Negotiating for a Win-Win: A Conversation with Joe Murphy

CommLab Podcast with Joe Murphy - Meeting Recording

Welcome to the e-learning champion pod. I'm Shalini, your host for today, and I'm thrilled to have with us Joe Murphy, who is a leadership consultant, author, speaker, and coach dedicated to helping both individuals and organizations achieve excellence. Joe is the founder of The Leadership Academy, and he has delivered over 400 sessions impacting more than 45,000 leaders worldwide, which is a fantastic record. A former senior executive in Fortune 50 and Fortune 1000 companies, Joe has successfully led business turnarounds, built high performing sales teams and fostered client-centric cultures. Joe is the author of four influential books on leadership, growth mindset, and success. And he shares his practical strategies for professional and personal development. Through his company Across X Current, he provides workshops, coaching and keynote presentations, helping our organizations align their leadership development with strategic business goals. Joe is extremely results-driven and that makes him a very trusted advisor to companies looking to build strong, effective leaders at all levels. So with that, a very warm welcome to you, Joe. We are thrilled to have you with us.

3:56
Oh, thank you. I'm excited about the opportunity to talk to you and your audience and hopefully bring some information that's educational that they'll be able to use, that's practical.

4:10
Well, today's spotlight is negotiations, a core skill that every professional needs to thrive. But I'm going to frame this conversation in the context of L&D and in this age of AI I think that is one skill that is irreplaceable. So I'd like to hear your thoughts, Joe, on why this is such a critical skill for L&D professionals.

4:39
Well, thank you for that question. That's actually a great question. Let me explain that. We all negotiate. We negotiate our way through traffic every day to get to the office. We negotiate in the grocery store when we get in line. We negotiate with our spouses and loved ones. And especially, we've got to remember who the best negotiators are. Do you know who the best negotiators are?

Children?

5:05
Children, yes.

5:06
Do you know why they're the best negotiators?

They don't take no for an answer.

5:14
That's exactly right.

5:15
Children are the best negotiators. Think about your children at home or if you don't have children, maybe your brother's or your sister's children or how relentless they are. They don't take no for an answer. They don't worry about their ego. They don't. And they keep on going and they ask what they want very clearly. They'll even bribe you. I'll be good. I'll be home. I'll study if I can get this.

5:45
And if you give them the no, they'll go around you to another decision maker, to the other spouse or to the other parent, to the father.

5:57
And the father's smart enough now. What did mom say?

6:00
Yeah.

6:01
So we're all negotiating. Even the father goes, What did mom say? I want to make sure what mom said. And I'm in alignment with her.

6:10
So children are the best negotiators. A lot to learn from children.

6:16
The idea of negotiating though, I want to make sure everybody hears this, because when we think of negotiating, we think of tough people in an office who might be in a suit and tie and they're pounding the desk. They look very demanding. But the best negotiators are not that way.

6:35
The best negotiators. I was asked this question a while back. Do I want to negotiate with somebody who's very skilled or somebody not skilled? And my answer was very fast. I always want to go with a skilled negotiator. And why is that?

6:52
Yes, because they're not emotional. They're detached. And the best negotiators who are skilled seek win-win opportunities. In other words, they want to know what you need, but they want to get their needs met. And you think about that.

7:08
They're trying to get what you want done without sacrificing what they need done and bring it together in what we call a compromise. If you think about the simplest all transactions, it might be buying a car, even though it's a very steep price. We go in there or we go in there wanting a certain style, a certain price. We want to make sure it's delivered, it’s available and the person has the car or tries to find that matching car that you want. And so they people come together to compromise.

7:46
Now, what a lot of people don't do is understand that negotiating is a game. It's fun. It's not life and death.

7:57
And I'm going to get into that later, but we all negotiate. Negotiations are not something to frown upon. It's not something to think that you can't learn and it's not something to look at as a win-lose proposition because when we look at a win-lose proposition, we're starting in a defensive posture.

8:21
And I'll give you some techniques and some skills throughout this that'll help you prepare for whatever you're negotiating for, whether it's negotiating to get into the bathroom or it's negotiating to get into the boardroom.

8:36
Wow. That's so neatly put, Joe, I think L&D professionals have their fair share of negotiations to deal with, whether gaining stakeholder buy in or whether you're budgeting a training initiative. I think this is a skill that's needed at every stage, right? Yes, from your performance consulting to the very end to, the post implementation and roll out. So, I think that's really key what you shared about, if we approach it as something that actually helps both the parties, then that's the right mindset to enter into a negotiation. Because I think most of us, when we hear the word negotiation, we tend to think that it's somebody's going to win at expense of somebody else.

9:30
Yes.

9:31
So I think it's very important. The way you framed it, you know that the outcome is a win, win. And that is key. When we go in with that kind of a mindset, I think that changes the entire game.

9:44
I think what you said is a key, the word mindset. If we come in with the right mindset, people can sense our willingness to help the other person. And that's a key component of that mindset of win, win. And it's not win-lose because one of the key aspects of defining a negotiation from my perspective is to make sure the transaction occurs. But you want to build a long-term relationship.

10:14
So in a negotiation, you have 3 components, the beginning, the middle and the end.

10:22
But in this case, in negotiating, ending never ends. Because that relationship, once it's formed and that trust is developed, you have created a relationship where the person is willing and wanting to come back to negotiate with you again for other things. So they trust you and they come back and you're creating this opportunity for conversation and discussion, which is a negotiation.

10:52
And I'll get into that also from an L&D perspective, several different aspects. But one is also negotiating with your manager and understanding what he or she wants in terms of your performance as an employee and also as a manager, what you need from your people and what your people need from you. Does that make sense?

11:17
Yes, of course, of course.

11:20
Yeah, it's coming from an understanding of I, I need something to get done. I need to also help you accomplish what you need. And so from a manager perspective, and this is a conversation I had yesterday with somebody, they said, well, don't you think you should be here as a manager to tell your people what to do? Well, that's a 1970s, nineteen 80s type of mentality.

11:43
What I try to do when I try to teach in my leadership development classes, my Leadership Academy is, find out what the other person needs and wants from you in terms of growth and skills.

11:57
And sell them on the concept that there's an opportunity for you to grow, but I need for you to complete this by this certain date. Can you do that? And so that becomes the terms of the negotiation. If you're too busy, let me look what's on your plate or on your To Do List, and I'll help you rearrange these things to help me get this done. That's a negotiation.

12:23
We don't think of that as a negotiation. We think of that as a discussion. But even that, as simple as it sounds, is negotiating.

12:30
That could help, I think frame, frame things for your people, right?

12:36
Wow, that's a completely new angle to looking at negotiations. It's more of an enabling process from what we just shared.

12:48
I love that word enabling. It allows people to develop and enables people to see that opportunity, that I can help my manager, and the manager, I can help my staff. And that's the critical aspect to it.

13:04
I really like what you shared, Joe, about, you know, the end of the negotiation should be a continuation of your relationship because I think if you won a negotiation but lost a real relationship, that's not really winning at the negotiation.

13:21
That's right. And that thing I said earlier, trust is that foundation, that framework that when you're putting things together to build that house or whatever you're trying to build, working from a foundation of trust and once you've created that negotiation, and you both are happy, that foundation of trust is carried forward. It's why I used to be in the consulting business, and I used to do IT consulting.

13:54
And one of the things that I would do is I'd find out what the stakeholders needed in terms of business results and then I would translate that IT, that technology to get them what they needed.

14:08
But once we started getting them what they needed in terms of business results and I called it measurable business results.

14:15
And that's another story about Gartner. They took our term measurable business results years ago.

14:23
What happens is because you are able to deliver, they'll come back to you for repeat business and you create that solid foundation of recurring revenue that every company needs, whether you're an IT services firm, consulting firm, or even a laundry doing people's laundry.

14:45
Once you've built that, established that trust, people will come back to you over and over again because you, maybe haven't negotiated so much in terms of the laundry, but you have because you folded it the way they wanted to. You press the shirts the way they wanted to. You took the time to understand their wins or their needs, and you delivered it. And then you can choose your price point because it's too hard for somebody to go negotiate with somebody else again.

15:20
Because they're already invested so much in the process of the negotiation and they can see it's heading towards win win, I suppose.

15:31
And Shalini, one of the critical things you just said, and this is so important, when people invest time with you, that's part of that negotiation effort that people don't want to walk away from.

15:45
Now if they didn't invest any time with you, they'll see you as well, I'm just going to go with cheapest price or who can deliver the most for this price. And if they haven't invested that time to find out what you're trying to achieve and they can walk away as there's no reason to stay.

16:04
But if you've invested in an hour or two or three hours negotiating with somebody, they don't want to go through the haggling or the negotiating with somebody else because you've established that relationship or understanding. And that's a key component that people don't consider the time invested.

16:30
So Joe, I'd like to actually continue this thought further.

16:36
What kind of preparation is essential and why is it critical if you can shed some light on that?

16:45
Absolutely.

16:46
And, and this is probably the most important aspect of negotiating, thinking things through.

16:55
I taught a class to PMI, you're familiar with PMI Project Management Institute, and I did this worldwide event, and we did it on body language. And I've read several books from an FBI negotiator and, and it was really big on body language.

17:17
But what he really went into at one point in the books and his videos, his videos are online.

17:24
He said what people don't do is prepare beforehand. This preparation is critical. And I want you to think about this, this is to your audience.

17:38
I want you to think about when you go into a negotiation, what do you want? What is it? What is it exactly you want? And that's number one and you have to be clear about it.

17:51
And I recommend, and I've got notebooks. You have to write it down.

17:55
If you're going in to buy a washer or dryer or car and you have a spouse, you both have might have two different things and that's the worst thing. Two different ideas of what you want and that's the worst thing to go into a negotiation, to buy something, especially a house or a home or apartment.

18:15
So number one is, know what you want, be clear about it. And you must write it down because you really don't know what you want till you write things down.

18:24
I think the second thing to identify is what is it that you're willing to concede. In other words, do you have something that they want and write those things down. What is it they want? So you need to think through the perspective of the other person.

18:41
They might be trying to sell you something, they may need something from you, but what is it you're willing to concede?

18:48
Now when I negotiate, I don't just look at price. I look at options, I look at availability. When is something going to be in the terms of the contract or the terms? If it's a services contract, the people that are going to be staffing it, what are their skill sets? Are they going to be 100% on the project?

19:12
All these little things that we don't consider as negotiating items, but are important to the deal or to the end result because the end result, what you want in terms of something is a business result in business.

19:30
Or if you're doing a transaction because you want to buy a car, you want a car.

19:35
The second thing or third thing is to remember when you go in to have options. If you don't have options, in other words, another place to get it from, you're going to be stuck. In other words, you're going to have this idea, this fear that if I don't get this, then I've lost. And the other person can sense this fear or this need. And this is called desire. And it becomes this emotional aspect that if I don't get it, it can be traced to this feeling of I may die.

20:16
If I don't get it, everything's lost. This is something you don't want to be thinking about, so you need to have options.

20:23
So what I tell in my leadership classes, and I go through an entire 90 minutes, and these leadership classes are what I call 90 minutes sprints because I find the people's attention after 90 minutes is gone.

20:38
And when I show clips of videos of leaders in action, different perspectives, and one leader was talking about this idea of going into a car dealership.

20:51
Now, if you've done your research on the Internet today, which wasn't available 20 years ago, you know what the price is, the warranty, you know all these things coming in that the other side knows you know, that you've done the research. But what they don't know is if you don't have another car dealer that's willing to sell you that car at that price that you want, because everything else is I want these options. I want these things, and you get all those things out of the way.

21:25
If you don't have a backup option, you're going to feel compelled to go with this dealer. I took my daughter who was in a car accident. She totaled the car. She wanted to get a used BMW X3. She wanted it white, she wanted the interior upholstery black. She wanted the car to be a 2003 and she wanted all these things now. So we did our research, we went to a car dealership, and we walked in. We drove the car. She got so excited, and I said do not get too excited. We need options. Well, we walked away. We didn't buy the car, but she called me at 7:00 that night. She said, Daddy, I want to buy that car. I said just wait till the next morning. The salesperson is going to call us.

22:17
Well, I called the salesperson, it's 8:15. He didn't call me. He said, oh, your daughter just called me. So my daughter broke the rule, and she said, I want to buy that car. I want to make sure it doesn't get sold.

22:31
So we lost all our negotiating power on the price. And I laughed and told the salesperson this. And he laughed. And he said, yeah, you sure did. I said, well, let me ask you a question. You can you at least throw in some floor mats for free? And he said, yes. So one of the things is you need options. We didn't have any options. My daughter felt pressured. She loved the car and her emotions got in the way.

22:57
So make sure you check your emotions, have options, and don't feel like this is the last best deal. Sometimes this deal is just the beginning of another deal and a better deal that might be in the future.

23:16
I was just thinking, trying to mentally, I was applying all of this in the context of negotiating for a training budget, you know, and I was wondering how, how would you approach a conversation like that? Because the business clearly needs what you're offering. At the same time, they may not have a budget to accommodate what you feel you need to do to create measurable impact and long-lasting results. So I was trying to see that in the in that context.

23:45
Do you have any tips for L&D professionals who need to gain this stakeholder buy in? who may not have too many options? They're not options, but maybe the one that they have in mind is the most impactful, but they need to really negotiate with the stakeholders to get their buy in.

24:08
Yes, yes. this is a question that comes up all the time because I provide L&D type services, either through L&D or through the CHRO, or even the CEO who sees me maybe speaking in a different event.

24:22
But you have to put yourself in the mind of the buyer. And let me step back first.

24:28
If the mind of the buyer doesn't see the value in the training budget or trainers because they don't get results from the training. They're going to look at you as a commodity. And when you become a commodity, they're going to look at you as price, they're going to weigh that against taking people out of the business to a training event. So you've got several different things going on there.

24:57
Number one, what is your value proposition? Or better yet, let's come back to a term that I that we coined years ago, measurable business results. What results are you bringing to the business? Now when we think about business results, we have to stand in the shoes of the business unit leader. What does he or she need?

25:18
Number one, they need less conflict between employees. That is a huge thing that always takes people off center, but they don't recognize that's an important aspect.

25:31
The second thing is how do I develop more customers? How do I develop more revenue, which is really how do I develop more profit.

25:40
So when you start taking your training through those aspects, how do I take those things so that I can drive more revenue, to drive more profit, to get more business results?

25:54
It's not so simple, but it's as simple as this. As showing how those things connect.

26:01
If I can do leadership training and I have this thing, it's called leaders at all levels, creating leaders at all levels. People take ownership for the results. People know what needs to be done. They don't need hand holding as much. They feel empowered.

26:23
HR now, instead of becoming human resources, instead of becoming the police to try to figure out why two people are arguing or what the problem is or why there's a person who's not performing, people start performing and now HR shifts into a coaching role and they start teaching and showing people how to get into high performance and take control over their careers and grow. We talked about this in in another class yesterday, on having a growth mindset where you start to see the opportunities at work and, this is for your employees, using work as a vehicle to develop yourself while you're getting paid.

27:11
It's like getting an MBA or a PhD, but the organization's paying you to develop your skills and talents to such a fine point that you're actually delivering more results. They're going to wind up paying you more, not immediately, but in the long run. And then people start getting excited.

27:29
And then L&D takes this role from being just a trainer to now become a facilitator. Because I think trainers get stuck, they look at the material, but they don't look at the results that the material's supposed to deliver.

27:47
And if they take that perspective of, I just want to get the material done in the training class over, what can I do so that these people take tangible things back to their office that they can implement immediately?

28:04
In fact, Joe, I recall a line on your profile which says you don't train, you develop leaders. I thought that was the whole crux of leadership development. You're not training people, you're developing them, their leadership potential and helping them realize it, actualize it. Thank you so much for sharing this.

28:25
So, Joe, I was just thinking back to the example you shared about when you lose your negotiation power and the other party can read you very well and they know when you feel pressurized, when you feel you don't have any other option. And that gives them the ace.

28:45
So nonverbal communication, I think is very key because it speaks louder than anything you can say. So can you share some of your best practices on how do you read body language better?

29:05
Well, you don't want to be read all the while, you also want to read the other person equally.

29:10
Well, there's several things. I talked to you about this FBI negotiator and taught this class. We went through all the things that people do when they're being interviewed by the FBI. And the body language is the same for an FBI negotiator as it is for us as people when we're talking to others.

29:34
Now, we've all been taught that this is defensive. And I had a friend of mine years ago, she said, I think that's not defensive. I think the person's just holding themselves. And I looked at her and I said, wow, that's a different perspective.

29:52
Now, fast forward 10 years later, the FBI agent said this is a soothing type thing. It's not defensive. It's not meant to block people out. It's just soothing, it's holding yourself. And I said, oh, wow, she was right.

30:08
Now, the other thing that people tend to think is when I cover my mouth

You're lying or you have something to hide.

30:17
Yeah, I've got something to hide. Now that's not necessarily having something to hide either. It could be I'm just thinking, pondering something.

30:32
Sometimes people will scratch their chin, they're thinking. He said, the critical things are the eyes, watching the eyes and where they go. Now if the person is going up and to the right, she's pulling out information from the past and she's thinking.

30:52
So we have to be careful about certain body language and how we have been taught to believe that certain things that we do have these specific meanings and they don't.

31:06
One of the things that you do want to go in with, and this is something where you have control, is look for where people are sitting.

31:16
When I'm negotiating, I don't sit across the desk from someone else. I try to sit on the same side.

31:26
One of the things I was negotiating at the time, a $90,000 contract, with the head of the agency in IT, who's government agency.

31:37
He had chairs in front of his desk, but he also had a couple chairs over to the side of his desk. Instead of sitting across from him, I sat on the chairs on the side, which was sort of odd.

31:53
I said, do you mind if I sit here? There are some papers on the chair.

31:58
He said, well, let me move them for you. He already committed to move them for me. So now he's invested in the relationship, as small as that was.

32:08
Now, I didn't try to get him to move those. I was trying to get closer so I wasn't opposing him. Because when you think about somebody sitting across from you, they're opposing you. Now, for especially husbands and wives, when you have an argument, you don't want to sit across the table from each other. You want to get on the same side. And there's a reason for that because you're going to start mirroring the person either accidentally or on purpose. Now, you don't want to mirror somebody and make it manipulative.

32:42
What you're trying to do, and I tell people this in my classes, when you start to mirror somebody, you're doing it to lubricate the wheels of communication. You're getting in sync with somebody.

32:55
Back to the agency director, I started mirroring him. I didn't do it purposely. I was mirroring him because I really liked him. We connected because we started laughing. Laughter is perhaps the best connection between two people. And when you make that connection, you don't have to tell a joke, but you laugh, make a little bit of a joke to yourself. And I said something to this effect.

33:22
I said, OK, so you’re going to be the tough negotiator where you try to get me down to the lowest price possible, where I can barely deliver what you want me to deliver. And he said, no, I don't want you to get that far down. And I said, good, because I don't want to get that far down.

33:37
He started laughing. I started laughing and it broke the ice because I became a human being right there. And he became a human being, and I started mirroring him and I didn't know I was doing it.

33:50
He said, Joe, are you mirroring me?

So he was a skilled body language.

He was very smart. I said, Oh my gosh, am I doing that? Because his arm went up, and my arm went up. I didn't even notice.

34:03
And his arm went like this, and he started doing this and then I went like this, and I didn't even know I was doing it.

34:11
And I was like, oh, wow, I looked back. I said I think I am, and I didn't mean to, but I know what you're saying. And we both laughed again.

34:19
Within half an hour, I had negotiated a $90,000 contract. He got exactly what he wanted. We didn't have to lower our price. What happened was he became a good friend of mine, and he's in fact gone up and has run for office. That was over 15 years ago, but we've maintained that relationship. We delivered results for him, and I even sat down with him after we were delivering the results because it was a consulting contract where we looked at some things.

34:52
I told him. I said, look, here's how you're going to present this to your management because you don't want to be blamed for this, because this is not your fault.

35:01
He said I've got to go deliver it. So I had developed such a relationship, a trusted advisor relationship with him. And he wound up purchasing more contracts with us because I cared about his well-being. I truly cared about him as a human being, but I cared about him professionally as well.

35:25
Is that helpful for you? Is negotiating so different now than what you think it was?

35:32
Definitely, definitely. And there's a very fine line. I mean, it's all about perceptions. In your case, this person mentioned to you that you were mirroring him. He was outspoken enough to say that, but if the trust element was missing, he would definitely think you were being manipulative.

35:57
Yeah.

35:58
So I guess it's all to do with what kind of trust you inspire in the person. And how comfortable is the equation that you set before you?

36:11
That's a that's a great point. And the only way you're going to be comfortable, and this is to everyone.
You've got to know your business. You've truly got to know that you're here to help that person get what they want and that your chief job is to protect that person, especially for me as a consultant, from doing anything that would damage themselves personally or their organization.

36:39
And when you have that kind of mission in mind or that sense of purpose, you project a different aura. People feel it. They know that you're a good human being. Trust is hard to establish, but you're trying.

You're conveying to that person because they can sense it and you do deliberate actions toward that. And sometimes it doesn't always work. Sometimes, it's not always conveyed because the person may have been burned before but always go in with that end in mind. I'm here to make sure that person gets what they want. I get what I want. We create a win-win negotiation but establish that long-term relationship where I'm getting that person in the business what they want, but also at the same time, protecting that individual.

37:38
Right, which is integrated to the win-win that you mentioned as being the only, you know, the outcome you're yes sliding for. Thank you, Joe. That's a lot of food for thought.

37:51
And incidentally, you've overturned my pet theories on reading body language on their head. Because I really did think when people sat like this, they were being defensive or they were just not trusting you or whatever any of those reasons that you've shared.

38:12
I think the other thing is to remember Shalini, just to remember this. Everybody's carrying a heavy load, and they may not be thinking about what you're talking to them about. So when you're starting a meeting, and we all have done this before, one person's coming into a meeting from another meeting, and it takes a minute or two for them to unwind that previous meeting and for you to unwind that previous meeting. And get all those thoughts out of your head. So sometimes, what's going on in their head has nothing to do with you. And their body language. I'll tell you a quick story.

38:55
When I was in India a couple of years ago, everybody doing this. And in the US, that means no negative, OK. And so they may be thinking about their child, what they said to them at breakfast that morning, and that's what they're doing. So understanding what's going on in someone's head, sometimes that's nothing to do with you.

39:17
Years ago, I was in India and had to give a presentation. And I was giving the best speech ever, I was ready and prepared, and I had an audience of about 60-70 people from India in this company.

39:32
And they were doing this. Everybody was doing this. And I started going, OK, they're not getting what I'm saying. So I started really digging deep and really expressing and getting even more proof points into the presentation that I hadn't prepared that I put out there. And they were doing this, and I was going, wow, they do not like my speech at all.

39:59
And I started talking to myself in a negative manner and I said, OK, do I quit? Do I just stop the speech? Because everybody was shaking their head. And now you know what the story is here.

40:15
But for an American, you know, when we were done with the speech, I kept on going because I said, if you started the speech, you got to end it. And I ended it. The person who organized the speech came up from the back of the room. He said that was a great speech. What a great speech, that was great talk. Everybody enjoyed it.

40:34
And I said, I don't think so. He said, why? I said everybody was doing this. He started laughing, you’re from America. He said this means yes.

40:46
For an American, I felt really not the smartest. So just beware of body language. Sometimes this means yes. It has nothing to do with you.

40:56
So, remembering what's in your heart, go from there.

41:02
Thanks, Joe. I think it's really important to keep these cultural nuances in mind when we enter into any kind of a discussion or conversation.

41:13
I was just thinking, you shared a couple of these common perceptions about body language not being necessarily true. You know it and now I also know it, but what if the person across doesn't know it?

41:29
I guess you still have to be a little careful about not showing that kind of body language which is perceived in a certain way by the majority. So, I think that calls for a greater level of let's say self-awareness, reading the room, and so on. That puts the burden a little bit more on you.

41:53
Yes. And I think that you bring up a great point, the idea of being self-aware. We know the emotional intelligence and the four quadrants of emotional intelligence in the last one, which weaves through the bottom 2 quadrants is empathy.

42:06
Empathy plays a big role in negotiating. Understanding the other person and what they're trying to get done, that's part of that understanding of win-win and what they need but also empathizing if they feel like they're over a barrel, that's a euphemistic term that means they have no place else to go.

42:29
Don't turn the screws on them and drive the price up and hold them hostage. Remember the ideal is to create a long-term relationship. I had a client years ago that needed something from me and we were the only provider because they had our framework in place. We were the only provider.

42:50
And we went out to lunch, and he said, all right, now we're going to negotiate. We sat at the table, and he said, I'm going to write down my price. We did sit across from each other, just so everybody knows. He said, I'm going to write down my best price for what you have to offer. And he took his napkin out and he wrote down his best price. He said, now I want you to write down your best price.
And I wrote down my best price. And then we both were sitting there.

43:14
He said, who's going to show their best price first? And he looked at me and said, I'm the customer.
You're going to show me your price. So I showed him my price. I gave him my price that I could live with.

43:25
It was a good price. We were making a profit.

43:29
And he said, oh wow, this is a better price than my price. I said, let me see your price. He said no, I'm not going to show you my price. I said I want your price, give me your price. He said no, this is good. We'll take this as the contract. So building that kind of relationship.

43:46
And remember, I said laughter, having fun, smiling, making that connection, that breaks down that wall, that defensiveness that we think we're going to lose.

44:01
And again, it's a long-term relationship.

44:05
I like what you said. In fact, my one of my questions was going to be around the role of empathy Joe, because you know, when one thinks negotiations, one thinks of hard-nosed, tough as nails people meeting across the table and trying to drive a hard bargain. But when you talked about building trust, wanting the well-being of the other person, wanting a win for them as well, I think you can't do it without empathy. So thank you for mentioning that. You kind of answered my question.

44:38
Good, good.

44:43
Can we talk about power in negotiating?

44:47
Yes, in fact, this is something a lot of people don't think about, right?

44:51
So power in negotiating starts with being prepared. And when you know what that other person wants, that's a key element in power. And if you have expertise in what the person wants, you start giving that person information that they didn't have. And that develops that connection again, back to the connection where you're working together for a win-win, and you establish yourself as an authority.

45:24
Power also is when you're conveying to the person that you have a stake in this, and you can walk away. In other words, power is also being able to walk away from a deal because you've got other options. So options is power.

45:48
And the last part of it is understanding time. We don't look at time as part of negotiating in many cases. Time means I need to get this done by a certain date. You don't know what the other party needs to get it done by, by their management or by the other person, and what they're trying to achieve.

46:06
But understanding what timing is and how much time they need to have that done by, that's a critical aspect to power. And by preparing, you start to understand that you have confidence that you can deliver what the other person wants better than anybody else. And that confidence conveys power. Now it's a dynamic, it's two opposing things. It's not arrogance, it's confidence. You can do it, but you still care for the person. And it's this balancing act that you can do it. I care for you, but at the same time, I can walk away, but we'll still be friends. It's not having an effect on you personally. And that's another form of power, being able to detach your interests and don't see yourself caught up in the emotions of the negotiation. That's a power aspect.

47:11
And I think the last one, we talked about this before, is time in terms of investment. The longer the person has spent with you to try to understand what you need and explain to you their issues and their challenges and what they need, the more time they've invested in that relationship. Just like I told you about the agency head who lifted the paper off the chair so I can sit on the side rather than two chairs in front of them. He invested in the relationship and as minor as that is psychologically, he gave something, he did something for me, which we reciprocate. Naturally, we want to reciprocate back.

47:53
Yeah. That’s a very critical component of this whole negotiation conversation. I like what you shared about power and bringing yourself in that frame of mind where you don't surrender all of it. You know that you can walk away while preserving the relationship. I think that's a very tricky, delicate business and all these insights you shared really do give us a lot of food for thought.

48:31
What happens, Joe, when despite your best intentions, despite you wanting a win-win for both parties, despite reading the person correctly and being transparent to the extent the situation allows, you still fail to strike that deal. Can you salvage the situation in some way?

48:57
Well, if you don't get a win-win, if the person doesn't agree with you, and you know it doesn't work out. The most important thing is don't see this as a reflection on you. We all know this, especially in learning and development. Everything that is not a complete failure, you learn something from the event.

49:25
Now, if that person works in your office, you want to make sure that person walks away as well, not feeling angry or feeling like they lost something. And that's a critical aspect. So both of you couldn't meet in the middle or compromise, but sometimes walking away allows somebody to go, you know what? I think I understand what that person was trying to say. And then you can come back to it.

49:55
You can say, you know what? I was thinking about our conversation. I didn't explain why I couldn't do this. And saying no is not a complete answer in negotiating. Saying no, I can't do this because such and such and such and such will happen allows the other person to get more information to try to figure out how to relieve those other components, go, oh, you can't do that. Well, I can give you those things. Will that turn that into a yes?

50:28
And I've been in those conversations too, where once people understand I can't give that to you because if I do that and I've had these pricing conversations with a CFO. The CFO said I needed to come in at this price. I said, what if I give you this price, then I can't bring in these other people who are experts. He said, oh, well, that's just a minor part of the deal, of the solution. I really don't need that in this particular phase of the contract. I can put that into phase two. I went, oh, OK, so let's remove this. I thought that was a critical aspect of this.

51:06
And then that starts getting that understanding and the more we understand and explain things as to why you can't do something on specific things, people go, oh, I didn't need that. I could do this in phase two or I don't need this at all. Or you know what, maybe we can do this in a different way.

51:26
And I've had that because when you start to create that synergy or that compromise or that trust, people start trying to figure out how to make it work. But if you don't make it work, remember there's always this. A friend of mine once said another bus will come along.

51:44
That's a nice way of looking at it. So, Joe, what if, I've heard of this concept, but I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly, BATNA.

51:55
Yeah, BATNA.

51:57
Which is something to do with presenting some other alternative. So what are your best practices, can you explain this to our listeners?

52:10
Years ago, I was very young years ago. We were all young once, but I was younger. And I had to fly to another part of the country because the project that we had was going sideways. It was not going well. And it was an important contract. It was a state police agency in the United States. And I flew out there with one of my technical engineers. And one of the things that I do Shalini, is I read an hour to two hours every day on leadership management and negotiating and some other topics.

52:46
And I'd read ‘Getting to Yes’ by Harvard Business School. And there's another book, Getting past No.

52:53
And if you're not familiar with ‘Getting past No’, I think it's better than Getting to Yes. Getting Past No is a great book. And I had taken notes. I take notes in notebooks. And then on the plane trip, I was reviewing my notes from the book that I had read two years ago. And I went through the notes, got there, and there was all these police officers around this long table. They had guns on their hips.

And there was another gentleman who was being brought in from the university to be the negotiator.
And I remember going through my notes, BATNA, what is my BATNA? What is my best alternative to a negotiated agreement and what is my walk away? And I can't do anything and what's going to happen after that if I can't get it negotiated?

53:40
Well, I didn't really have a good BATNA because it meant that the client was going to fire us, and we would get a bad reputation. So I was sort of stuck in this position, but I had to find out what they needed because they also had the same problem as I did that I didn't know. They were not letting me know that they couldn't walk away either.

54:04
But we sat around, and we wound up going from, we're going to throw you out, to four hours later saying, all right, we're going to give you a second chance.

54:12
And I said, I brought my best engineer. He's not going to leave until we get it done.

54:18
And we took a break. The man in the suit from the university said, come over here for a minute. He was much older than I was. He said, where'd you learn to negotiate like that? I said, well, the truth is I was reading my notes from this book called Getting Past No. He said, I knew it.

He said, I teach that class in night school to business professionals. And he said you did several things during the negotiations that got everybody back to Yes. And I never saw anything because they were going to throw you out, but they didn't have an alternative. And you wound up creating the synergy and trust and they gave you one last chance. He said that was amazing.

55:06
I took my notebook, notebook out of my briefcase. I said, here's my notes.

55:10
So, this idea of BATNA is really important, that you need to know what is your last thing that doesn't work out, what's going to happen. And sometimes people, if you're negotiating a contract, people might have to go on strike. Knowing what's going to happen doesn't lessen it, but it gives you the knowledge of what will happen, so you can have other steps that you can do behind the scenes.

55:38
Thank you, Joe. It's been a very interesting conversation. A lot of us tend to approach a negotiation as a hostage situation, and thank you for sharing all those insights about truly what it is to arrive at a
win-win, and what's the preparation that you need to do, love what you shared about having your notes ready and going over them. Sometimes we think it's OK to wing it, if the stakes are not too high. But nothing like preparation, because I think that's the only differentiator between you and the other person.

And you brought up your last great point. And this is to up to your audience, to you, to everybody who's watching. Practice negotiating every day. You're negotiating. Look at everything that you're doing, an interaction with your spouse and interaction with your boss as a negotiation.

56:35
It's not negative, It's not win-lose. Negotiation has a bad term associated with it. Try to understand what people want. And if you practice it, you can get what you want because you become more persuasive and you become more willing to be influenced by other people. And consensus building requires negotiation, it's baked into the process. So that's very key.

57:06
So thank you once again, Joe. It's been a very enlightening conversation. I'm sure our listeners have got a lot of insights which they can act on. And I really like this last tip that you shared about practicing negotiation because one tends to think that it's something one is born with. You're either a person cut out for negotiations or you're not. But it's very encouraging to know that this is a skill that can be really built, developed through practice, through application. So thank you for that.

57:39
And yeah, thank you.

57:40
Thank you so much for joining us. And thank you, dear listeners, for tuning in. Do stay tuned in for our future podcasts as well.

57:47
Thank you.