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Welcome to this Negotiation Masterclass edition of Negotiate Anything.
With over 1600 episodes featuring some of the world's brightest minds, we've carefully curated three powerful conversations for you.
What makes this so special is that you'll hear how different experts from different industries approach the same challenge in their own unique ways.
Our goal is to give you multiple perspectives so you can build your own unique style.
Success doesn't look the same for everyone.
And in this masterclass, you will see exactly why.
Let's dive in.
So I was a full-time private practice owner.
And so I had my therapy practice and then was considering going into the workplace belonging and wellbeing space.
But then end up having a surprise baby and had to put things on pause.
And so I had only had maybe a handful of like speaking engagements before I ended up, you know, delivering our son.
And then I was like, I want to get back into this.
I actually think I want to really go into this space of professional speaking and consulting.
And then I was supposed to say 9-11.
It was pretty much almost like a 9-11.
It was like it um, and it literally opened the door for me, because of course, everybody wanted to talk about mental health because of covid, and then, um months later, the murder, george floyd, and so they're like oh, we also want to have like a wellness.
You know space, and oh well, can you talk about DEI?
Can you do this?
And I was like well, I've always wanted to talk about mental health in the workplace, but now y'all are ready to listen somewhat.
And so I took advantage of it.
And then that's literally how Working Well Daily started to flourish.
And so now I'm in like year three officially.
And it's been great.
It's been great.
And I've seen how much I've I've shifted and what I want to do and what I don't want to do um where I left the DEI practitioners to do their thing.
Um and where I'm like.
This is where I come alongside you and the support, but I am not a DEI practitioner.
I'm a clinician that addresses belonging and wellbeing.
From that clinical and emotional intelligence lens.
Like, I'm not here to help you rewrite processes and policies but uh, The knowledge that I give you, I hope will help you support the work that you're doing within your organizations to create better policies and procedures for the people who work there.
Love it.
Oh, this is cool.
This is cool.
We're going to talk about emotional intelligence just in general, but of course, as it relates to negotiation and conflict resolution,
And now when we think about emotional intelligence, I know there are lots of different definitions floating around out there.
So what does that mean to you?
What's our operational definition for this episode?
It is emotional intelligence, is being able to really know yourself and be able to read the room is how I simply define it.
You know it's being able to be comfortable with your emotions and be aware that other people have emotions too, and that you are able to understand them and manage them with ease.
And so I feel like we are so, so desperately lacking our ability to truly know ourselves and control ourselves.
And we are also not taking the time to really see that other people are hurting or in need.
I say that these last two and a half years have been like the worst group project ever.
I was like, we are failing at this group project because people aren't using their EQ.
They're not being empathetic.
They're not regulating their emotions.
They're not effectively communicating.
You know, we are just becoming very self-centered and thinking about our own stuff.
And I understand it's been hard.
We've had a lot of loss.
We've had a lot of uncertainty and we're still in it.
But this is a time for us to be more connected to people.
And the only way I can see us doing that well is by elevating our emotional intelligence.
This is great.
And I love how succinctly you were able to define that.
It's almost like you're in the final processes of writing a book on the topic or anything.
Would that be a fair hypothesis to set up?
I love your educated guess.
Yes, it is a fair hypothesis, Kwame.
I am.
I am near the final stages of completing my book, The Color of Emotional Intelligence.
It's really about how inequity has impacted the skill set and how we all don't use our emotional intelligence in the same way.
The same way, we all don't cook chicken the same way and we don't make our pizza the same way.
It seems like a skill we all have, but those of us who have been historically and systemically marginalized use emotional intelligence differently.
This is great.
And I think that will be a really helpful resource.
The more voices we get sharing this type of information, the better off the world would be.
And I think it's important for everybody to recognize that there are differences and then that it's important to recognize that so we can actually do something, so we can learn and grow and and develop ourselves in a way that's authentic to who we are.
And to have those difficult conversations.
Bingo.
Perfect segue.
Perfect segue.
Because what we're realizing is when we think about emotional intelligence, especially as the way that you described it knowing yourself, the ability to read the room, understanding that other people have emotions and respecting that, and then being able to manage our own emotions.
That puts us in a better position to manage the emotions of others.
It sounds really obvious why this is good.
And at the same time, we realize that emotional intelligence is becoming a lost art.
So what is it that makes this critical skill so difficult to acquire?
That's a very good question.
I don't think we are very good self auditors.
Um, self-awareness is one of the domains of of emotional intelligence, and it's really the bedrock of it.
You know, the more we are aware of ourselves, the more we are able to know how we're showing up.
Um, but we need feedback and people don't like that F word.
Like, wait, no, you don't really tell me about myself.
Just, just affirm me.
And, and, and, and, you know, um, Make me feel good.
And the thing is that it's like looking at a mirror and walking away and forgetting what you look like.
Like you need a reflection back at you to tell you that you got, you know, some spinach in your teeth, or you know there's something you know on the side of your eye, or whatever.
And that's what emotional intelligence is.
But that self-awareness, the more I'm able to understand that I may not be as good of a listener as I thought I was, because I asked my partner hey.
How how how do you think I am in our communication?
Am I listening?
We're asking our colleague, you know, how how am I showing up?
You know, am I impatient?
Am I speaking over people, you know, during meetings, those type of things?
We need to get that feedback.
And so we need to get it from either people that we trust and feel safe with.
Or sometimes it's not necessarily a person that's close, but you know that that person is very directive.
It is going to give you exactly what you need to hear, even if it doesn't feel comfortable, so that you can understand how you're landing on other people.
But we're not curious enough about ourselves.
I don't feel you know that's what I mean about being good self auditors to really do that self check.
And then I feel like there's all this conversation about emotional intelligence, but not enough about and this is probably because I'm a clinician our emotional narratives.
Like, where did we first learn about feelings?
You know, how did your family talk about feelings?
Did they sweep things under the rug?
Did they...
Express emotions, but violently, aggressively.
You know so if you're sweeping things under the rug, you might be a conflict avoidant person.
You know, if you grew up in a household where it was aggressive or violent, you might find yourself being very short tempered or violent, have actually anxiety whenever you see any type of aggression.
So i'm like we can't talk about being smart, about emotional intelligence, without first understanding what did we learn about feelings in our family of origin?
Even with society like what do we tell boys, man up, you know, quit your crying, you know.
So even tender emotions aren't really accepted.
And even with girls, you know, are you being too emotional?
Is it at time of the month?
Um, And yet again, as I said earlier, this is such an uncertain time.
There's so much loss.
And yet we are not able to have tender emotions with one another, because we've grown up with this narrative that those tender emotions of fear and sadness aren't safe to express.
And that's where I feel like we're falling short and why it's so important to like, relearn and become students of emotional intelligence, so that we can be better for ourselves and for everybody else around us.
I agree 100%.
And like you said, self-auditing, that's where it starts.
And that's where it usually ends and fails because people don't do it.
And to quote a wise philosopher, truth hurts. and that's that's lizzo of course and um because i will tell you when i think about some of like the things that i've done i've said or done to trigger humility in myself it wasn't the intent i wanted to like puff myself up so i would ask my partner or i would ask a colleague at work i was like on a scale of one to ten would you say i listen or how did i make you feel after that conversation i'm like I'm an expert.
This is going to be phenomenal.
It's not the case.
I'm much better when it's like a more technical business oriented situation.
It's easy for me to be disconnected and not I shouldn't say disconnected.
I should say more dispassionate.
The more emotionally attached I am, the more I fall into more human elements.
And I mean human in more of a negative sense, where I allow my emotions to take control in a negative type of way.
But becoming more emotional intelligent requires you to be attached to those emotions, understand them, but not let them get in the way of productive dialogue right.
I'm growing.
I'm growing.
And I think this is really important.
I'm glad that you also talked about the emotional narratives.
That's not something that I've heard before.
And listeners.
Before we got into the episode or, I guess, flowed into this conversation, I should say we were connecting over the fact that we're both Caribbean Americans.
Farah is from Haiti, born in Haiti.
My dad is from Dominica.
My mom is from Guyana.
And I'm sure you're familiar with this this archetype here, the stoic Caribbean male.
You know, it was it was years before I like allowed myself to feel, you know, and I didn't.
It's so funny because I would spend all these years teaching people emotional intelligence through negotiation and everything.
And then you know Bara, when your therapist starts quoting parts of your book to you in a session.
Oh my gosh.
It's like, oh, you're stepping on toes.
Exactly.
You're not supposed to do that.
I didn't make this book for you. into those emotional narratives.
Like how do we uncover, not just the fact that we have these emotional narratives?
Once we recognize them, what do we do about it?
Yeah, that's good work.
And it's funny that you said your therapist was saying things back to you.
So obviously I advocate for therapy or just a space where you can process.
We like to believe that we are rational human beings.
We're just logical.
Then, you know, we show up and we do business and that's all this is.
But we're the sum of our parts.
And so we can't ignore the fact that we grew up in a certain environment, whether it was in foster care, or with our grandparents, or with our biological parents.
Whatever the circumstance is, we have to really uncover it, for us to uncover ourselves.
You know, you can't truly know yourself if you don't take time to really dig deep and go okay.
Why am I the way that I am?
So it's opportunities to slow yourself down.
And actually in the first part of the book, before I even get into the inequity piece or quote unquote, add color to the EQ.
For anyone who doesn't even know what emotional intelligence is, the whole first part is an introduction in black and white.
What it is.
And I hope you to, um, Ask those questions.
I mean, it's literally what I just asked you.
Like, what is your emotional near?
How did your family talk about feelings?
What was that like?
Did they dismiss your emotions?
Have you had any experience of trauma where you know you may have grown up with a healthy family dynamic but something happened you know there was abuse or there was where your boundaries were violated, whether it was sexually or emotionally, and that shut you down?
And so now you feel like you can't articulate your emotions.
So your emotional vocabulary kind of gets stunted.
All of those experiences that we have, we have to uncover.
So that could be through journaling.
If you aren't ready for therapy yet, you know that you're able to to put it out there so you can see it.
Not so that you can, you know, go down this rabbit hole, but more so that you can have a little bit more ownership to your story, that you can go OK.
Well, this is it.
But I'm the editor.
I can rewrite this.
You know, maybe my parents didn't teach me these skills, but I can learn how to be more emotionally intelligent.
I like how you said earlier, you know, that you're just not letting your emotions take over.
I have a phrase of walking the dog.
So I don't know if you're familiar with the dog whisperer.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah yeah, okay.
So, like years ago, i was watching the show and and caesar, i think that's his name um is teaching his clients like how to walk a dog, and he said you don't want the dog to be in front of you, you don't want the doctor behind you, you want to make sure that you're walking right alongside the dog.
And i'm big on metaphors and analogies and i was like this is the perfect picture of what emotional intelligence is.
You don't want your emotions to be leading you right.
It got me there in control.
You're going from zero to 1002 seconds.
You don't want them to be behind you because you can't see what's coming.
So that's like passive or passive aggressive behavior.
You want your dog, aka your emotions, to be walking lock and step with you, so that you can see them, you can engage with them, you can manage them.
And that's how you're practicing at least the first two domains of emotional intelligence, of self-awareness and self-management.
I see my emotions.
I'm happy because X, Y, and Z. I'm angry because this happened.
I'm frustrated or I'm sad, because you know so, we're being aware, we're assessing where it came from and then we're hopefully now being able to address the situation in the right way.
So when we're learning about our emotional narratives, we want to practice those three A's of being aware of our own narrative, assessing what came about, like why is it this way?
This is not to blame your parents.
Dad, this is your fault that I don't, you know, I don't cry in front of my wife or whatever.
But even to take a moment and practice that empathy, that social awareness, piece of like.
Well, why did my dad raise me this way?
You know, being Caribbean children, we understand that life was different.
We understand there's a cultural component there.
And that's not to excuse them, but it helps you to understand there is a reason why.
And after you've assessed that, then you can go, okay, well, how do I want to address this?
What action can I put forward that will serve me and ideally other people well?
So it's just taking the moment to practice the pause and just ask yourself, what is my story?
This is great.
I love EQ.
I could talk about this all day.
I know.
I could, too.
And my listeners are like, yeah, Kwame, we know.
We've been here before.
We've been here before.
Right.
And so I can hear the very business driven people in the audience like when are you going to get to the negotiation stuff?
OK, let's get to the negotiation stuff.
So let's let's paint this picture.
What happens? if you do not have a high EQ in a difficult conversation, what is the risk?
Several things could happen depending on what emotion is coming up for you.
So if you aren't practicing your EQ to regulate yourself or, as the wise words of Ice Cube, check yourself before you wreck yourself you can run the risk of losing whatever it is that you're trying to gain in the negotiation.
So if you're leading with anger, no one wants to negotiate with a hothead.
No one wants to negotiate with someone that doesn't seem like they have it together, especially if you're trying to create a contract, to form a relationship.
So it's not a one-time, one and done, like you're just trying to bargain a car.
If it's a long-term relationship, someone goes ah, this is how you're going to deal with this negotiation.
I may not want to work with you going forward.
If it's anxiety that you can't regulate, then you may try to opt out of the.
You know, you know better than me.
Negotiation sometimes could take some time, right?
It's not just always a one-time conversation.
But if anxiety or fear is something that you don't regulate, then you might opt out before you actually even get to what it is that you want.
You know you might misread um and anger can do this too the other person's words or facial expressions, because you're in fight or flight mode.
So learning how to use your eq and regulate yourself and manage your emotions allows you to pace the negotiation much better.
So you're not so quick to exit and you're not also so quick to to burn a bridge um, but it allows you to um even to notice what's happening with the your counterpart.
Are they getting angry?
Is there time for you to maybe have a well-timed joke?
You know, to bring some levity to the situation?
Um, are they nervous and if so, what can you say that could assure them and can bring some type of of um calm to the situation?
So it's not just you know, you being able to check yourself, but it allows you to also be able to check the other person.
If they're, you know, losing it and they're getting out of control, that you can say hey, you know, maybe we need a brief recess.
Maybe we need to take a break.
We'll come back to this, you know, after we've cooled down a bit, because you want ideally, a good negotiation.
Both parties walk away feeling content.
You know that they feel like they did.
They may have had to compromise on some things, but at the end they got what they wanted.
And so if we don't allow ourselves to really manage our feelings well, we can end up losing.
You know, we may get the job this one time but may lose, you know, future opportunities with this company or this person.
Or, if it's anxiety, we may get a worse deal than what we really wanted because we were operating out of fear.
Yeah, I love this.
So essentially, it has a negative impact on our performance i mean yes long story short that's that's really what it comes down to because our emotions will have an impact on our words our actions our decision making our perception of the situation and the other person our analysis of ourselves and the other person we're going to make worse reads we're going to perform at a lower level and the what you said about the pacing is really interesting because you think about um a like a car for instance a um like imagine if you are driving really fast and you're redlining your car um i of course this is something i've never done i've i always drive the speed limit but hypothetically hypothetically hypothetically let's say you are Growing up in a small town, let's say Tiffin, Ohio, and you're on a country road and nobody else is there and you are 16 and you want to play with your car.
And I loved how you can picture this so quickly in your mind.
I know I'm a storyteller.
Yes, you are.
And so what we do then is you floor it and you see how long you can do it.
And then, after a couple of minutes, your car turns off and you're like my parents are going to kill me.
Caribbean American parents operate differently.
They have a different set of laws and I'm going to die today.
And that's that's just.
That's kind of like how your brain works too, because if you are redlining emotionally for too long a period of time, then you are eventually going to get tired.
Just think about when it comes to willpower.
Willpower is like a muscle, right?
We have decision making fatigue.
All of those types of things is going to impact how long you can stay in the conversation.
When I'm thinking about my mediations.
I mean, some of these mediations could be like three and a half hours long.
You have to be able to stay focused.
And if you're allowing yourself to burn too hot emotionally and you're not managing yourself and pacing yourself, then your brain slowly starts to get tired and then you make worse reads, you make poor decisions, and then you cannot last long enough to be effective.
Toward the end of the conversation.
Because if you're effective for 90 of the conversation, then your brain starts to fail for the last 10, when you're supposed to be making a decision.
I mean, it's almost like the other 90% doesn't matter.
So I really like that injection of pacing into the conversation too.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love that you pretty much broke down the neuroscience of what happens to our brains when we're processing emotion or when we're dealing in stressful situations, right.
Because our prefrontal cortex, which is like in the front of your, I would say like right in the middle of your forehead, you know, if we wanted to place it there, it's the boss of our brain.
It's the rational, logical decision-making area.
And it takes a lot of energy to use that.
So our amygdala, which is like in the middle of our brain, is what houses all of our emotions.
Our brainstem is where our fight, flight, or freeze kicks in.
And those two parts love to talk and hijack the brain a lot.
And so when we're pacing or practicing the pause, you know taking those deep breaths, those calculated deep breaths, you know counting to 10.
You know sometimes I tease some of y'all need to count to 100.
You know it allows that oxygen and the blood to flow, so that you know you're moving from, like the low brain to your high brain.
And that's what we want.
We want to go from low emotional intelligence to high emotional intelligence.
We don't want our brain brain to be hijacked by our limbic system, where we're just letting all of that, you know, raw emotion come through without asking ourselves well why, when Kwame said this, it triggered this, this anxiety, or why is this making me upset and you have to pace yourself so you can ask yourself the real question.
Oh, when he said it in that tone, it reminded me of this, You know, and I remember the other time where I felt like I was not being heard and that's what's coming up.
So let me pause for a second and then say something that will help me advocate for myself, going like Hey, call me.
Let's slow down a second.
You know, you're talking over me.
Can you give me a moment? instead of going, oh my gosh, you know, you're not listening.
I'm done.
Or you start shutting down.
You know you may not say anything, but you just start shutting down and you're not listening to what the other person says.
So really understanding how our brain is even processing the emotions and what the brain needs to process and pace well is so important.
So that pacing, that taking the deep breath, you know, practicing the pause is so needed for, like you said it's, You know, sometimes it could be a long marathon of a mediation.
You want to pace yourself well because, like you said, if you ran great for 90 percent but you don't cross the finish line, like people like why did we come here?
Like what was giving you the water and cheering you on?
Like, can you can you run this last mile?
So you want to pace yourself well so you can make it across the finish line.
The new year always reminds me of the moment that changed my life.
Growing up as a first generation Caribbean American in small town Ohio, I learned early what it felt like to be left out.
That fear of rejection pushed me to become a people pleaser, someone who avoided conflict and said yes when I should have said no.
But everything shifted when I discovered negotiation, because I realized that confidence isn't something you're born with.
It's a skill that you build.
And that belief is what eventually led me to start the American Negotiation Institute.
And here's why I'm telling you this.
A lot of people are walking into the new year with an idea that they've been sitting on for a while, something they know they could build but haven't acted on yet.
The new year isn't magic.
It just gives you permission to start.
If that's you, 2026 is a great year to stop overthinking and start building.
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Yes.
Well said.
I love this.
It's so helpful.
And especially the advice of slowing down and counting.
And I think people, it's really helpful to understand the psychology behind that because we could say oh, you know, I've heard this so many times.
It becomes almost like a truism.
It's too trite.
Right.
And you just become, you know, numb to that advice.
But it's really, it's the easiest way to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system, where you're actually slowing it down right.
It's just that simple, taking that deep breath.
And what I found also is that a lot of times people are afraid of showing whether or not they are feeling something.
I am not afraid to let people know if I'm feeling something, if I'm frustrated mad those type of things.
I'm not going to flip tables, but you'll see that like, okay.
I said something and usually Kwame responds pretty quickly.
But now he's taking five seconds, like five or so seconds.
He took a couple of deep breaths and slowed down before saying the next thing.
And so what I've realized is that I used to thought that was a weakness.
I didn't want to show any type of that I was affected in any way.
But now I realize that it is really a strength because it shows that you are controlling the moment.
You're controlling yourself.
And a lot of times we have to remember this important thing.
A lot of times we have these underhanded negotiation tactics where you might be dealing with a bully, somebody who is not negotiating in good faith.
And a major part of the success of those underhanded negotiation tactics are contingent upon you making a bad decision in the moment due to emotional pressure.
And if you can demonstrate to the person that, no matter what you do, I'm not going to make a bad decision because of emotional pressure, then you diffuse a lot of the negativity and bad behavior that could come your way.
That's good.
That's good.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, that is, that is so key.
And I think And I know you've mentioned this probably several times on this podcast that it's not just in the boardroom that we're having conversations about negotiations.
It's with our toddlers.
It's with our, you know, friends.
It's with our partners.
And you know when we talk about slowing ourselves down.
So I'm speaking to the parents out there that have had experiences with toddlers and we're watching them like, lose it And it's going to escalate if we don't slow ourselves down.
And if we're not calm and if we're not creating this kind of like baseline for them to see us modeling ourselves walking our dog, quote unquote.
You know managing our emotions well.
But I think that you know what you said is so important, because if I'm the other person that's trying to aggravate you and agitate you and you're like yeah, I'm going to breathe through this because I see what you're doing, it throws them off their game.
And you know, and again, if you're trying to come out of this, well you know it's not like I'm not trying to say we want them to fail, but we want us to be working on a mutual playing field.
You know like okay, stop playing these games.
I see what you're doing.
Let's slow down together and actually talk about what we're here to talk about.
And I think that's the hope is, when you're practicing high emotional intelligence, that it will be something that will be contagious.
And the other person decides, OK, you know, let's let's do this together.
Exactly.
And again, it goes to one of the things I talk about called conversational leadership.
So it's not just that I want to have an effective negotiation.
I think about it in terms of me coaching the other person through my behavior on how you should act.
Right.
You see this.
I'm upset.
I'm clearly upset.
You can tell because I took a deep breath, but I didn't eviscerate you.
You deserve it.
You know, you do.
But I didn't do that.
But I won't.
Right.
But I won't do it.
And I expect the same thing in return.
Right.
And so it's constantly taking advantage of these opportunities to not just lead yourself emotionally in these conversations, but also to demonstrate how you should, you can and should carry yourself in a conversation to the other person.
You're right.
It is contagious and they might not consciously realize.
Oh yeah, i like the way that farah handled that.
I should do that too.
They're just realizing we're, we are collectively creating a culture for our little bubble of a conversation.
Yes oh, i like that little bubble.
We are we.
That's not what we do.
We yeah, we keep our cool.
Yeah oh, that's good Yeah.
You know, one of the things that's really frustrating Farah, you'll see this, when it comes to writing a book is the book has to end, but your growth never ends.
And so one of the most frustrating things is coming up with these cool concepts and terms.
And I'm like, why is that not in the book?
But that's because it's for the next book.
Exactly.
It's for the next book.
And I think that's the exciting thing, because what that lets us know is And I think this is also why people continue to enjoy your content is that you remain a student in what you teach.
You know, and I think great leaders stay studious, stay wanting to, to learn more.
And also, you know, because you still want to stay a few steps ahead of those that you're teaching.
And so, too, there's no. final destination in all that you're learning.
There's going to be new things that get downloaded into you, where you're just like oh, that's brilliant.
Why wasn't this in the book?
Because it's for the next one.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And this is a perfect segue for you to shout out your book again before it comes out.
Let's prime the pump a little bit and also let the listeners know about how they can get in touch with you as well.
Yeah, so again, the book is the color of emotional intelligence um, and it will be coming out in 2023.
If you are interested in joining my pre-launch group so you can get behind the scenes, you know details and everything as i make my way through publishing and launching, you can go to workingwelldailycom books.
If you want to follow me, which you should on LinkedIn and on Instagram and Twitter, I'm at FarahHarrisLCPC.
And if you want to learn more about the work that I do for organizations and individuals and leaders, you can visit WorkingWellDailycom.
Love it.
Farah, thanks so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
It's been a pleasure.
That was the first part of today's masterclass.
Up.
Next we'll hear from another expert with a different approach, giving you even more strategies to add to your toolkit.
Let's keep it rolling.
Courtney, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, it's our pleasure.
So how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
All right, my name is Courtney Kelly.
I have two first names, so some people call me Kelly.
Completely okay if you do.
I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and I currently reside in Dallas, Texas.
And I decided to become a civil engineer, which ultimately led me to studying civil engineering at SMU.
And I have a degree in civil engineering and math in undergrad, a master's degree in civil engineering and I recently finished my MBA from Lamar University down in Beaumont Texas.
So that's a bit about my education.
What do I do now?
A couple of things.
First thing is I am a construction project manager.
So I've been working on what's deemed heavy civil construction projects for the past 10 years.
And those include things such as airports, roads, bridges and underground utilities.
So all of the things that a society needs in order to thrive right where we are today.
You drove on someone's road that was paved.
There's probably utilities underneath it.
And a lot of those things, you don't want them to break or fail.
So that's what I focused on for the first 10 years of my career.
And most recently, I've switched to what's considered commercial construction.
My first project was actually at my alma mater at SMU, and it was the renovation of a 95-year-old residence hall which I happen to have moved in.
First started at SMU.
So it was like an episode of Fix This Old House.
Most recently, I'm at another university, Texas Women's University, up in Denton Texas, doing some renovation projects on that campus as well.
So that's a little bit about my official career.
I have a couple of side things that I do, one of which I'm super proud of.
I recently became an author with the publishing of Celeste Saves the City.
It's a children's book about a little girl named Celeste who grows up in New Orleans and has to evacuate because of Katrina.
Sounds familiar?
Yeah, it's my story.
So I just like Celeste.
Celeste ends up growing up to become a civil engineer and And she saves the city from flooding by restoring the wetlands along the coast of Louisiana.
So that's my author wing.
I also bake treats for rabbits.
I'll say that again because people usually don't like catch it the first time, but I bake treats for rabbits.
So I have a little bunny.
His name is Albus, A-L-B-U-S, like Albus Dumbledore.
And I sell treats to other bunnies and their bunny parents.
That is impressive.
My goodness, you have a lot of things going on and everything that you do is at such a high level.
And so let's continue to set the stage Courtney, because with your incredibly diverse background not just with the engineering and the project management, but also your entrepreneurial wing you're having difficult conversations all the time.
Can you tell us what those difficult conversations look like in the construction world that you're having?
Yeah, so construction is a very high-paced environment.
You have a lot of different stakeholders, right?
You have the person as the owner who will ultimately inherit the facility as you're building.
You have subcontractors.
You have your own internal folks.
And there's a lot of conflict that occurs there.
A lot of times we're dealing with situations where someone has designed something on a sheet of paper and we go out in the field and we try to build it and it doesn't necessarily jive with what's on a paper.
And so we have conflicts about constructability and who's responsible for resolving that conflict.
There are a lot of conversations about money, right?
A lot of construction companies, most of the ones that I know are for profit organization.
So everything that happens has to get paid by someone.
You're either going to eat the money yourself and kind of take the loss, or you're going to try to get that paid by the owner.
So sometimes those conversations can be pretty tricky because the owner is like look, I only have, you know, 500000 to pay for this.
And we're like, well, it's going to cost $750,000.
Like, what are we going to do about it?
So you have to use different tactics and strategies to get everyone on the same page and to really get to a point where there's a kind of win-win situation, because you don't know what the status of the projects, you don't know what's going to come next in the future.
So a part of it too, is building relationships across the board to ensure that, when those conflicts arise, You can walk away from them.
And when you get into the next arena with that same person, they aren't looking at you like man.
I really don't want to deal with that person again.
And let me just go to the next person.
This is great.
And there are a lot of gems that you had in your response there.
But I want to really zoom in on this. because the sequencing is important.
Because you said we want to make sure that we're building relationships so that when the conflicts arise and those are inevitable we have a good relationship.
That's a foundation.
Because I think a lot of times what ends up happening is that conflict arises and then you say, oh yeah, I'm supposed to build relationships and build rapport and things like that.
And we try to do it when the conflict has already arisen.
But what you're saying is like, this is essentially a prophylactic measure.
Beforehand, we're really focusing on the conversation, on the relationship with the other side.
Can you paint a picture of what that looks like for you?
Yeah.
So it actually starts in construction well before we ever went on projects.
We're trying to build relationships with all of those future stakeholders when there really isn't anything that either party is necessarily going to get out of it immediately, right?
There isn't like an immediate return on this investment.
So that starts with just trying to get to know people on a very personal level and what we like to consider deep relationships.
So not just on someone's name or where they're from, but knowing about their family, knowing about their likes and dislikes, actually like trying to become friends with them.
Because you guys know, if you're friends with someone it's harder, it's it's easier to get through some of those harder times together than it is with a stranger.
Right, and if you you're talking to a stranger, it might be easier for you to say later like hey well, i don't really care about this person because i don't really know this person.
So we start off with the intent that i'm gonna develop a relationship with whoever it may be and um, start working on that from the get-go So that by the time we actually get to the point where we're signing the contracts great, everybody's celebrating.
And then like a week later, they're like, oh, you guys are behind schedule.
You know, nobody's throwing up their hands.
It's like, oh, you're behind schedule.
But I know that you'll get us to the finish line.
So I'm not worried about it because we already have a relationship established.
And I trust you and I trust that you're going to treat me with respect and you're not going to do anything that's disingenuous.
This is just a hiccup and we're going to be OK at the end of it.
Yeah, that's great.
And really the key word there is trust, because the more trust you have in the relationship, the more resilient it is in the face of conflict.
And there is no real magic behind it.
The magic is just psychology.
It's just repeated positive interactions with the other person. and how do you like what is the main thing we're trying to show it's we're just trying to show that we care like that's all friendship is it's two people who care about each other and that's that's really it and when you just say i'm trying to become their friend by caring about the things that they care about they have a family they care about that let's talk about it Right.
You have interests.
You have hobbies.
That's something you care about.
I care about it, too.
Let's talk about it.
It's really that simple.
And I think the one of the keys is recognizing that you have to make that investment even when there is nothing transactionally that you can benefit in that moment, because I think that makes it clear that it's a bit more genuine too.
Yeah, that's totally it.
Yeah, this is great.
And one of the things that you mentioned, one of the revelations that you had with these conflicts, is that they're often a lot easier than you anticipated.
Can you tell the listeners about that?
Yeah, I think, especially early in my career I didn't really get it or understand it to be the same way that I do now.
And I thought that everything had to be a battle.
Like, all right, we're going to war.
Like, let's get our ammo and like prepare in advance, you know. it may be.
But now I'm realizing that if I one assume that it's going to be complex and two go in with the understanding that whoever's on the opposite side of the table, there's something that they're after.
There's something that's motivating their decision-making.
Maybe it's their supervisor is hounding them for a certain deliverable.
Maybe it's.
They really don't have the money and they're not going to tell you that, but they're just going to keep arguing and challenging you.
The quicker that I was able to and the quicker that I am able to figure out what is the motivating factor behind their decision making and behind the demeanor at which they're handling the situation, the quicker I can realize how I need to pivot, how I need to change my strategy.
Maybe I've been saying, well, you know, I need this money for this.
And instead I need to say you know I need this money, but let's work together through this to figure out how can we make this happen.
So really trying to put myself in their shoes and see it through their eyes.
And then, knowing that information, what resources do I have between me and my team to kind of come to the table at a place where they can go back to their supervisor and be like look, this is the situation.
They're working on it.
Here's how they've helped me get to a yes.
And then it makes everybody look And it starts with that mindset shift because, like you said at the beginning, you were saying, all right, we're going to war.
That's what it's about.
You have that really that combative mindset.
And that's just called being a human.
That's how we are kind of designed to think just psychologically.
That's how we think about it.
And then sociologically, too, when we think about war. how society views conflict.
It's usually, it's a you or me proposition.
I win, you lose.
Those are the options, right?
But then you realize, no, this is a problem solving endeavor.
We can try to make it a win-win by figuring out what it is that you need and what it is that I need, and how those overlap.
And a lot of times if we signed a contract, our interests are aligned.
It just feels like we're against each other when conflict arises.
And so, when it comes to recognizing that and getting into that mindset, how were you actually able to say in your head Courtney, all right, this is the mindset shift I need to make in order to make these strategic changes at the table.
So I try to, read people very well.
And it's a little bit harder to do through email, of course, but especially we can have a face-to-face conversation.
I'm picking up on clues from that person.
Do they get a little bit anxious when I use certain words when we're talking about that specific situation?
Do I hear something from them that they're telling me that I'm not really listening to?
I might be picking out a paint color and it keeps saying well, you know, we really want to stick to the traditional look, but every time that I bring something to the table it's a modern look.
That's me not listening.
That's me not understanding what their motivating factor is.
Again, there may be a reason why they have to make certain decisions.
So I really try to um use emotional intelligence for lack of a better term to uh to get a better understanding of what that person is.
Is uh getting at?
And then um Also, if I don't get the answer or the results that I'm looking for in a timely manner, that's usually kind of a trigger point.
Like, hey, this is not going in the right direction.
Let me figure out.
What do I need to do?
To pivot, to turn the ship around, so that it is going in the right direction.
Now
So that could be I've sent somebody, you know, two emails and they've been really nasty replies.
OK, that's enough time to have a face to face conversation with this person or phone call with this person and get down to the bottom of what's going on.
And we're having we call them OACs, but owner architect contractor meetings.
If I notice that somebody is kind of like snubbing me in an OAC.
All right.
After that meeting, let's go up to them and see, hey, what's going on here?
Is everything OK?
And so part of it is understanding the person.
Part of it is understanding the situation and being more reactive sooner than letting it kind of play out, because usually it's not going to play out in your favor, or it's not going to play out in your favor as well if you don't kind of get to the problem quickly and try to resolve it.
Yes, this is so good because What you're recognizing is that we have to make those pivots as necessary, but you're going to make those pivots based on the read that you're making.
And it's so funny, no matter what industry that we talk about, with negotiation, conflict resolution, human interaction, emotional intelligence is going to be a part of it.
I don't think many people, when they look at the construction industry, they say OK, you know, emotional intelligence that's going to be the separative factor, but it is because we're still all humans.
That's what it comes down to.
And I think it's going to be really easy for people to focus on the scope of work, the money, the time, whether or not we're delivering on time, all of those things, and focus on those like the numbers.
But when it comes down to it, it's still people at the end of the day, and emotional intelligence is really what separates.
So that's just refreshing to hear that in every single industry.
And one of the things that you mentioned is you recognize that at some point you're going to need to adjust your strategy based on the reads that you're getting and then recognize sometimes if things aren't changing in a timely manner.
That's a signal to you.
How do you know what the right time is to make an adjustment?
I mean honestly, this is probably going to sound like I don't know whatever, but I just kind of get a feeling for things.
Like almost like a sixth sense.
It's like, all right, something's not right here or something is not going the way that I need it to go.
It's time to pivot.
And so it's something that I can necessarily tangibly like say OK at this point in time.
In every conversation conflict X Y, Z happens.
It's just I'm talking to someone and I start getting this feeling.
And usually, if I get that into it, I guess I will call it intuitive understanding of something being up or something being amiss.
Then I'm like all right, let's see something about it.
If everything's hunky dory and I'm not getting those like bad vibes and I'll just keep going.
You know the way that things have been going.
But usually I get some type of indication, like things are not going okay.
It's time to do something different.
Love it.
And that was the answer I was hoping you were going to give.
Because I think a lot of people listening would say, okay, what is the sign?
Should I wait three days?
It's 17 hours.
What is the number?
There is no number.
And that's what makes it tricky.
But also that's the thing that should encourage all of you.
There's nothing necessarily special that some expert negotiators have that you don't have where we have these objective metrics to go off of.
A lot of it is intuition and feel.
But what you're hearing from Courtney is that, listen, I feel something, I'm sensing something.
I don't exactly know what it is, but I know that I should do something about it.
The solution is always proactivity.
It's either changing your strategy or just getting curious, asking questions to figure out what is it that's coming from them that's giving you that feeling.
But something needs to be done.
And I think a lot of times.
What ends up happening is we get that feeling and we're like hmm, I'm reading something.
I'm not exactly sure what it is.
I'm going to do nothing about it and kind of let the negotiation happen to me.
Yeah, that usually doesn't work out well, because then something big blows up and it's like man.
If I had done something when I first got that feeling, I probably could have mitigated this situation.
Exactly.
And again it just we have to be proactive.
But it speaks to what it is that we talked about earlier, where you said a lot of times it's a lot easier than you thought it was going to be.
And that's because, as we're seeing in this interview, you're very good at being proactive and addressing things when they're not that big of an issue.
Because?
Because problems grow if you don't attend to them.
So one of the things is we have to jump and take action, even though it might be scary.
But the faster you take action, the more proactive you are, the more manageable the conflict is.
Yep, that's it exactly.
Yeah, no, this is good.
Now you're coming into this field.
It's a very technical field.
You have a lot of experience, but you said you've described yourself as a spotted unicorn in your industry.
Tell the listeners about that.
Yes, I call myself a spotted unicorn because I'm a black woman and there just aren't that many of us in the work that I do.
And you look at statistics and the statistics, I think, paint a rosier picture because a lot of the black women they're in administrative roles and we really need those people.
They're really the lifeblood of the construction projects and keep everyone going.
But where there is a severe lack is in Black women in the operations side of things, doing what I do.
Actually on the job sites, boots on the ground, managing the construction activities.
So usually there'll be times that I go in a room and people thought that they were in the wrong meeting because I was sitting at the table.
So I kind of started calling myself the spotty unicorn, because I was usually the only Black person in the room.
If there was another Black person in the room, I was the only female and vice versa.
If there was another woman in the room, I was still the only Black woman.
And so I just selectively called myself the spotted unicorn ever since I started thinking about it that way.
Yeah, for me coming as a Black man in this industry too, I can definitely empathize with how you're feeling in that situation.
And I think one of the most encouraging things is the fact that you were able to overcome that barrier.
You're still able to be successful.
And now I like thinking about it from the internal side first, from the inside out.
Now.
A lot of times people can find themselves in the situation where they're the only person who looks like them.
They only have the.
They're the only person with these like this background, whatever it happens to be whatever, whatever reason you feel othered.
And then that almost operates as like a self-fulfilling prophecy or a self-defeating prophecy, prophecy where we just kind of say oh, I'm the only person here.
People will not accept me.
They will not take me seriously.
And then, as a result, we don't shoot our shots or we do say what we wanted to, what we want to say, but we don't say it with confidence.
So we're less effective and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So internally for you, how were you able to say yes, I'm.
I'm the only person who looks like me in this room, but I still belong and I'm still going to stand up and advocate for myself and say what needs to be said.
I think I answered it two ways.
So ever since I was little as young as I can remember, my parents told me that I'd be the first black president of America.
So Barack Obama beat me to it, but that's okay.
So I kind of came up with this mindset that whatever room I walk into that's my territory, that there's nothing, no door that can kind of be kept closed for me.
And I really try to live into that.
Also, I think that I've been strategically positioned to be where I am, to be this person that is going to go before and open up the doors wider for those who come after me and for those who are here with me right now.
And so, for instance, I went to SMU for college.
I remember looking at a book of America's most competitive colleges.
I think it was 100 most competitive colleges in SMU at that time.
The black population, I think, was only 500 students. out of, I think, 11,000 students.
So I went into that environment knowing that I'd probably be the only Black person in some of my classes, especially going into engineering.
I would probably be one of the very few women.
And those spaces really prepared me for what I'm doing right now.
So I can confidently go into any room and be the only, fill in a blank.
And I feel completely confident in myself and my abilities And I don't really look for acceptance from other people.
I know my calling.
I know who I am and how I've gotten to where I am.
And I also have a huge support system.
So when negative things do happen in that space, I know that there are people who are still going to back me up and support me and keep me motivated to move forward.
Oh, this is so good.
I'm taking so many notes here.
This is really good.
So first, like you said, any room you go into, that's your territory.
Essentially, you're saying I belong, i belong wherever i happen to be, i belong there, and so there's not a question for you in that situation.
So that's a source of confidence.
And then the next one is you have purpose because you're going into these meetings with obviously, the the professional goal, but also you recognize that your success paves the way for the success of other people, So it's bigger than you.
It's not just you going in for yourself.
It's you recognizing that your success leads to the success of others.
And so that propels you as well.
And I love that last part that you said, where you said you're not looking for acceptance from other people.
And what's really interesting is counterintuitively is that when you have that level of confidence, when you have that level of swag where you don't need the acceptance from other people, that is attractive.
That is alluring because people recognize most people don't have that.
And so what is it about this Courtney Kelly person that makes her so confident in herself?
That's really interesting.
So it's a level of security that most people don't have and that draws people to you.
So, even though you're not looking for acceptance, it makes it more likely for you to find acceptance because you've already accepted yourself first, and other people follow suit when they see you have that level of confidence too.
Yeah.
And I also, I'll add to that, sometimes people don't really want to accept me, right?
I'll go into a meeting and they don't want to make eye contact.
They kind of don't want to listen to my opinion.
Those people eventually come around.
It may take some time, but eventually they come around.
So, before you know, I might go in and be like that person's not really feeling me, like this is going to be a problem.
Now I'm like, you know what?
Let them keep doing whatever they're doing.
Like eventually they'll realize and they'll recognize and everybody will be on the same page.
So.
It's kind of like, just to show this off a moment, like it'll be all right in the end.
Absolutely.
And there's the thing too, because I think a lot of times we can create these narratives that might not even be true, right.
Because the person might just be standoffish in general.
They might be slow to warm in general.
But I think, a lot of time.
If you have a history of being othered, whether it's race gender, whatever it happens to be, our minds automatically go to oh, it's because I'm black.
Oh, it's because I'm a woman or something like that.
It might be.
It might not be.
They might be having a bad day.
But the thing, the reality is just going way back to what we were talking about before, when we were talking about relationship building.
It takes time.
The more positive interactions you have with people, the more trust you have and the more they like you.
Then they become your friends.
Different people have a different length of time that it takes for them to warm up.
And so whatever the barrier is, it might be a bias.
It might be skepticism.
They might be having a A stomachache that day?
We don't know.
It's okay.
But you read the room, you say okay, they're not making eye contact with me the same way they're making eye contact with other people.
I don't know what that is, but it is a data point that I have logged.
Great.
So my relationship building approach is going to be slightly different with this person versus that person, because this other person is already more engaged.
So I'll engage with them a different way.
Right.
And so again it goes back to emotional intelligence reading the room, but being persistent and confident in yourself.
And you can overcome that barrier regardless of what it is.
Yep.
I love it.
No, this is great.
This is great.
Well, listen, we are right about time at time at this point.
But before you go, I want you to remind the listeners about your book and some of the exciting things you're working on and how they can get in touch with you.
Yeah.
So my book is Celeste Saves the City.
It was actually just translated into French and German.
So that's available now.
It will soon be available in Spanish.
I'm almost at a thousand copies sold, so super excited about that.
As a self-published author, that's like a huge accomplishment.
So you can find the book anywhere.
The books are sold as well as on my website, wwwcourtneykellybookscom.
Also on Instagram and Facebook at Courtney Kelly Books.
Perfect.
Courtney, really appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
You've just heard one powerful perspective and now we're moving on to the next.
A fresh voice with a new angle on the same challenge so you can keep expanding your skills.
Let's dive in.
Well, I'm A. Good to see you, man.
You too.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well.
How's your Tuesday going?
Good.
Good, good, good, good, good.
I'm coming to the end of my day here.
And what time is it where you are?
One.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm winding down and you're kind of still cranking up.
Yeah, exactly, man.
I'm hitting my peak, you know.
Yeah, this is good.
I have a couple more.
I think one more podcast, another meeting and then my son's soccer game.
So that'll be fun.
Yeah.
So this is great, man.
I'm glad we're able to connect.
I appreciate you accepting the invite.
Listen, I mean, you've been on my radar for years.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I've just been following you and, you know, watching your superlative rise to stardom.
And yeah, it's great.
I mean, I like what you do and I like the reason you do it as well.
So thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was honored to accept.
That's great.
The small world.
That means a lot to me.
I appreciate it.
It's been fun growing.
And one of the things I say is that, with this platform we've created, the goal is to introduce the world to the greatest thinkers in the field.
And one of the things that makes people really good at conflict resolution and negotiation is humility, and that same humility aspect of what makes them great in that field also makes it tough for them to self-promote and market.
And so I say, all right, let me build this platform and then just be as generous as possible and help people get out there.
When I saw your work, I was like, okay, this is a voice I definitely want my folks to hear from.
I really appreciate that.
And you're quite right.
I'm the worst self-promoter out there.
I'm quite a private guy anyway.
I mean, this is maybe the first, possibly the second podcast in my life I've done.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah, it's tough, man.
I know for me, I was in the same boat for a long time.
And Just people around me encouraged me to flip the switch.
I said, okay, cool.
I'll try it out.
And I was kind of scared when people started to respond because I was giving always doing really technical posts.
And they're like, hey, the advice you're giving is good, but I'm not seeing much Kwame in there.
Like the personality.
I was like, nobody wants to see that.
And so I was like, okay, fine.
I'll try this vulnerable thing and show a little bit more of myself.
I was like, oh no, it's working.
And you put your family there, your kids, your wife and it really shows you as a person what your values shine through.
So, yeah.
And also the thing with, for me, with negotiation.
The reason the whole field of negotiation was so interesting to me is this idea of the way egos just have this pernicious way of seeping into conversations conflicts.
And but on paper, a negotiation should be fun, right?
They should be creative pursuits on paper.
But for some reason, you know, when I do my trainings and people hear negotiation, you can see their backs get up.
They just and people say, no, no, I hate negotiating.
Yeah.
And I'm like you, I'd like to change people's perception of what a negotiation really is, right?
What it looks like and how fun great negotiations can be.
I love that.
I love it.
I love it.
I think, and the thing is when people finally get a hold of that and they understand what it could be.
It doesn't need to be scary or anything or aggressive or anything like that.
Then they're like oh, what have I?
What have I been?
I've been doing my whole life, but there was so much more to life that I could have taken advantage of.
But it's just great to see that click in their heads and then they start to just roll with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
So how'd you get into, how'd you find yourself in negotiation originally?
Well, I studied biocomputing at school.
So I'm a scientist actually by trade.
And I majored in human learning.
That was.
I did my thesis on negative and positive reinforcement and the power of this on human learning.
And I'm talking a good few years ago, Kwame.
I've been around the shack a few times.
So it's a good few years ago when I was at uni.
I just remember that whole the thesis and this whole idea of what goes on in between our ears just fascinated me.
So I kind of, I've been into this kind of stuff way before it became really popular.
I was into personal development and reading books around what was the first person...
Obviously, you know, get Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
That book kind of threw the gauntlet down to me about relationships and how, using good communication, you can literally build a corridor for yourself, human interaction and almost build shortcuts to successful outcomes.
So i had this as a hypothesis for many, many years.
I got into sales, got into marketing, set up a few businesses, but in the back of my mind i'd always had this desire to want to really go deep and learn the ins and outs of communication, articulating one's thoughts, one's feelings in a skillful way to build better outcomes.
So i found myself always gravitating towards roles where i was training people, And it wasn't until so.
I'm from, I'm originally from London, but I'm now living in Barcelona.
And when I moved to Barcelona, I began working, after doing a few bits and pieces, but I began working in coaching.
So I did a coaching course where I did leadership coaching and I gravitated towards working with leaders and helping them build teams, articulate their ideas successfully, communicate them in an effective way.
I teach at a business school.
I teach corporate communication skills at a business school based in Barcelona.
And as part of my communication interest, I just became drawn to what happens when two people who are mild-mannered sit around a table and you give them a topic to negotiate and suddenly the old Neanderthal comes out and they start battling with each other.
How does that happen, right?
I mean, what's the process that goes on?
And can that process be broken down?
And is there a way we can hack that process and turn these potentially conflictive situations and conversations into beautiful conversations?
And that's kind of really what sparked my interest.
Oh, my gosh.
This is good.
Listen, man, I already started taking notes and everything.
I feel like this conversation already.
This could just be a really super organic intro to the episode, because we're just flowing now.
If you're cool, I don't want to break this momentum you've got.
You cool just making this the intro and just flowing into it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I actually said to your assistant I said Kwame is the guy that I would love to be caught with on a 12-hour nonstop flight, because you and I would literally just start and we wouldn't stop.
And you know, when you look up and you've landed and you think dude, we've just been talking for 12 hours flat.
That's the kind of guy I feel you are.
I appreciate it.
Listen, man, I'm feeling it too.
This is perfect because yeah, we look at the world in a very similar type of way.
And it's so cool to see your growth and trajectory and how even though at the beginning, when you're probably going through it, it might not have been clear how everything was connected.
But now, looking back, we can see it started with the psychology, then actually putting it into action with the sales and everything like that, then gravitating toward coaching and teaching.
And now here we are putting it all together in the negotiation field.
I think that's brilliant.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's one caveat as well.
There's one other real key part to this for me.
You know, when Simon Sinek came out with his why why, starting with why kind of thing, I remember I did an exercise, just really wanting to understand.
Is this the path for me, right?
Am I going to nail this flag to the mast and dedicate the rest of my life to negotiation and making it a democratic pursuit where everyone negotiates, not just executives around a business table?
So I sat with my wife and went for a coffee and I said to her listen, I need you to ask me two questions.
I need you to ask me, what do I do and why do I do it?
And when I answer, I need you just to keep asking me why.
Just keep going.
Don't stop.
Just keep asking me why.
Give me the space to think.
Don't jump in and answer my question for me, or don't fidget to make me feel uncomfortable with the silence.
Just ask me why.
Just keep going.
Keep going.
And so we went for a coffee and we started talking and she just kept asking, why, why, why?
Why do you want to do this?
And well, because I want to help you.
And what does that give you?
Well, it just makes me feel if people can communicate better, we live in a better world.
Yeah, but why?
And we just kept going deeper and deeper.
And we found that when I was five years old.
My sister died and I stuttered as a child.
So I really couldn't communicate well at all.
If you'd met me at 10 years old, I was a stutterer.
I couldn't speak.
I was very, very shy, kept myself to myself.
So I was totally misunderstood as a child.
And so when Brenda died, I remember no one told me.
Just came home from school one day and there was no.
You know, everyone was crying in the house, but nobody ever told me.
And they assumed that because I couldn't speak that I didn't know or I didn't care.
And I just remember that heartache that I felt that I just couldn't express the pain I was feeling.
And so my why of why I dedicate myself to this pursuit is I always feel I'm giving that five-year-old Tony a second chance.
I think that had I had access to the ability to be able to communicate challenging conversations, challenging topics and not be afraid, had I had the tools to do so, it would have saved me a lot of heartache in my teenage years.
And so it's no accident that today that's what I dedicate myself to.
That's incredible.
First of all, thank you for sharing that story.
I mean for the listeners.
I bet it's hard for them to.
It would be impossible for them to listen and not feel something.
And feel something for the young version of yourself, but also feel something inside of themselves.
Because I think everybody can relate to the feeling of not being understood or not feeling heard.
And so really, Tony, this is your superhero origin story.
And now what your superpower is giving?
The superpower of communication.
Communication to people all around the world.
That's incredible.
Yeah, yeah, definitely could say that.
And that also helped me get over the lack of desire to want to kind of self-promote and talk about myself.
It's probably why I'm on your podcast today, because I've been through my journey.
And what I realize is, Kwame, it's not about me, right?
It's absolutely not about me.
It's about the people that I can help.
I had one woman who Send me an email.
And she said, my five-year-old cousin lost her mother and she's gone so quiet.
And, just because of what you've told me, I'm now going to create the space for her to have the conversation with the people around her.
And just hearing stuff like that, you think, well, you know, Tony, it's not about you, right?
Who cares about you?
Everyone cares about themselves.
So if I can build that bridge, if I can share my experience and dedicate that to helping other people have those conversations, then I feel that I'm doing my bit.
And also let me just say I decided to do it in the corporate world as opposed to just in the general public, because I have a fundamental belief that the changes we desire in society will come from the private sector.
Leaders who lead companies, leaders who lead teams have to be able to understand this, have to be able to work with this framework skill set to have these challenging conversations, especially now.
And I believe, if we can create companies and create organizations, we have an emotionally intelligent approach to the way we negotiate, the way we talk to each other.
I think that's where the change begins.
That's such a fascinating premise.
I want to go into that too, because tell me if I'm capturing the essential element of this.
So what you're saying is your belief is that If we start, in the corporate sector, teaching people how to resolve conflicts and negotiate with emotional intelligence, the hypothesis is that that same ethos will start to permeate through other areas of society.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I say this because I coach CEOs and I coach C-suite and they might come to me with a challenge.
It might be we have silos in the company and we're trying to kind of break down the silos.
Or it may be a challenge where they feel that members of the team just getting along with each other, and so therefore, the focus is not on being innovative, the focus is on dealing with infighting.
And i sit and i listen and i think this is a communication problem here.
Right, this is a challenge of psychological safety in the company to be able to have difficult conversations, maybe with difficult people about difficult topics.
So if I can help demystify that whole approach and provide frameworks for those kind of exchanges when you create that level of psychological safety, then people can say what they really think.
Yes.
No, this makes so much sense.
Now, when we're talking about it from the C-suite perspective, we're thinking about the bottom line.
We're thinking about organizational efficiency and these types of metrics.
And when it comes to conveying the value of emotional intelligence in these conversations, what barriers do you experience when you're trying to get people bought into the concept fundamentally?
What a great question.
I took the decision from the very get-go that i was going to stick with emotional intelligence as a emotional intelligent negotiation, as my kind of my banner, and it met a lot of resistance and it still does.
People just seem to assume that emotional intelligence means being supplicative or supine and and you know namby-pamby and soft and all that kind of stuff.
For some reason it's just got got that rap.
But when you tag negotiation onto it, it's a bit of a cognitive dissonance.
Well, wait a minute, don't?
You have to be a Gordon Gekko kind of sharpshooter to be able to be a good negotiator.
So where does emotional intelligence come into it?
And so I put it all under the banner of influence.
And if you're looking to influence a situation and I always say if A meets B, there is an outcome which is C, and you can influence what that outcome is.
And if you use emotional intelligence to influence that outcome, then you're moving it to a positive area.
Because emotional intelligence encapsulates the way in which you articulate your idea.
It also encapsulates what you think the other person feels is important and creating an environment where you can both put those down on the table and discuss that.
And as you're discussing that in a negotiation, in a creative fashion, then you can start to look to build some creative outcomes for the future.
And it sounds really easy.
It sounds like simple stuff Kwame, but you and I know everyone has a planet, or they get punched in the face, right.
You know, it sounds great.
Then you get the adrenaline rush.
Everybody goes in and then we default back to what we know or what we've picked up from our parents or from society, saying that this is how we need to be.
The way that you persuade the C-suite to adopt a negotiation mindset that has emotional intelligence is an example of your own emotional intelligence.
Because I think a lot of times people will say, well, this is what the study says.
This is why we have to do it because the science says we should do this.
That's not the issue.
You're recognizing that essentially in some circles, emotional intelligence has a branding issue.
They think that it's soft and ineffective.
But then you say, hey, what is our goal?
We have this goal and we want to have influence over the goal.
This is the path to having that influence.
And when it's clear to them that there is a clear objective and a clear payoff to utilizing the skills.
Now they can see okay, this is what helps me to get the outcome that I want.
I'm not just being soft and emotional.
Right? for no reason.
Yeah, correct.
I'll tell you a story.
I was working with a group of scientists from Germany and the manager of the group said to me I really want to make sure that my team working with emotional intelligence they're learning to influence, because they deal with many stakeholders and they need to be able to influence people where some things are not a priority to their stakeholders, but they're a priority to them.
So how do we create that kind of framework for this level of conversation?
And I said OK, tell me for you, before we do the training, tell me for you what would be an optimum outcome.
And she said I want them to know that emotional, intelligent influence is a must have in this day and age, not a nice to have.
So I said, OK, great.
So I went away.
We prepared the workshop.
And as you can imagine, so there were German scientists.
So they come in and they'd never had this type of training before.
And it was on the screen, emotional intelligence.
I didn't hide it.
Emotionally intelligent negotiation.
It was written on the screen as soon as they walked in.
And I shook every one of their hands as they came in.
And I could feel some people were kind of tepid with their handshakes.
Other people were inquisitive.
And so when everyone sat down, I said, so we haven't said a word to each other and all came in.
And the way in which you greeted me has already told me things about you without even you even knowing.
Some of you shook my hands firmly.
Others of you shook my hand in a kind of wish I didn't want, wish I didn't have to shake your hand.
Other people, you all greeted me in different ways.
And so we're already starting to talk to each other and communicate with each other.
What I want for you is for you to be able to have a level of control and influence over that kind of interaction, because it happens anyway.
And so we did the workshop.
And at the end, this was the sweet thing.
At the end of the workshop, when we were going for the feedback, one of the scientists who was particularly at the beginning he was he said he was particularly skeptical.
He said i was quite skeptical about this because i don't think i didn't think we needed it.
But now that i've done the workshop, i really understand the power of this style of negotiation, not just in business, but this is going to help me with my 15-year-old son.
And my heart just opened up because that's the key.
I want people to see that it's not just negotiating around the business table.
You walk out and you negotiate with your partner, with your children, with the person in your local bakery.
It's always a negotiation.
This story helps to highlight the point that you made before about why it's so powerful to start this in the corporate space, because once you start to adopt it, it becomes obvious that you need to utilize this at home.
And let me go a little bit deeper with this hypothesis.
Tell me if I'm off on this too, because-
If I am having problems at home with my family, my wife, my kids, whatever it happens to be, I might blame them for their behavior or just talk about the circumstances or whatever it happens to be.
But oftentimes we might not take that step to say, I need to improve my skills in this area.
And so there's really nothing compelling me to seek out that type of education.
But if we go through the corporate space, The education is mandatory and you have to do it.
And so it's really the only time we will have their captive attention in that kind of format to where they have to adopt it and incorporate it in a very narrow strategic sense.
And then it becomes very clear, aha, I get it.
This works in other areas of my life.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that's been my experience.
And that's what I hear most when people shop at the workshop, or the feedback I get or The discussions I have, it's always around.
Wait a minute.
This is not just, this is also for.
And also the other thing is you get people in the workplace who say, no, I never negotiate.
I don't like negotiation.
I leave that to other people.
And then after we've engaged, you hear them say, actually, I realize I'm always negotiating.
And I've just been denying myself the opportunity to create better outcomes for myself just because I've been denying it.
And actually, if you look at the word negotiation, right the word negotiation.
If you break it down, nego and then ocio negocio negocio, right.
In Spanish, neg means not, right?
Othio means pleasure.
Negocio means not fun.
So if you look at the derivative of the word negocio, which is business, it means it's not fun.
And so, of course, it's had a bad rap.
And of course, it will continue to have a bad rap because its very derivative came from this sense of an arduous task, something that's just not fun.
That's incredible.
It makes so much sense.
And that's right.
I mean, even when you think about just English, N-E-G, negative, right?
And I'm wondering because you have a background in psychology too, I'm wondering if we kind of implicitly pick up on that and we have these associations because we can think about tough conversations that didn't go well.
Everybody has those stories, but even that implicit level of something that has N-E-G being something negative.
I think that has to be picked up on implicitly to some level too.
Yeah, for sure.
This is learnt behavior, right?
We pick it up.
I haven't done the research into it Kwame, to be honest, and it's probably something I am interested in going a little bit deeper in.
But I'm interested in finding out where do we learn the frameworks for our negotiation as children?
I remember growing up.
I remember seeing so my parents.
I'm of Nigerian heritage And I remember, when I was younger, aunties and uncles coming over from Nigeria.
And I remember going, they have this culture of always negotiating for prices, right?
It's natural.
You go to the market and you're going to get a sack of potatoes and you negotiate the price.
And I remember...
One of my aunties taking me to a Marks and Spencer's, which is like a department store.
And she went and she bought three jumpers.
And you can imagine my embarrassment.
And she went to the counter and she starts trying to negotiate with a checkout girl for three jumpers at a department store.
And the woman was like, no, sorry, madam, that's the price.
And she was trying to negotiate the price.
And I was thinking, oh, my goodness.
So my earliest exposure to negotiation was in these embarrassing situations.
But something must have stuck.
Yeah, that's so fascinating because different countries have different cultures of negotiation.
Right.
And yeah, I mean, my family from the Caribbean, we had those experiences, too.
I'm like, Dad, that's not how it works here.
It doesn't work that way.
And the thing is we're always picking up these, these lessons from childhood, because sometimes it will lead us to lean in and have these conversations.
So, even in those situations where we might have been embarrassed, we're still saying OK, this is what can be done.
There's no harm in trying.
But other times it might be, hey, children are meant to be seen, not heard.
You need to stay quiet.
So you've kind of learned silence throughout life. too.
Maybe you're a bigger kid who is bigger than everybody else.
And so your negotiation style is I'm bigger.
I'm going to take that toy that you want.
And so you adopt a more dominant style because it worked for you.
And so it's interesting to see that a lot of times we just are passively absorbing these methodologies and then they become crystallized in adulthood.
And we don't recognize that there is an opportunity to shift to something that could work better for us in different circumstances.
I definitely agree.
Yeah, this is great.
Well, we've been talking about negotiation and emotional intelligence in negotiation.
So what does that look like for somebody at high levels having difficult conversations, maybe negotiating deals?
What does it look like to be an emotionally intelligent negotiator?
So we start off with what we call the seven principles of emotional, intelligent negotiation, because in the corporate world people need frameworks right.
They need to understand we can't just be something that has an ephemeral sense to it.
It needs to be rooted in some kind of framework.
And so for us, the seven principles are based on observations and hypotheses that we have seen that happen in everyday life.
And one of the key things about for me, teaching emotional intelligence negotiation is it must feel natural to you.
It must be something that you confuse with your natural communicative DNA style.
I don't want it to send you to reference books, to go and do loads and loads of reading where you become really knowledgeable on negotiation, but it doesn't feel natural to you.
So emotional intelligence for me is about taking this and making it part of your DNA.
So when we look at the seven principles, the first principle is based upon observations.
As I said at the very beginning of the conversation, when two people come together to negotiate and there seems to be this sense of combat take place right.
Yeah.
Yes, let's go.
We're going to negotiate.
And you see it in the trainings.
I'm sure you've seen it, right?
When you say, okay, guys, we're going to negotiate.
And they're like, right.
And you can see the alphas rubbing their hands together and kind of looking to see who they're going to take down.
So based on that, First principle is that your counterpart is not your enemy.
We kind of really pin that in.
We make sure we underline that.
And we say that when you don't now, it doesn't mean your counterpart is your friend, but your counterpart is not your enemy.
And if you start from that as a start point, you're opening yourselves up to many different, a different set of outcomes than if you start as your counterpart being your enemy.
So that's the first principle.
The second principle is based upon what we call naive realism or the boomerang effect, right?
So if I tell you, hey, Kwame, listen, you've got to do this.
You've got to do this.
This is a great deal.
This is going to be great for you.
And something inside you just makes you think.
However, Tony seems to be really into this and he doesn't really know me that well.
So I'm going to push back.
There's something about this that I'm just going to push back.
So that's the boomerang effect, right?
The deeper I dig in, the deeper you dig in on your side, on the opposite.
Even if the deal is good, you'll turn around and say, no, I'm not interested.
I don't want to know.
And the other effect is the naive realism, which is where you and I look at exactly the same facts.
But we come up with totally different ideas.
So I think you're crazy, because why wouldn't you come to the same conclusions as me based on this fact?
So the second principle is seek to understand, not to convince.
If I try to convince you, all you're going to do is you're going to put up a wall.
Today, I'm working with a group of entrepreneurs and it's a mixed group.
And we're just about to start.
And somebody sent a message.
One of the people who were organizing sent a message and said hey listen, we've got men and women in this group.
Should we separate them and have a women's only group?
And he put it in the general chat.
And then somebody then said, I don't think it's a good idea.
And then someone else said well, I think it might be a good idea, because here's some information to back up why I think it's a good idea.
And I could see where this was going.
So I immediately contacted him outside of the group and said, look, I can see where this is going.
Both parties are going to dig in and we're not going to get to the actual why of what we're trying to achieve.
So that's seek to understand, not to convince.
The third principle is is based upon when you're negotiating, we have this desire to say right, let's get straight into it.
Let's do the deal.
This is what I want.
And here are a list of the reasons why you should give me what I want.
And we forget about that important step of creating value.
And I've heard you talk about this many, many times, Kwame.
So our third principle is create value before capturing value.
The fourth principle, we're talking about emotional intelligence negotiation.
So it's impossible to have a conversation with somebody without taking into context what role the emotions are playing in this conversation.
So check out how you're feeling.
Check out the way you're feeling, how that might be influencing the situation.
How is the other person feeling?
And how might that be influencing the situation?
There's this beautiful concept that I love.
It's easy to say, but it'd take a lifetime, I'm sure, to work on it.
It's 3D negotiation where, in a negotiation, I am aware of how I feel.
I have an awareness of how Kwame feels.
And in real time, I take myself out as if I'm watching a movie.
And I look down, I look at both of us interacting.
And in real time, I can make adjustments so that we can change the outcome of the conversation.
That takes some real skill.
So that's review the emotional state of the negotiation.
Fifth principle this will mean a lot to you, I know is this is our desire to come in and be really.
Just go for one thing or two things and say that's what I'm negotiating and forget about all the other stuff, leaving real value on the table.
So we say, never become over-invested in one specific outcome.
Principle number six we thought about this for a long time when we were coming up with this one, but it's always leave your counterpart feeling better than you found them.
Even if you don't get the deal, you want to leave them with the sense that they negotiated with somebody who was true, firm and assertive and fair, because those four adjectives may come back to you in the future and allow someone else to negotiate without even knowing your name, just because they know that that's the adjectives that somebody else has used to describe.
So always leave them feeling better than you found them.
And then the last principle is once you've understood one to six, you then know that negotiation opportunities are everywhere.
And once you've gone through these and you really make these part of your DNA, you start looking for these situations.
You start looking and there is where the sweet spot happens, because at that point you lose your fear to negotiate and you flip it and you now look forward to having negotiations.
Oh, this is so good, Tony.
Okay, so first, let me recap this.
Tell me if I got it right.
And then I want to have some fun.
Bye. two, seek to understand, not convince.
Number three, create value before capturing value.
Number four, review the emotional state of the negotiators.
Number five, never become too invested, over-invested in one outcome.
Number six, always leave the counterpart feeling better than you found them.
And number seven, you'll start to recognize negotiation opportunities are everywhere.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
Let's have some fun, because I think what's great is that everybody listening can recognize the value in this.
And I think what's even more that could be, something that could be even more illustrative is that if we consider the inverse, we'll recognize how often we see that.
So number one, counterpart is your enemy.
Whoa.
That all the time.
Right.
And we recognize that leads to a lot of bad deals.
First, I'm in this conversation to convince you.
I don't need to understand you.
You need to understand me.
And then hopefully at the end of the conversation, you'll be as enlightened as me.
And then you'll see that I'm right.
Right.
And then number three, capture value.
Cool.
Cool.
I see what you have.
I'm going to take that.
I'm not going to open myself up, not going to be creative, not going to ask questions.
No, I see what I want.
I'm going to take it.
Number four, I'm not going to consider emotions at all.
Emotions are soft.
There is no point in having emotions in business.
It's about the numbers.
What did the numbers say?
That's what we're going to do.
Forget the emotions.
Number six, I'm going to become incredibly invested in one narrow outcome in this negotiation.
We only have one path to victory, my friend, and it is my way.
And we're just going to bully through it.
And number six, leave the counterpart broken and confused after the interaction, right?
And then I only see negotiations as transactional.
So it's just business, only business, right?
And when we flip it, we can see, my goodness, It's funny, but it's everywhere.
And now we can see very clearly why some of these negotiations go so poorly.
That's so superb.
I've never looked at it like that.
With your permission, I'm going to take that.
Yes, please.
Yeah, yeah.
Somehow I'm going to fuse that into my teachings and learnings.
That's fantastic.
See, this is why I wanted to have these conversations.
For me, this is just beautiful.
This is fantastic.
I love having these conversations, Kwame.
You know when there's something that you really love and you're really passionate about, and then you find somebody else who has an equal passion, or even a greater passion, and has a skill level in a different area that's even greater than your own.
I mean, I just feel like a kid in a candy shop.
And this this is I love these conversations.
Thank you.
Likewise.
I mean, that's why I do it.
I'm always an advocate for more people joining the podcast rank.
So listen, man, I know you could do it if you wanted to.
And also when it comes to the trainings, I did this almost by accident.
I recognized in one of the trainings, it was a virtual training.
There was a little bit of a dip in the energy when I was getting some of the principles.
So I was like, okay, I would ask questions, say, hey, what do you think about this?
Why is this valuable?
Great.
And then I was like, you know what?
I'm not feeling the energy I want to feel.
I was like, all right, everybody, bad ideas only.
I want you to, in this very context of this narrow negotiation example, I want you to give each other the worst advice ever.
What are the wrong things to do here?
And it was hilarious.
Excellent, excellent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just a fun way to mix it up, because it's like okay, I can remember the good things to do, but then it becomes almost like a comical reminder of what not to do.
And then when we stop laughing, then we say, oh, wait a second, I've definitely done that.
Man, no, this is really great, man.
I appreciate this.
I know the listeners are going to get a lot out of this.
So I want to make sure that I give you a really, really clear opportunity to let the listeners know about the name of your company, how they can work with you and how to get in touch.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kwame.
So it's EIN, which stands for Emotional Intelligent Negotiation.
I'm based in Barcelona, but I travel anywhere.
I work with companies who are leadership teams, C-suites.
I work with companies who are looking to build frameworks for having tough conversations within their companies.
I work with leaders who are struggling to articulate their ideas in an effective way to their teams.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm connected on mostly that's probably the best place to find me on LinkedIn.
I'm really not that good at social media.
So, yeah, Instagram is a kind of as a hodgepodge.
And Twitter, I'm not on Twitter, but I think my home base is Instagram with people there.
So if you're interested in getting in contact with me to help work with your teams, help building some frameworks for communicating with each other using emotional intelligence, then I would love the opportunity to work with you.
Tony, this was a masterclass, my friend.
I really appreciate you joining us today.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kwame.
Thank you very much.
