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Hey everyone, it's Kwame Christian, host of Negotiate Anything, asking you to please do not skip forward because this is not a commercial, okay?
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Suzanne, thanks for joining us today.
Thanks for having me, Kwame.
Well, it is our pleasure.
So how about you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Sure. So I have been a professor for a number of years, including in places like IMD in Switzerland, as well as in the States.
And in addition to that, I do a number of workshops and programs for companies around the world.
I'm proud to say I've taught on six continents.
I have multiple negotiation articles that I've written.
I have a textbook that's coming into its third edition.
I have an interpersonal skills textbook where negotiation plays an important role in one of the chapters that is coming into its eighth edition.
And I'm also the mother of twins, boy girl twins.
So my earliest experiences in teaching negotiation come from having two kids that had to learn how to share from the beginning.
So I really am excited about the kind of work I do, and in particular, again, drawing on those gender differences.
Some of the research, as well as corporate work that I'm doing these days, involves some of the nitty gritty sort of process oriented differences in how men and women approach negotiations early in the middle of and also kind of at the tail end.
And so I've been doing some research in that space for the last five years and it's fascinating.
Incredible. And listeners, you are in for a treat today and you know how I know this because the interview is done.
So we're going to drop you right at the beginning of this call because we vibe from the beginning so you can hear us chit chat and then roll into the interview.
What is it that's giving you the most energy right now regarding negotiation or conflict resolution?
Two things. One of them, and this is the subject of the HBR piece that I wrote, 21.
I've been teaching negotiation for many years, as have you, and we normally start with, OK, go prepare, go get the data, go get the numbers, go make sure that you are prepared and you have the information at your fingertips.
And I started thinking about that and I'm like, well, that's great for people who actually recognize that they are going to negotiate.
What about people who don't even see these opportunities?
And I'll give you a specific example because I was teaching a program that I created that was is for women only.
So there are that's another topic that we can talk about.
Women don't negotiate as often or as effectively as men for a variety of reasons, but it's about quarter of the time women compared to men.
So I'm teaching this workshop, this three day workshop, and I come up with, I thought, this kind of cute idea.
I said, well, imagine you're in Nordstrom and you see this beautiful pair of shoes and you get a little buzz on your phone.
It says, guess what?
Starting tomorrow, they go on sale 30 percent off.
What would you do? And so one woman raises her hand boldly and says, easy.
I'll come back tomorrow.
And I'm like, wow, that's interesting.
And I'm like, OK, OK, never mind.
I'm going to change the story.
OK, same thing. You're in the store.
You see these beautiful shoes.
You get this ping, but you realize that you're leaving at 4 a .m.
to get to the airport for a week long business trip.
What do you do? Same woman raises her hand.
She goes, I'll ask my husband to go tomorrow.
And I'm blown away that this is not to me.
This is like everyday, simple stuff.
I'm programmed to think about that as an opportunity, whereas this woman and others in the class were not.
And so it started me thinking we need to step back several steps before this idea of prepare to even recognize, well, what is an opportunity to negotiate?
And then I started thinking more about like, OK, what about getting?
I don't know if this ever happened to you before.
All of a sudden, your cable bill is 30 percent higher, 40 percent higher.
You forgot about it because you have it automatically paid.
What do you do? And again, a lot of people are like, whatever, really, whatever.
And to be fair, and this is step two, evaluate not every one of these negotiations is worth your time and energy and effort to actually engage in.
But on the other hand, if you never take up these everyday, simple negotiations, how do you expect to get the confidence and the competence for the big ones?
And so this is something that has been trending in my circles, that has been really causing people to think more and more about not just negotiating more, but also I didn't get a fair ordeal or I've got this longstanding issue with my roommate or with my partner or I hadn't really thought about it before.
But I'm being asked to do all these non -promotable tasks at work, making sure that the coffee is stocked and the milk is stocked and I'm taking notes at the meeting.
But why isn't anybody else being asked?
So I have this kind of model that says, here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if this is an opportunity.
And then another set of questions.
Should I engage? What is the net benefit of engaging versus not?
And then once I decide, OK, now I'll prepare, now I'll gather my data, now maybe I'll role play, but I think so many of us and I've kind of tested this out with my colleagues, we start with preparation and I think we should start at least two steps before.
Brilliant. I love this because when I think about the data that we've gathered from our audience too, that's something that we've recognized as well.
There is, in general, a low level of negotiation awareness where people don't even recognize that there is an opportunity to negotiate.
And so it doesn't give them the opportunity to read this as a signal.
Hey, remember that amazing stuff that Suzanne taught you in negotiation class?
Now's the time to use it.
So awareness is a fundamental first step and you break up a really good point because even though we have the opportunity to negotiate, that does not mean that this is an opportunity worthy of our time.
And so I'd love to get deeper into that.
So when we're thinking about how do you evaluate these opportunities, what are those initial questions?
One of the questions is what is the benefit emotionally, financially, psychologically?
Right. So it's not just about money.
So I'll give another example.
The data about the great resignation was really much, much more about women who left the workforce than men.
And so a lot of it sort of qualitatively was about, oh my God, I'm juggling work.
I'm juggling the kids who are at home instead of at school.
I'm helping them homeschool.
I'm doing all of these things because as a woman, there's this sort of natural, this stuff falls on me.
And so more women than men left the workforce.
And so my, you know, again, post hoc, the question is if these women, and of course it's not all women and all men, but if these women would have said to their partners, well, I've noticed that since we are all working from home and the kids are schooling from home, I have been working about 12 hours a day between my
job and my this and my that.
I wonder if we can have a conversation about how to more fairly allocate all of those non -work tasks, because I'm feeling like they're falling more on me.
I don't think many of those conversations happened because if they had, would women have left the workforce in droves?
That's powerful. And I think those lenses are important for us when we're evaluating these situations, because thankfully we've kind of moved away from that history of negotiation where we assume that all the rules apply to all the people in the exact same way, not the case.
And when I think about it from a gendered lens, women negotiating at home, that might be the place where you get the most value because we have these social dynamics of society that have essentially pre decided some of these roles from home and they have not been updated even though women are now in the workplace.
And so now you have work at work and then you come home and work more and chronically underappreciated for that work.
So I'm really glad that you talk about not just utilizing negotiation as a business skill or a career development skill, but just recognizing that this is a skill that can enhance our lives and our relationships as well.
Right. And I think that if a woman and again, I don't know, it's not all women.
It all men. But if a woman hasn't really had a lot of practice asking for what she wants, advocating for what's fair, etc.
And this all happens and let's face it, I don't know about you, but the pandemic was stressful and continuously stressful.
I mean, it was like wearing us out.
So day one, this happens and it's unfair.
And so, oh, well, it's not going to be that bad.
I won't worry about it.
Day two, day 12, day 300.
And my belief is that the longer we go noticing this inequity, but not saying anything about it, the more difficult it is to undo the damage that's already been done.
Because then you say to yourself, well, I wish I had said this earlier and now I don't really have a leg to stand on.
This has been going on for months or this has been going on for years.
So I'll just quietly do all these things and suck it up.
And so when we don't do the difficult conversations, we give them power over us.
Right. They kind of loom over us large and we're like, oh, I guess I can't do it now.
I should have done it years ago.
I should have done it.
And so I think this idea of even the little things, like another example I use in my research is to me, very benign.
You have a neighbor who has a fruit tree and once a year a bunch of fruit drops into your yard.
And on the one hand, that's great.
You get free fill -in -the -blank apples.
On the other hand, it creates a mess and brings critters.
What do you do? And again, I ask this question.
It's, you know, it's hypothetical that yet I have people in my workshops go, oh, my God, that's happened to me.
What do you do? Nothing.
I just clean it up.
And I'm like, but this is an opportunity to have this conversation with your neighbor.
On an issue that happens every year.
What can you do? Well, that depends.
Have the conversation.
But, you know, again, I think once we somehow choose not to do something, we just let it ride until we get really stressed out about it.
And then with our neighbor or our partner or our kid, we blow up.
God damn it for the tenth time.
Like what happened to the first time you had that opportunity to talk about it?
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This is powerful. Let me just do a little PSA for the gentleman in the audience.
And yes, I'm going to give a little, you know, stereotypically gendered piece of advice here, assuming this we're talking about heterosexual relationship here.
So for guys, you might be listening to this and saying, well, that's not my problem.
There's a problem. They should say something.
But then when we think about it from a negotiation perspective, if you want to be a good partner, sometimes you need to be the person to start the conversation even if it's not in your favor.
So I just want to put that PSA out there.
I think that's very important.
Yeah. And then the second side is I bet there's somebody listening who is saying, Suzanne, you're telling my story.
I've been stuck in this forever.
And the reason I haven't brought it up yet is because I don't want to look silly or petty because I feel like I've been invalidated by the amount of time that I put between inception of this problem and this moment right now.
So for the woman out here who is saying that but is hesitant to have the conversation for that reason, what advice do you have for them?
So one of the pieces of advice I have is to talk with your partner and arrange to have this conversation.
Don't blindside them, but say, hey, honey, you know, I've been noticing X and I think it would be appropriate for us to have a conversation.
What do you say we do this Saturday morning after, you know, the kids start watching TV or whatever it is?
And I say that because I teach this.
There's no benefit to one of you having the upper hand of having had a negotiation class or read, getting to yes, and done all your work preparing your negotiation or what I like to call a problem solving process is only as good as your weakest link.
And so by giving the other person time to also prepare, you know, I want to talk about X and I want us as a goal to figure out a more equitable way to allocate these chores.
So let's have this conversation on Saturday.
Let's have this conversation Wednesday night, but give each partner ample time to prepare for that conversation so that not only will it be a balanced conversation, but that opportunity for other options that neither party came in with could develop because they're both coming in with an open mind and kind
of a ready but relaxed way to talk about it as opposed to being blindsided.
Now, listeners, let's get a little granular here because Suzanne just dropped some impeccable knowledge here.
So first of all, I love the strategy of saying Saturday morning after the kids are down or like they're busy, hypnotized with the TV, brilliant.
Because when you think about the concept of ego depletion, whereas the over the course of the day, your brain gets tired, it makes it harder to make decisions.
A lot of times when we decide to have our difficult conversations with our partner in the evening, we are doomed to failure because we are our brains are tired and we can't function.
So the timing is brilliant there.
The other thing to giving them the opportunity to prepared, I think it's important to recognize that there might be some out there who say, yes, use an ambush.
Just putting this out here, but this isn't guerrilla warfare.
And that it doesn't work the same way.
Because do you like feeling ambushed in a conversation?
The answer is definitely no.
And then here's the thing.
If you ambush somebody in a conversation, the answer is more likely to be no, because no is the safest answer.
So you might be coming with data, facts, rationale and all of the evidence that supports your case.
But because they are so blindsided and surprised that they just reject everything because they haven't had time to process.
So even with this, you've created a scenario where you're more likely to succeed.
I would add to what you said, Kwame, or they say yes, when what they really mean to say is no.
And then the sabotage happens later.
Well, you kind of forced me into this or, well, I didn't really have a chance to say no.
Right. So I think saying yes, when you mean no is even worse, because right.
That gets at that we start doing things in a way that are undermining the relationship because we are feeling put upon.
And I say this, you know, when I talk about negotiation at a very high level, you know, yeah, it's a an exchange of ideas and yeah, it's a bargaining process.
And I also say it's voluntary.
And people look at me like I'm I have horns.
And I say this is what I mean by voluntary.
When Kwame comes up to me at lunch at work and says, Suzanne, you and I need to talk.
This client came after me about X, Y and Z, and you must have talked, Kwame.
You're absolutely right.
We do need to talk.
And I look forward to that chat.
How's Thursday at one?
And again, this idea that I recognize what you're saying, and I agree with you, but it does neither of us any good to be ambushed and be expected to respond when you haven't had a chance to collect your thoughts or your emotions for that matter.
This is great. I'm loving this.
And now we've talked about the opportunities that exist to negotiate.
Now, how do we actually think through in a really robust way, hey, is this the right opportunity for me to negotiate?
Or should I let this one go?
Well, as always, I'm much more of a not an either or, but both and it may be yes, no, or not now.
Not now because I'm too upset.
Not now because I don't have enough data.
Not now because I'm waiting on some other link in the chain to make itself known before I'll be able to really respond to this.
But, you know, again, this idea of evaluating how do I feel about this situation?
Am I constantly stressed?
No, just because I know you know this just because I'm not saying to you, hey, Kwame, I'm upset with you because of X doesn't mean that I'm not.
You know, some of us had that.
Don't say anything if you don't have anything nice to say at all.
OK, so I'll suck it up and not say anything.
But how does that really reflect what's going on?
And so if we have these longstanding conflicts that create resentment, where I don't say anything to you, but I roll my eyes or I'm sarcastic.
I love that one. Right.
You know, people I see this all the time.
People will say something in response to an idea and they'll use sarcasm.
I'm like, wow, that's that's really cool.
What's your goal here?
Like, well, to get them to do X.
Really? If you are on the receiving end of that kind of a sarcastic or snarky comment, does that make you want to do X?
No. So I've come to believe that when people start injecting humor and worse, that snarkiness it is a front for not being able to deal effectively and constructively with conflicts.
You are so right. And I tell you, listeners do not overlook this because when there are times when I have this realization in the middle of a conversation, you have to have a little bit of metacognition that's happening throughout this interaction.
And there's something that I want to say.
And I've learned to become a lot more skeptical about saying things the more I feel like I need to say it.
I'm like, hmm, that might be my emotions telling me, not my higher level thinking.
And when you ask the simple question, what's my goal?
You might recognize, unfortunately, your only goal is to do damage.
My only goal with my comment is to hurt your feelings.
And I know it doesn't move me forward, but at least I got that jabbing.
And on behalf of the Negotiate Anything podcast, I will let you know that that is not persuasive.
Thanks for clarifying that, Kwame.
You know, and again, not everybody look, we're not born with negotiation skills.
We're not born with the skills to be able to deal with these difficult conversations.
If we were, you know, half the books in Barnes and Noble wouldn't exist.
I'm exaggerating with that word half.
Right. But just because we're able to open our mouth and move our lips doesn't mean we're able to engage in conversations that really help deal with the underlying problem.
And I think a lot of us think about, you know, we have those could or should or would conversations with ourselves when we walked out of a fight in a huff or as we're driving home from a meeting, when we maybe said something unkind.
And I think part of the reason that happens is, again, we don't either have the skills or the motivation to deal with it.
Oh, it'll go away or somebody else will deal with it.
Like, you know, here's an example that I use a lot.
You have an employee who's on your team who comes late to a meeting.
Now, the first time this person comes late to a meeting, you might be thinking, okay, I mean, no big deal.
I can't say that I've never been late for a meeting.
But what if that behavior were to repeat?
And, you know, I asked people, well, do you think let's let's call them Anthony.
Do you think somebody should say something to Anthony about him basically keeping everybody waiting 20 minutes after the meeting's already started?
And people will say things like, Oh, yeah, somebody should say something.
And then I ask, all right, raise your hand.
Who of you wants to do it?
Nobody's hand goes up, on average, on average, it's less than one.
And so, you know, I think people recognize when confrontation is important and appropriate, but I think fewer people have the skill to be able to do it constructively.
So what happens? Anthony doesn't get the message.
He comes late again.
He comes late again and comes.
And then finally, someone does something snarky like, this is one of my favorites.
Yo, Anthony, your watch broken.
I'm like, what's your goal here?
And do you think that's going to solve the problem?
Moreover, do you even know what is causing him to be late?
You're assuming, but what if he's sitting beside his partner who's going through chemo treatment?
You haven't asked, and yet now, after accepting and accepting and accepting this behavior, you come down hard with some snarky statement.
How are you going to come back from that?
That's tough. And I'm glad that question was rhetorical, because I would need some time to think through.
And speaking of time to think through, I think this is a great opportunity to transition to preparation, because now we've talked about when we should negotiate and the mental model that we can utilize to determine whether or not this is a worthwhile endeavor.
But now, let's say we have a negotiation on the horizon, and we have to prepare.
And let me change the game a little bit here with the way that I asked this question.
What are the biggest misunderstandings people have about preparation and negotiations?
Well, in my experience, I think the first and foremost is, what do you want?
I think people have these very broad, well, I want more, or I want to win, or I want my way, but they haven't really specified what would that look like.
And so, just the simple fact of, I know that this conversation will be successful if I end up with X, I think that's a big misconception.
Like, I'll just go in, I'll get what I want.
I think another big misconception is that this is a tug of war, and he who talks the longest and loudest and bangs on the desk is the one who wins.
And I'd like to think years of getting to yes, and a more principled idea around negotiation over the last several decades has moved us away from that.
But I still think there are plenty of people out there that see negotiation as a battle to be one, as opposed to a collaborative problem solving process where people could walk away feeling good about the resolution.
I love this. Yes. And so that mindset still exists.
And I think that's just a natural human response to these situations where we feel like, okay, this conflict has arisen in my mind as a result of a battle over scarce resources.
So more for me means less for you and vice versa.
So we have to really slow down and widen our aperture to recognize what's really happening.
And we can have a different approach, which will turn into a different mentality during the conversation too, we will come off very differently.
And to your point at the beginning, what do you want?
It sounds so trivial, but it's so important, because I know you've done hundreds or thousands of these trainings, and you've taught at the highest level.
And this is something that people really struggle with.
I remember one time I was coaching somebody, and I was like, Okay, what's your goal?
All right, great. Thank you for telling me that.
Awesome. Well, what's your bottom line.
So the reservation point, let's get the upper and lower bounds to create this zone of possible agreements.
And so they said, Okay, this is the baseline.
I said, Okay, well, what if they offer $1 ,000 less than that?
Do you accept it? I'd accept that.
Well, that's not your bottom line, then that's not the reservation point, right?
And so like the these concepts are still foreign to a lot of people.
But also, when we think about it, I think this gives us an opportunity to talk about interest versus positions, too, we might just say, Hey, I want this thing, because again, we are listening to what society or outsiders or peers are kind of saying like, hey, this is your next step, this is what you
should want. But we haven't had that internal negotiation with ourselves to figure out what we really want, and why.
And I'll tell you what, I've heard, especially during the pandemic, where a lot of companies cut back, there were no raises, there were, you know, spending money on enabling people to work from home.
But, you know, again, to be able to provide raises, promotions, etc.
And so when someone would say, well, you know, I'm going to go elsewhere, and I need to get more money, I deserve more money, like, well, how much more, first of all, and they're unable to articulate that.
And then I would ask them, imagine they tell you, well, actually, we have salary bands, this is fixed, I really can't go above x, what have you got?
And they kind of look at me with this, you know, look at cluelessness, I'm like, well, what if, for example, you were offered $10 ,000 in tuition reimbursement, I heard you say that you were interested in getting your master's degree, oh, well, that would be something, you know, or what if you were to
get a sign on bonus, you know, it's a different pocket, right?
It's a different bucket for the company, salary is one bucket bonuses another.
And so, you know, I know I'm not saying anything that is earth shattering or new, but this idea of thinking about not only what I want, but what is the value of that to me?
And what are other ways that I might be able to get that value if the answer to a salary change is no.
And so just that discipline of thinking through what else would equal that kind of value to me, what if it's one extra vacation day per quarter, I mean, we can look at the numbers and what that means in terms of one salary.
So, you know, again, thinking more creatively about what else would it take to make me happy if the answer is, I can't change the salary, or sorry, one last thought, if I can't get a raise now, when is it possible?
When do you see freer movement in the budget to be able to award these promotions or salary increases?
I love this. And as an employer, I love embracing the creativity too, because it gives us some more options.
Because there are times where we realize, hey, you are valuable, and you do deserve more.
And right now, we can't help you in that specific way.
But what other things can we help with?
And it, again, speaks to that collaborative nature gives people more flexibility.
And if you have a wider perspective on what winning is, then you will have more opportunities to win.
And speaking of opportunities to win, Suzanne, I know there are listeners out there who are saying to themselves, you know what, I'm looking for a really good textbook on negotiation.
Do you know of any good textbooks on negotiation?
Are you joking? Thanks for that softball, Kwame.
So honestly, I will start not with mine, but I believe that the Getting to Yes Fisher and Yuri is a standard for a reason.
In fact, I'm not sure if you or your listeners are aware, but I read somewhere that Getting to Yes has continued to sell about 20 ,000 copies per week.
I know. Don't you wish you wrote that?
I know. I still assign that even to my executive MBA students.
It's a great read. It's an easy read.
And it's really, again, this idea of negotiation is one where we care about each other in the relationship.
More and more, we don't have one -offs, right?
More and more, our negotiations are with people and with organizations and with vendor supplier agreements or longstanding kinds of agreements that being a jerk and getting your way, I call that a win now but a loss later.
Because as soon as I figure out you've lied to me, you've misrepresented the facts, you bullied me into agreeing to these terms that are unfair to me.
Not only will I no longer buy from you, but I'll be sure to tell all my friends and colleagues, and thanks to social media, I can really do that.
So this idea of thinking about the relationship and thinking about how can we both benefit as opposed to being a jerk to win in the moment, win the battle, but lose the war is something that is very much part of the way that I think about negotiation and teach negotiation.
I love that. And also, one of the things that has made me sad over the years is that when I would ask people about what books they read on negotiation, I remember earlier on my career, that was the one I kept on hearing.
And now I just, I don't hear it as much.
So it's so important, so important.
More in the business world, I recognize in people who are professors, like if you're in a negotiation class, your professor's going to talk about getting to yes.
But for the people who kind of found themselves in a career where they are negotiating, but they did not see themselves as negotiators, I think they, I'm hearing that less often as the gateway book into the world of negotiation, which I think is unfortunate.
Yeah. I mean, you know, to your question about the textbook, first of all, the audience matters, right?
Who is the audience for this book?
And I do have a negotiation textbook that third edition is going to be happening this year.
And my colleague, Damar and I have worked on it.
And, you know, there are, I forget how many chapters, maybe 16, 17 chapters.
Some of them are, you know, very similar to what you'd expect in other books about the process.
But there's one chapter in particular that I was kind of excited to include, because of course, when you embark on an endeavor like this, you have to look at the competition of the market.
Who else is out there?
Who else is writing textbooks?
What do they have? So one of the things we wanted to make sure was it was very experiential.
And it was a nice balance between rigor and application, you know, the theory and the application.
But there's one chapter that I think it hasn't really changed is unique in our book compared to others.
And it's called Negotiating Your Future.
And this chapter I wrote, because I, you know, it's not just about negotiating a future job offer, but recognizing that things change.
And when they do, what kinds of tools do you use to negotiate with the people around you?
So for example, let's say amongst your listeners, you have a young couple who are professionals and working hard 40, 50, 60 hours a week, making good incomes, etc.
And they decide to start a family, what are the expectations when the child comes along, you know, a lot of couples just assume they know how this is going to work out, right?
They're not communicating these expectations.
But like today's woman, and I'm obviously lumping lots of stuff in that statement.
But today's woman is like, oh, I'm empowered, I'm going to go back to work.
And I'm going to have, you know, or my husband's going to stay at really have you had this conversation?
And you know, in a heterosexual couple, and the guy is thinking, Oh, well, of course, if we have a child, my wife will stay home.
Really? And let's bring in non traditional couples, like what makes you think that in non binary or male, male, female, female relationship without having those conversations.
So one element of negotiating your future is managing expectations and having those conversations early and often, because those things will change.
And so as they're changing, so for example, in my MBA program, a million years ago, I knew of at least four divorces that could be traced to the rigors of the program, and to a lack of communication between the couple, right.
And so I remember when, you know, early in my relationship, I told my then husband, you know, I plan one day to go get a PhD.
Oh, that's great. I'm like, No, no, no, you don't understand.
When I am in school, I am uber focused, I am all about and I will not give you time and attention that you need, we might not be able to do the kinds of things that we do now.
Oh, no, no, no, it's okay.
And I'm like, No, no, I really want to be clear.
You know, so to plant that seed and to be able to say, recall when we had this conversation, as opposed to just going through life with these things happening, and then getting into those fights, because what I thought you would weren't you going to I, you know, so managing those expectations in the home
life, and in the work life as well.
What about the employer that pays for your MBA, but every time you're about to leave to go to class, they go, Oh, Tommy, I need you to stay another half an hour.
Like, you need to push back on that as well.
And so having those tools to be able to do so and not waiting until it happens over and over and over again, is something that I think is absolutely essential.
Incredible. And listeners talking about setting expectations, you see what Suzanne just did, she planted the seed for the next time she's on the show for what we're going to talk about.
Next time I love this.
This is great. Suzanne, I really appreciate this listeners.
We're going to put all of the links in the description of this episode.
Suzanne, this was a masterclass.
Thank you so much for coming.
Thank you, Kwame for having me.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
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Just kidding, I've told you before, but you should listen to it again.
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