removes every one of those safety nets at once.
You're expected to listen, calculate, and respond within a few seconds, in front of the person you're trying to persuade. There's no undo button on a spoken "yes."
A UK tribunal has already ruled on this exact kind of high-stakes verbal slip. Employer liability doesn't depend on intent. Our coverage of the Lloyds Banking Group case has the full story.
If a negotiation has ever left you agreeing to something you regretted an hour later, that's not carelessness. It's the exact failure point the 2025 study measured.
The higher you sit, the higher the visible cost of a slip
A junior team member who hesitates over a number gets a second chance. A director who hesitates in a board negotiation is read as unprepared, even when the hesitation is protecting the outcome.
That perception gap is exactly why the tactics below matter more at senior level, not less. Confirming a figure out loud looks like rigor when a director does it. From someone junior, it can read as nerves.
This matters most the first time: a first board negotiation, or a first client deal at senior level. Nobody there has calibrated what "normal" looks like for you yet, so the pattern you set now tends to stick.
The senior version of these tactics isn't hiding the pause. It's making the pause look deliberate.
Tactic 1: get the agenda and numbers in writing first
Ask whoever called the meeting to send the numbers in advance: the opening offer, the range, the deadline. Frame it as standard preparation, because it is.
Before a supplier renewal, ask for the current rate, the proposed increase, and the deadline in one email. That's three figures you won't have to catch on the fly.
This works equally well for board negotiations, salary talks, supplier contracts, and client deals. Seeing a figure on the page beforehand means you're not processing it for the first time out loud.
If putting this into words feels awkward, the reasonable adjustments builder turns the problem into a ready-to-send email.
Send that request before your next negotiation is booked, not on the morning of.
Tactic 2: build in one pause before every answer
The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) publishes guidance on learning disabilities that recommends pausing between points. That gives the listener time to process information, rather than answering on the fly (askjan.org).
In a live negotiation, that becomes one sentence: "Let me just check that figure before I respond." It costs five seconds and buys the processing time email already gives everyone else for free.
Rehearse the sentence until it's automatic. People across the table read a confirmed pause as careful preparation.
A five-second pause before you answer isn't a weakness in the room. It's the adjustment that keeps you accurate.
If you freeze mid-sentence, here's the way back in
Everyone freezes sometimes, dyslexic or not. The difference is having a scripted way back in, rather than improvising while everyone watches.
One line covers most situations: "Give me one moment, I want to make sure I've got that figure right." Say it, pause, then answer.
Practice this line before you need it, not during a live deal. By the time it matters, it should feel automatic, not newly invented.
A rehearsed recovery line turns a freeze into a two-second pause nobody remembers by the next agenda item.
Tactic 3: repeat the number back before you agree
Say the figure out loud before you commit to it: "So that's forty thousand over three years, correct?" This does two jobs at once.
It catches transposition, a well-documented dyslexia-linked error where digits swap order under pressure. It also gives you a second pass at the number before you're bound to it.
Nobody in a negotiation questions a party who confirms terms out loud. Experienced negotiators do this by default, dyslexic or not.
In a salary negotiation, that might sound like: "So that's an eight percent increase, backdated to April, correct?" Saying it out loud protects you and signals precision to the other side.
Make repeating the number back a habit in every negotiation, not just the ones that feel high-stakes.
Tactic 4: send a same-day written recap
As soon as the meeting ends, send a short email: what was agreed, the exact figures, and the next step. Ask the other side to confirm or correct it.
For a contract renewal, that email might read: "Confirming today's call: renewal at £42,000 per year, three-year term, review clause at month 18. Let me know if that's not how you understood it."
This protects you if the pressure did cause a slip. A same-day recap, corrected quickly, carries far more weight than a disputed memory of a spoken exchange. The same logic applies to why verbal agreements alone rarely hold up when something is challenged later.
If a figure ever gets disputed, the email you sent that afternoon is your proof of what was actually agreed.
You don't have to name dyslexia to use any of this
None of the four tactics above require disclosing dyslexia to anyone in the room. They read as standard negotiation discipline: preparation, confirmation, and follow-up.
Disclosure is only worth considering if you want these formalised as a standing adjustment, not requested meeting by meeting. In the UK, that means a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010. In the US, it's a reasonable accommodation under the ADA.
Constant, invisible over-preparation to avoid ever needing these tactics has its own cost. The masking cost calculator puts a number on what that unpaid extra work is costing you each year.
If you're already over-rehearsing every negotiation to avoid a live slip, that's the sign. A standing adjustment saves more time than one more night of prep.
The call for anyone negotiating regularly
If negotiation is a recurring part of your role, treat it as a pattern to solve once. Don't manage it meeting by meeting.
In the UK, a workplace needs assessment can build a formal negotiation-prep plan. Access to Work can fund it directly, at no cost to you or your employer. Our Access to Work guide covers how to apply.
In the US, ask HR about ADA accommodation options before your next high-stakes deal, not after.
Start with your next internal negotiation, not the biggest external deal on your calendar. Build confidence in the four tactics before you need them somewhere with real financial weight.
The four tactics above work meeting by meeting. A formal plan works for every meeting after that, so build it once and stop relitigating the problem each time.