The LinkedIn podcast network is sponsored by TIAA.
TIAA makes you a retirement promise.
A promise of a guaranteed retirement paycheck for life.
Learn more at tiaa.org-promises-pay-off.
Hey, I'm Kwame Christian and you are about to step into the world of negotiating 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.
Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts.
We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life.
Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, negotiate anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed.
Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly rooted in practicality.
So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on negotiating anything.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen.
Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
Nasrata, thanks for joining us today.
Great to be with you Kwame.
How's it going? It is our pleasure, my friend.
So how could you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
So I am a psychologist in background.
I've trained as a clinical and forensic psychologist.
Really what that means is I've worked with some pretty challenging people and people who've been in challenging situations.
So I worked in maximum security environment with offenders and those who might be classified as psychopaths and went on to work with a military returning from war zones, treating post-morteds, just as well from head injuries and how work with leaders, coaching them in the skills that I was trained in, in having effective influence and working with negotiation,
which is perhaps what brings me here with you today.
Absolutely. And you have a book that's out.
Can you tell us about that too?
I do. I have a book that was released last year in my first book, My Only Book, called The Leadership Pincode, Unlocking the Key to Willing and Winning Relationships.
And essentially it's a handbook for leaders on the very practical tips that I've learned and I'm now sharing with them on how they can have those impactful conversations, building trust in relationships, and for how you can do that in every conversation, every day.
Okay. Now for the listeners they might say, wow, that book sounds fascinating.
I should buy that. And they should say that.
And they should say, also your work is really fascinating.
But they might not see the connection between the two.
So, where is the synergy?
You know, the synergy is that a lot of the work that I have to do is building relationships with people who have very different experiences to my own.
And perhaps it was a reason to change or was not very motivated to work with somebody like a psychologist on some of the challenges they were facing.
So I was trained in skills around conversation, understanding how you can use body language to communicate and grow relationships.
And very much I would call the ABC of how we develop trust in relationships with other people.
What I've done in the book is I've shared that talk it.
So understanding your advanced preparation, that's the A, your body language, which is B and C, the conversation you have.
Those very basic skills that actually can make all the difference between working with somebody collaboratively and perhaps getting through those different conversations and conflicts at the bottom.
That's interesting. And I think one of the things that's most interesting to me coming from this field is that you put the C last, of course, that's how A, B and C kind of relate to each other in general.
But especially when you're thinking about leadership, negotiation, persuasion, conflict resolution, a lot of people start with the conversation part.
But you didn't start there.
And I'm assuming there's some level of intentionality behind that too.
It's very intense, Akwami.
And you will know this from negotiations that perhaps 80% of we want to put a figure on it of your effectiveness in a negotiation is really about your advanced preparation.
It's the research that you do on the people that you're going to meet with, that you want to negotiate, we will have impact with.
It's what you know about their intentions and their interests, their motivations, their drivers.
And so it's very intentional that I put the A, the advanced preparation at the beginning, not just because it's A in the ABC, but because actually that is where most of your success comes from is in doing your homework.
Much as you would if you were going for an interview and you'd try and figure out who's going to be interviewing me or if you're the interviewer who is this candidate who's going to come in front of me, I'm using a little bit more about them.
So for me, the ABC is intentional in its order and advanced preparations much more important than actually the words that come out of your mouth.
Research shows, doesn't it, and you would be going to live with this, that most of our impact is to do how we speak, how we communicate, not so much the words that we speak.
Right. And based on what you've seen with people in the professional world having difficult conversations, when it comes to advanced preparation, I think that's one of the things that people really struggle with.
So I know the listeners are probably tired of hearing me say that.
So if you, but I'm going to say it again, if you go to our website, AmericanNegociationInstitute.com slash guide, you can get access to all of our free negotiation guides.
A preparation guide is one of them, but it's over 15 guides to help you walk through and systematically prepare.
And one of the reasons why we do this is because people don't fully understand and appreciate what true preparation is.
And in this world where we're all part of the cult of busyness, a lot of times what I realize is that a lot of professionals can trick themselves into believing that they don't have time to prepare effectively for these impactful conversations.
So first, can you tell us a little bit about the time that it would take to do the preparation and then after you talk about that, we'll talk about what it actually looks like in practice.
You know, it's one of those frustrating answers isn't it?
It depends. Sometimes you can do very little preparation that's all this needed.
Maybe that's all you've got time for.
Let's say you're walking along the corridor and you bump into somebody you've had previously had a difficult conversation with and you know that you need to work with them again and it's an opportunity for you to either walk past them and ignore them or take on the opportunity for resetting that relationship and trying to create a connection with them.
You don't have much time walking down the corridor to prepare what you want to say but you do have some time and I often say to leaders and what I've tried to do in my book and my work is simplify what can feel like a very complicated advanced preparation process.
So in everyday work, I think we can grab those few seconds walking down the corridor and just mentally shift our mindset for example to rather than confrontation to okay, this is an opportunity for me to reset the relationship by saying hi, smiling and asking a question.
So that's a very short preparation.
On the other hand in very complex negotiations where we're making deals or we're talking about investments or we're mediating great big conflicts, then you would want to spend several weeks, even months perhaps in your advanced preparation figuring out what the motivations and drivers and all the different parties are so that when you get into that conversation you
can take care of those interests.
So it really does depend on the type of work that you're engaged in so it can be anything from a few seconds minutes to month's preparation.
Yep, that makes sense and what would you say is the biggest mistake that people make when going through this preparation process?
Getting absorbed with their own agenda, staying in their own heads and it's so interesting I see it with leaders over and over and they give an amount of date and they know they have to want to communicate that or get buy-in or support from other people and they'll run into the conversation with what I need is.
Let me tell you about what I'm working with.
Let me tell you about what I need support for and not paying attention to opening up the start with what is in it for the other person.
How can I call them into this conversation by hearing their motivations and interests in supporting me or listening to me?
Why should they listen to me?
Why should they be interested in supporting me?
So I think the biggest mistake most people make is jumping into talking about what is important to them and not paying attention to what's important for the person.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
One of the terms of coin is egocentric persuasion where we focus on what it is that would persuade us and what we want and why and then we go in and we communicate it from exclusively from our own perspective and then we are absolutely shocked as to why people don't get on board.
Why just falls flat, right?
Are you wondering why somebody isn't jumping up and you know giving you all the support that you're looking for straight away?
And now onto the B so we're talking about body language.
So tell us where should we should even start there.
With the body language I think what's important is to remember that even though we might intend to communicate something through our words often our body language is giving away signals that we're on the road.
So where to start is to be very conscious, get feedback from other people.
How do I come across when I'm trying to be supportive?
Do I communicate that in the way that I use my hands, my facial expressions?
How am I in a way being in concert with my intention?
I've seen many time leaders say to me for example, I thought I was being really clear but people looked very confused or I thought I was being helpful but I was told I was micromanaging and being controlling so their intention wasn't showing what can be avoided on bridging behavior.
So the first thing is just to check with others, do I come across in the way I think I come across?
And once you've got that feedback if there are any gaps between your intention and your behavior, you can start to think about perhaps getting videos of your presentations or of your meetings and seeing what you're doing that may be getting visual.
I think that's great and I don't think enough people take the time to ask for that feedback.
We just look at the outcome and then a lot of times we blame other people for the unpleasant outcomes that we find ourselves and people would be surprised at how often people are willing to give you that feedback when you ask for it.
I've done this in the professional world with my staff, done this with my family, learned a lot about myself and in the process.
It's painful, calm, isn't it?
Why we avoid doing it? To your point I think the reason we don't ask for it is because when people are commenting on our body language it's quite a personal reflection, isn't it?
It's quite different to saying whether you've achieved something or not.
It's about you and I think we struggle often getting that very personal feedback.
The other challenge is who do you ask for that?
Your family may be kind or brutal one way or the other and perhaps not not filtered enough, giving you the information in a way that there is easy for you to digest or accept and that work if you're a leader which is the space I work in.
Perhaps people are a little fearful of giving you that feedback in case there's negatively repercussions or they might have such you and you might have such a deal.
So it is difficult to get that feedback.
I often say to leaders, I don't video yourself in meetings or in these situations you can look to yourself or if you do have a trusted confident like coach or somebody else in the business who isn't directly reporting to you, but you trust their opinion and maybe ask them to give you something.
Do you want to get more of your favorite expert insights in a fraction of the time?
Join, negotiate anything premium today.
It's designed for busy listeners just like yourself and premium is everything that you love about our traditional feed just packaged to save you time and make it easier for you to apply our expert insights in your difficult conversations.
There's no time to wait.
Join our premium community now and get started on your journey towards earning more and negotiating for the life that you deserve.
Make sure to start your seven day free trial today.
The LinkedIn podcast network is sponsored by TIAA.
In the last 100 years we've seen financial market swing new currencies come and go.
Decades of savings lost in days.
All showing that a retirement plan without a guarantee quite simply isn't enough.
So more than a retirement plan TIAA makes you a retirement promise.
A promise of a guaranteed retirement paycheck for life.
A promise that pays off.
Learn more at TIAA.org.
Backslash promises pay off.
Hi, I'm Jonathan Fields.
Tune into my podcast for conversations about the sweet spot between work, meaning and joy and also listen to other people's questions about how to get the most out of that thing we call work.
Check out Spark wherever you enjoy podcasts.
That makes a lot of sense.
And as you're asking people for this feedback.
So let's assume that the people listening don't have access to a coach like this and the only way they can get their feedback is by asking the people around them for feedback.
What can they do to make the people that they're talking to feel safe in providing that feedback freely without ramifications?
It's a great question. I think you have to start with making sure that the people that you ask first of all there's no authority that will power up between you and them because that will always be a bit of a challenge that you're asking people who perhaps will be concerned about the consequences for them giving more feedback.
So look for peers or look for people outside of your gut that reporting right, that's the first thing.
Secondly, when you do ask the feedback, let them know that you are open to it by setting the expectations and asking them to provide feedback on very complete aspects.
So rather than going into the conversation you're just saying, I'd love some feedback on how I come across.
People don't really know what kind of feedback you're looking for or how open you are to very specific feedback.
So you might say, when I present, I'd love you to, if you would give me some feedback on whether I'm clear enough or how I use my hands or is there anything that I'm doing that isn't clearly with my message.
So be very complete in your ass and then be very quiet while they respond.
The third piece of advice I give is if they do share feedback with you, that you don't agree with or you don't want, accept it gracefully since you've asked for feedback and don't defend.
It's very natural for us to go.
Yes, but what I was trying to do, I know you're saying I was waving my hands, but the reason I was doing it was and we launch into this defensive explanation having invited the feedback.
And so I have to encourage leaders to say, thank you, I accept the feedback, I'll go along with the platform and do that, go away with that time, so things are true, they might be even if you were holding a little sensitive or expensive.
Okay, so these are gems and I really want us to dig into this because I think when people hear what you said, especially the last two things where you say, be quiet while they respond and accept the feedback without defense, I think people can logically understand that they say, okay, got it, I'll be quiet, okay, got it, I won't be defensive.
They don't get it, okay, and they will be defensive, right?
So when it comes to being quiet, this might seem silly, right, but humor me here.
When you say, be quiet, what does that mean?
That means listening without talking, but attending to the information.
So instead of what often happens when people are quiet, is they start to have a conversation with themselves in their heart, preparing the answer they're going to get, so they're not really listening to what's being said, they're listening to respond.
They start to think that, ah, she's mentioning me waving my hands, I'm already getting annoyed about that and I'm going to prepare my response while she's still talking.
So when I say, be quiet, I literally don't speak, but pay attention to what is being said.
And the only way you can truly test whether you've paid attention is to repeat that through some of what you've heard.
So I'll often say to people, in order to be sure that you've been actively listening, there's only one way to to show that.
Can you summarise what this should?
If you can't summarise it, you don't pay attention.
So if you are being given feedback, test out that you've heard it and said to the person, for example, if you were giving me feedback now on my body language, I'd listen, I'd stay quiet and then I'd say, okay, let me see if I've understood you correctly.
So what you're saying is, the way I use my hands, perhaps, is interfering with the way in which I get my message process.
That right, qualms that what you meant.
So you're inviting, which is a check and balance, did I hear you put in?
And also validating your feedback.
So you're going to feel with the feedback you gave me was valuable.
I did pay attention to it.
I really did not. I love that.
That's great. And now with the defensiveness, right?
Let's actually break down what you mean when you are getting defensive because a lot of times people will say, well, I'm not getting defensive.
I'm just explaining what they don't understand, which is a really nice way of saying you're getting defensive.
So can we draw the line between what might be a legitimate response and what is more categorised as defensive?
You know, it's a very subtle distinction based on emotion, I believe.
So when we are defensive, you can feel it in yourself.
There's an emotion that's driving it urge to explain yourself.
It might be a rotation or a annoyance or anger.
And it comes from a place of, I'm feeling triggered and I want to explain my trigger rather than listening.
And when we are not defensive but explaining, it doesn't come in the same way from the emotional need to push that information onto the other person.
So I would check in with myself and say, is there an emotion surging?
Can I feel an urge to respond to perhaps this is about my emotion to go rather than a factual explanation that will help the other person?
You know what's really interesting about that too?
Is that, okay, we understand one can come from emotions more and then the other one comes from just relaying facts.
I think a really interesting distinction even goes beyond the feeling because I'm starting to get a better understanding of when I'm feeling emotional and defensive.
I feel it in my chest. I feel like I cannot, like if I even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop saying what I wanted to say, that's the urge, right?
And so the other thing is taking a step back and asking yourself why it is you feel the need to say this?
What is it that is driving me to say this?
So even beyond the emotional side, what is the strategic value of saying this at this time?
Is it just to elevate yourself because you feel like you've been taken down a peg?
Or is it the fact that there is a legitimate misunderstanding that you are trying to clarify for the sake of the other person?
Right? Because if I have a misunderstanding, I see it.
And it's just for me, then I could just kind of save that for myself and just eat it and then have the person continue to share information, information that is only within their head and not within mine.
So this is my only opportunity to get it.
But if it's not elevating them or helping them, we're helping the relationship at all, then that might be a sign that it is defensiveness in disguise.
So I have a simple rule. In fact, I use this in a workshop just yesterday.
And the simple rule I have is if you're going to give somebody feedback, whether it's corrective or it's climate or whatever it is.
The simple rule is this, if it is to get something off your chest, don't do it.
If it has a learning opportunity for the other person, your future.
And that I think summarises what you've just said.
But it's very simple when people feel the urge to give, especially leaders want to give feedback to somebody.
And they're justifying it as feedback, but it's defensive reaction.
So it's simple. If it's just because you feel the need to say it, go tell a friend, scream to a pillow, whatever you need to do.
But if there's a learning opportunity for the other person and it benefits them, feel free to go ahead.
Oh man. I hope people are really paying attention to this because this is something that I've discovered through a little bit of self-discovery and introspection over the past month or so.
I'm realising that sometimes when I'm emotional, I feel the need to say things.
And if I'm emotional, I'm feeling emotional and it's directed to an individual, I feel as though the only outlet for this emotional expression is to share these things with the other person.
And what I'm realising is that if I, through meditation, I've recognised that emotions are kind of like energy.
You think about it, it's neither good nor bad, it is an energy.
How do you deal with that energy?
And so what I've found is that if I sit down and viciously journal, people look at him like, oh, man, it looks like he's mad at that paper.
I don't know what's going on.
But I just journal and just say everything that I would have said to that other person.
And I just journal and then what I recognise is that as I get toward the end of that journaling session, what I'm saying becomes more like self-coaching.
And I work through it and I reach a state of emotional equilibrium that allows me to function and I didn't need to emote on somebody else in a way that could potentially be destructive.
And what you're also doing, and I love that journaling really works for a lot of people.
And if you're not a journal, you can put it into your phone and know so you can go and speak to somebody, the point is to express that energy in another direction than the person who you feel irritated with.
But the most important thing that I think we're doing apart from processing it is you're taking a step back and creating some space, you're letting the emotion diffuse, rather than jumping on it and giving it the urge to react.
When we're responding to our emotions, when they are high and we describe it, both with use the word you know, this urge to say or this urge to share.
The reason we're giving into the urge is to relieve ourselves, to purge ourselves and to the discomfort of that feeling.
It's out there that the other person's got it and we can relax, we've got better.
So resisting the urge just to feel better for ourselves at the cost of somebody else is what's really important here, especially in negotiations and in building relationships in the world environment.
If we just give into our own urge to make ourselves more better at the cost of the other person's feelings or emotions, then we're likely to damage these relationships and in some cases maybe irreparable depending on how we want.
Absolutely. Oh, this is great.
This feels almost like a therapy session.
I don't know. Maybe it's like you have a background in psychology.
I'm getting that vibe. Well, you know a lot of what I'm sharing probably is coming from my psychology background.
I've worked with some pretty difficult people in difficult situations and had to think very carefully about choice of words, how I communicate.
I was trained in these techniques as a forensic psychologist.
It made the importance of how you frame what you say in case you get a reaction.
I was working in some cases with people who have potential for violence.
I could trigger that reaction in the meek I was in a clumsy or not careful with you about how I expressed myself to get the information I needed.
So I think you're right to be probably feeling a little bit of my psychological toolkit coming through now.
I love it. I told you before.
I'm a psychology nerd too.
I just happen to be a lawyer, but I like this like degree a lot more.
I really do. And now what's really, really interesting about this, Nazita, is the fact that we've talked about preparation and depth.
We've talked about body language and depth.
We've talked about how to give and receive feedback.
But we haven't really explicitly done a deep dive into the sea, which is conversation, which again, which is what most people would figure.
We would spend the majority of our time on.
And so I think what would be interesting is to spend our time, or remaining time focusing on some of the counterintuitive discoveries that you found with working with psychopaths and working with leaders.
So when it is, when it comes down to how to effectively have the conversations, what kind of comes to mind when you think about the outside of the box, counterintuitive discoveries that you found?
One of the counterintuitive discoveries I found was never to ask the question why of a person.
And it's interesting because when things go wrong, and particularly in a work environment, we have a tendency to want us that straight away.
Why did you, why would you late?
Why did you not deliver on time?
Why were you thinking that?
And that simple question of starting with why can create such a defensive reaction in other people because it feels very personal and blaming.
And if I say to you, for example, why are you asking me that question?
It suddenly feels quite attacking, doesn't it?
It's like, oh, okay, it's about me and she's annoyed with me.
So one of the counterintuitive trainings really that I was exposed to was, how can you ask why without asking why?
How can you get used questions and steer the conversation so that you get data because essentially when we ask why we're looking for greater explanations, we want information so that we can better understand what's happened.
And how can we use open questions to get data?
And actually the more curious we are, and simple curiosity can make an enormous difference to how we phrase our questions and how we invite people to join us in that, share with information.
So instead of saying, well, why did you ask more questions?
So tell me more about what you were thinking when you asked me a question.
Why did you bring me into your mind set or experiences?
How did that happen? When did it start?
What was your first thought about?
And when you start to open up for those, what I call the W questions, who, what, where, when, or how, the H, then you don't need why.
Why is it is absentually in that talk it?
So you can get so much more information if you use the who, what, where, when, how type questions.
And use defectively, and we don't have time to go into how you may set up an entire conversation and steer it using those.
But between asking questions, effective use of silence, the summarizing we talked about earlier.
And indeed, mirroring what people say, which you know is very important in the negotiations, you can have a very enriched conversation with something else, even when it's a difficult conversation because you're avoiding blaming and you're inviting the person to join you in this curious exploration of the data that you both want to know more about.
That is a great point. And I tell you, when, when I discovered the, the dangers of asking why, and I started to look back on some of my other conversations, I see, oh, okay, now I understand why they got defensive.
Now I understand why I didn't get as much information and why they might have responded with hostility.
It's just the way that we ask the question.
Even if your tone is in the right spot, people hear that word why and then they tend to get defensive.
And so you're absolutely right, you can make them feel safe and still get the better, the good or better quality as good of, or better quality of information by using other question alternatives.
So I appreciate that. And before you go, I want again to let you give, to give you an opportunity to let listeners know about your business, the book, and how they can get in touch with you.
Oh, thank you, Kwame. I've enjoyed our conversation.
And it's one of those conversations that when you're with another psychology and legal nerd, and you know, I love that your legal background and thinking another life I might have pursued a similar career, it's always easy to carry on talking.
So I appreciate the time you've given me today.
So I work now with leaders and you can find me on my website, which is progressing minds.com.
So if there are leaders out there who would be interested in learning these kinds of techniques, they can find me there.
And I'm very active on LinkedIn.
So it's very easy. If you send me a personal message, I'm pretty good at getting back to proving those to the time.
And my book is available.
The leadership pin code is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, most online stores.
So you've also found me there.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us.
We really appreciate it.
So I'd like close Kwame, great to see you today.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Now, before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before.
Just kidding. I've told you before, but you should listen to it again.
I want you to know about and negotiate anything premium.
Imagine all of the things that you love about our traditional feed plus so much more.
I know you like our traditional feed because you're at the end of the episode.
And with negotiating anything premium, you'll get more bonus content you've been asking for, more of the expert insights that you can't get anywhere else, and more exclusive behind the scenes access into every conversation.
Are you ready to get more of what you want out of your life, career, and every conversation?
With negotiating anything premium, you'll have access to more high level custom design content and insights, giving you the tools you need to negotiate higher salaries, better deals, and better relationships in your life and career.
Once I had a listener share that negotiate anything helped her to negotiate a $53,000 raise.
Could this be you? What would that mean for your life?
I've seen firsthand the impact this model has had on my life and the lives of my corporate clients, and I am confident that it can do the same for you.
Are you ready to negotiate more of the best things in life?
Click the link in the show notes to learn more.
I'll catch you later.
