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Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process.
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Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
All right, I have a very special guest today, Kwame Christian.
Welcome to the show.
Lindsey, thanks for having me.
Yeah, yeah, I have been a fan and really, really appreciate the work that you do.
And I've been really anticipating this conversation because you are a pro at difficult conversations.
So why don't you tell me a little bit about what you do and what you've been up to?
Yeah. So I think as we as we get started in this conversation about difficult conversations, it's important to think about my origin in this because I came to this field because I was profoundly bad at having difficult conversations.
So I'm a recovering people pleaser.
And now what I've done is I've shifted my identity from people pleaser to negotiator.
And so this journey is really interesting because I wasn't even really aware of the concept of negotiation until law school.
And the only reason I took the negotiation course was because it fit into my schedule.
and when I took the course, it was eye -opening because it was the first time I saw that this is a skill, not just a talent.
I could actually learn how to get better.
I could advocate for myself.
I can stand up for myself and I have the formula, so I was obsessed with it.
So we had these negotiation competitions at school and I competed in that with my partner and we won that competition and then that gave us the opportunity to represent the school at the American Bar Association competition in Ottawa, Ontario.
And we went and we won that competition as well.
So I was hooked. I was hooked.
And so I was saying to myself, this is great.
I want to do this. Conflict resolution, negotiation, alternative dispute resolution, because every time I did it successfully, it was a vote in favor for the man that I actually want to be.
But for me, when I had opportunities to teach other people and see them have that aha moment, that's when I said, I need to teach this to other folks.
And so that's what led me to start the American Negotiation Institute.
And now that's what we do.
We have the number one negotiation podcast in the world, Negotiate Anything.
And we get to serve some of the largest organizations in the world, teaching people how to negotiate and resolve conflicts.
Wow. Wow. I love hearing that it's a skill.
It's not a talent, folks.
It is a skill. So it can be learned.
And that's amazing.
I was reading, you're also a best -selling author too, by the way.
So you've got a couple books and one I recently read was Finding Confidence in Conflict.
And I really, really love that book.
And right off the bat, you kind of start with your origin story, kind of how this whole thing got started.
And I wanted to see if you could tell us a little bit about Kwame on the playground in rural Ohio, Tiffin, Ohio, and your experiences like how how did you become a people pleaser?
I felt like that was the start of where that where that all started for you.
Yeah absolutely and I think for everybody there is some origin story like there's something that was the catalyst to this type of behavior and sometimes it's just your personality but for me it was more just that childhood experience so I'm a first generation Caribbean American my dad's from Dominica my
mom's from Guyana and so we moved into a small town called Tiffin Ohio and it is not known for its diversity so my family yeah my family was very very different and I remember when I was six years old in first grade there was a situation on the playground at recess and I would go to different kids on the playground
I would say hey can I play with you and they said no go up to somebody else hey can I play with you they said no the whole pattern just repeated throughout the entire recess and I tried to keep it together.
But my heart was broken.
I went inside and I just started crying.
And the teacher asked, what's wrong?
And I said, nobody would play with me.
And so for me at that moment, I said, no matter what I do, I guarantee you that I will never feel this way again.
And so I said, I'm going to make sure everybody's my friend.
And so for me, when you look at it from the outside looking in, it looks really successful because I became the most popular kid in school.
Everybody knew my name.
I knew everybody else's name.
It was a success in that regard.
But then what it took for me to maintain that, that's what the problem was.
Because I said, I'm not going to say or do anything that could jeopardize the friendships and relationships I worked so hard to create.
And so I would agree when I actually disagreed.
And if I had any problems, I would just keep it all to myself.
And so that was something that was a challenge for me just all throughout my life until college, when one of my mentors said, you have to recognize you have big dreams.
There are things that you want to accomplish, but you're not going to be able to accomplish those if you're not willing to stand up for yourself and have these tough conversations.
And he taught me that there was a difference between being liked and being respected.
Those are not the same things.
And so he helped me to understand that mentality, but I still didn't know how.
And it wasn't until I learned about negotiation that I learned the skill set that was necessary to put it into action.
Wow. Wow. Isn't that something you kind of had this moment where you're like, this isn't, this isn't working for me, all these sort of things that you were doing, even though they, like you said, they were successful in the moment.
And at the time, it wasn't really, you know, maybe a sustainable way to, to live your life moving forward.
So I love I love that acknowledgement.
And always give a shout out to the mentors in our lives that sort of, you know, see something, say something profound leaves an impression on us, right?
And like, okay, how do we translate that and do something different?
So amazing. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. So I, I love this quote.
And I feel like I've heard this, it's probably in your podcast, or maybe you've just you've shared it with me before.
But the best things in life often are on the other side of difficult conversations.
And I think that is such an excellent quote and something to be reminded of.
What do you think people, you know, maybe people's perceptions or miss about difficult conversations that prevent people from doing so?
I think one thing that holds people back is the fear that it will ruin the relationship.
and that's something that holds people back they're afraid of the response of the other party and so that either completely holds them back from having the conversation they avoid it completely or when they're in the conversation they don't say what needs to be said so they're not wholeheartedly engaged they're
not vulnerable and transparent so even though communication is happening the true messages are not being sent.
And one of the things that I recognize is that conflict is an opportunity.
When you go back to the motto of the American Negotiation Institute, where we believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations.
And when you think about that, all right, I'm going to lean into the conversation, I'm going to have an opportunity based thinking framework for this.
So whenever you find yourself afraid of these conversations, just force yourself to finish this sentence this conversation is an opportunity to blank there's always an answer there it's an opportunity to learn to grow to repair a broken relationship to to get clarity to solve a problem all of these
things you know but we're missing out on those opportunities if we don't move toward these conversations so when you think about the psychology of humans it's really simple when we're approaching these new situations we're asking ourselves a simple question.
It's a binary choice.
Should I approach or should I avoid?
And if I focus on the risks, if I focus on the negative things that may occur, then I say I need to avoid this conversation.
But if I start to think about this as an opportunity, then I can see the positive things that are on the other side of the conversation, and it'll make it more likely for me to approach the conversation.
And now when we're in the conversation, here's the thing that that is a really tough truth to absorb.
But when you actually pause and think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
So when we're in these conversations, it gives you the opportunity to repair and strengthen worthy relationships.
And it also gives you the opportunity to remove malignant relationships with minimal damage.
Because in negotiation, it's the art of deal discovery, not the art of deal making.
The worst thing that can happen sometimes is forcing a deal that never should have been made.
Same thing with our relationships.
Sometimes we have to have these conversations, because there's something fundamentally wrong or broken in the relationship.
Now I'm going to go in and see whether or not this is something that should be fixed, can or should be fixed.
Or whether this is something where I say, you know what, red flags everywhere the best thing for me to do is respectfully remove this person from my life and move on to something better yeah wow that's interesting yeah so i mean how do you i mean i just think about just every day i mean everything's
a negotiation right absolutely So, so how, I mean, I guess I just, it's like, how do you know which things to stand on?
How, what, what things are important enough to sort of, you know, bring to the table versus, I mean, as I don't know, or maybe you're just constantly negotiating Kwame.
Like it's, it's an everyday thing as part of our lives, but like, I don't know if I have a question baked in here or not, but it's just kind of like, how do you know when it's the right time to lean into something that's difficult?
Yeah, I think one of the tough things about this, this new approach is that negotiation is not just an activity, it has to become an identity.
So in these conversations, I'm approaching it as a negotiator.
There's a goal that I'm trying to get to in every single conversation, even in the like the little small everyday conversations, my goal is to connect and hopefully uplift your experience of the day.
and I will navigate the conversation with that intent in mind.
And that's really important to keep in mind.
Now, when it comes to identifying which conversations are worthy, there is no clear and easy metric, like a checkbox type of thing.
And even if there was a metric or a checkbox, most people wouldn't like whip out a piece of paper and go through it anyway.
So I think what we have to do is just trust our judgment in this.
And here's what I mean.
If we get that inkling that.
Should I have this conversation?
The answer probably is yes.
There's something inside of you that is saying that a conversation might happen.
And if that's the case, then you can't fully understand whether or not a conversation should or should not happen only by yourself.
Because if you're feeling that, it's potentially likely that the other person is feeling that too.
So you should have an investigatory conversation to see whether or not a deeper conversation is even required.
Because at the end of the day, negotiation is an information game.
I want to gather high level information so I can then make a good decision.
And I want to have mutual conversation so you also have the best information you need in order to make an informed decision as well.
And so if there's an inkling that a conversation needs to happen, I'm going to have the conversation just to see whether or not it's required.
And if it's not required, if it turns out that the a problem that I thought might have existed does not exist, the other person still feels respected by the fact that you care enough about them in the situation to even investigate and look into it.
And when we think about this new identity as a negotiator, don't just think about it as a tool that we use externally with other people.
I want you to think about this in terms of negotiating with ourselves for emotion management and better judgment and decision making too.
This is the process of metacognition, thinking about thinking.
I'm going to have this conversation with myself to figure out what I really want and why I want it and then what I need to do in order to get it.
And sometimes that's a better relationship.
Sometimes that's smoothing out problems or maybe it's taking advantage of opportunities.
But I want to get that internal clarity first before I have that external conversation with the other person.
mm -hmm hello my friends before we get back to today's episode i want to ask you a question have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better difficult conversations at the american negotiation institute we offer transformative
keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top -tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands -on training for your team, we've got you covered.
Don't just negotiate, master the art with the American Negotiation Institute.
Click the link in the description to find out more.
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So many things came up while you were saying that I was trying to be a really good listener in that moment.
I think that you hit on a really good point about if you have the inkling to follow up on it and to take action on it.
And I think very much as I think about listeners, I think about my own personal journey.
with codependency recovery many many years of my life old patterns have been really around not trusting myself and you know it's like oh i have this feeling oh that's nothing you know or uh you know and so i will you know for many many years have discarded it as you know unimportant or i didn't have enough self
-worth to be able to you know feel like i could even say anything right And so kind of appreciate that sort of a little nudge to everyone to, you know, just listen to those inner nudges and those inklings to take action.
Because if you're feeling that way, you know, trust yourself.
So I really appreciate that comment.
And I didn't know if you wanted because you're kind of talking a little bit about the compassionate curiosity framework, kind of dancing on it a little bit.
I didn't know if you wanted to talk about that.
I think that would be a really, I love this framework.
I'd love for you to tell me a little bit more about it and if you could break it down a little bit.
I just felt like it was a very simple approach for like breaking it down so a difficult conversation didn't feel like such an overwhelming moment, kind of getting yourself in check, you know?
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that you recognize the simplicity because it took so long to get it that simple.
And I'll start off with a Bruce Lee quote.
He says, I don't fear the man who knows 1000 kicks.
I fear the man who has practiced one kick 1000 times.
And compassionate curiosity is your compassionate and nonviolent kick that I'll teach you in this in this conversation.
because the thing is a lot of times there are infinite amounts of conversational and rhetorical techniques that you can use, but it's unlikely that people are going to just hone all of those skills and, and keep just a backpack of skills and know when and how to use them.
And then second of all, I recognize that in these conversations, we're very emotional and we are going to be flooded with cortisol, the stress hormone and our limbic system is going to be firing.
And so when it matters the most, we're typically not at our cognitive best.
And so what I recognized as I was teaching people around the world how to negotiate is that I'll give them negotiation strategies, but it was hard for them to access those strategies under duress.
So that's why I wanted to make sure that people have something simple that they can use as essentially their foundation for the entire conversation that they can flow through.
So it's a simple three -step framework.
And the first step is acknowledge and validate emotions.
The second step is get curious with compassion.
And then the third step is use joint problem solving.
And so we're going to assume that there is an emotional element in the conversation.
And so we're going to lower the emotional temperature by labeling the emotions, acknowledging it, and validating it.
Now, validation doesn't mean that we agree 100 % or we endorse what they're saying.
But it's recognizing that, hey, I can understand how your beliefs and your perceptions are leading to your feelings.
And that makes sense.
I get that. And you're going to go through that process until they calm down a little bit, you see the emotional temperature drop.
Then you get curious with compassion, asking open -ended questions with a compassionate tone.
Then as you gather more information and the emotion is down, then you can transition into that win -win negotiation, trying to solve problems with the other side.
Then the same framework can be utilized internally as a tool of introspection, emotion management, and decision making.
We're going to label our own emotions.
What is it that we're feeling?
Most likely, it's multiple things.
Then we're going to get curious with self -directed compassion, asking ourselves open -ended questions with a compassionate tone to figure out why it is that we feel the way that we do.
And then when we're using joint problem solving, what we're doing is we're reconciling the differences between our hearts and our minds.
So what would satisfy me emotionally in this moment?
And then what should I actually do in this situation to make the situation better?
And you can do that before the conversation if you feel that anxiety, stress, or fear going into the conversation.
and even during the conversation, if you start to get good at practicing this in the moment, you can take a deep breath, maybe take some notes and gather yourself in the moment and go through it really quickly and then come back to the conversation just a little bit more.
