Co-Resolution: The Key to Advancing Your Negotiation Skills with Nathan Witkin

I have some incredible news. My second book, how to have Difficult Conversations About Race, is now the number one new release in its category on Amazon. I'm so excited, so excited for this because we've put a lot of work into it, and this was risky because as a lawyer who's focusing on negotiation and conflict resolution, talking about race seems for many to be outside of the scope of what I usually do. But again, how are we defining negotiation? And we define negotiation as any time you're having a conversation and somebody in the conversation wants something. And as the podcast is titled Negotiate Anything, we can negotiate anything. And in my years of doing all of this work in the professional world, difficult conversations about race is something that comes up over and over and over again in the workplace. And there isn't really a solid resource out there that blends the fundamentals of negotiation and conflict resolution and effective communication with this particular topic. So it's risky. It is risky to venture in this way. But I'm really excited and encouraged by this early result. So this is not just a win for me, this is a win for you too, because you are part of this tribe. And so a quick note about the book. Who did I write this for? I wrote this for the person who was passionate about changing the world and their organizations for the better, the leader who leads a diverse team, and the professional who wants to learn how to overcome the hidden barriers that make it tough to connect with people with a different background. So whether you consider yourself an ally or just want to avoid making a critical mistake when discussing race, this book is for you and for you as a podcast listener, I'm making a direct request. After six years and over 600 episodes of Negotiate Anything, I'm asking for your support in this endeavor to make the world a better place. Our goal of the American Negotiation Institute is to change the world, and this book plays a critical role in in making that happen. And we would love to have your support. We have the links in the description of this episode so you can get your copy of how to have Difficult Conversations About Race. Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one novel negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I. We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations, and we are Passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Nate, thanks for joining us today.

Hey, thank you so much for having me.

It is a pleasure to have you, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us about yourself and what you do.

All right. My name is Nathan Witkin. I'm an attorney and master of public policy. I practiced law of many types for nine years, was a professional mediator, was president of the Ohio Mediation association, and most importantly, I proposed a variety of social innovations, published them in academic journals, and some of my best ideas have been about new ways to. To resolve disputes.

Yes, and that is why we are having you on, my friend. So before we even jump into it, we'll talk about CO resolution and let's just give us a little snippet on what that is.

So CO resolution is the only. It's a cutting edge negotiation process and it's the only negotiation process that fully incentivizes cooperation on both sides. This is cooperation in open openness and honesty. Things that you and I know are the ingredients for the best negotiations, but also things that are very difficult to be able to cultivate in typical negotiations without the structure of CO resolution.

Absolutely. Well, fantastic. Well, so yeah, when we go through this audience, the three things that we're going to focus on. Number one, we're going to go deeper into CO resolution because this is really cool to me. Number two, we're going to talk about how we can use it and then your experience in using it. So telling a few stories there. And then lastly, what lessons can we take from this in our negotiations? Because the majority of people haven't heard of CO resolution and the majority of people haven't been given the opportunity to use it. And so there are going to be some fundamentals that we can pull from this. So even if they don't have the opportunity to use it right now, they can get some of those principles to use it more effectively. So now when we go deeper into what CO resolution is, where I want to start here is the fact that in many ways, and we were talking about this just a Few minutes ago. Negotiation hasn't changed in terms of the way that a lot of thought leaders have been addressing it. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yeah. So negotiation and mediation, arbitration have all been pretty much static for the last several decades, and many of them are kind of created from analogs of the other. So a lot of what we do in mediation is based on the impartiality that you find from judges, even though mediators aren't judges. And one thing that I do in co resolution is I bring out the best that mediators have to offer, but also combine the best of legal advocates so people that sit next to their clients in resolving disputes. And unfortunately, to have a negotiation advocate without CO resolution, you open up the door for a lot of zealous representation and a lot of combative styles and a lot of mistrust. But with co resolution, you have these two coaches that are designed to be cooperative with each other. So it gives the disputants personal help and feedback and support during the negotiation, but it also restrains that help to make sure that it is focused on cooperation and doesn't get into an arms race of competitive behavior.

This is great. This is great because for me, as a. As somebody who has served as a mediator and somebody who currently still practices law, and I have to ethically zealously represent my clients. Right, right. We're absolutely incentivized to approach it in that way, that almost combative way. As much as we try to negotiate collaboratively, just by the way the system is designed, it incentivizes that type of competitive behavior. And so for the listeners out there who are brand new to this, let's walk them through what the structure actually looks like.

Awesome. So I like to describe this in terms of the parts and then the interactions between the parts. So the parts of CO resolution are you have two negotiation coaches that can be called co resolvers within this process. And these two negotiation coaches work together exclusively. They act as one team. They come to the dispute together, they leave together, and each coach helps one of the parties in the negotiation. So if you and I were to be offering co resolution as one of the many things that we do, it would be the Kwame and Nate's co Resolution Service. We'd approach the parties. We say that we're going to help them negotiate, and then we would sit next to them and concentrate on helping. Each one of us would concentrate on helping one of them negotiate and communicate as best as possible. So the interactions between these parts are really where the interesting Aspects come out. So because the two coaches work together on an ongoing basis and intend to work together in the future, that deters them from any unfair negotiation tactics like lying, making bad faith arguments, exaggerating in ways that are unfair. Because the two negotiators know that they're going to be working together in the future, they don't want to pollute their working relationship. And then the second interaction is because this is a negotiation only process, these are only advocates focused on negotiation. That means that one disputant can fire the other side's coach and their own coach simply by walking away, just by walking away from the negotiation. If you feel ganged up on, you just walk away and it ends the entire process. And because of that, each coach needs to focus on making sure their own assigned disputant is as comfortable as possible. And so then the combination of these two things means that each disputant knows that because the other side is getting the assistance of a cooperative negotiator, that they know that the other side's going to do better in the negotiation by listening to their professional negotiation coach. And because of that, you get to know that the other side's best interests are in fully cooperating and not doing anything that would offend the long term relationship between the CO resolvers.

This is fantastic. It's so interesting how you're able to create a framework that addresses some of the most critical issues in conflict resolution in general. Right. And so listeners, again, just a quick synopsis. It's the CO resolvers actually literally work together on a team. And so one is going to be with one party, another is going to be with another party, and then they lead the discussion. And so the question here, just a logistical question, will it be how do these conversations occur? Do you prefer shuttle diplomacy? Is it just the coaches talking to the coaches? Do you have the coaches and the parties, they're talking all at the same time. How does it work?

It's a great question, super question. So the way the process would start is like a typical mediation. So the two coaches come to the parties who are sitting on either side of a table, they sit at the head of the table together, they describe how the process is going to work. And in talking to each other, they kind of mirror or set the tone of how the communication is going to be happening. And then after they describe the process, they each sit, you know, sit next to one of the parties. So they're sitting across from each other now, and they help the parties communicate. And to answer your question, about how does caucusing work? Unlike in mediation where the media has to go back and forth between the parties and leave one side sitting by themselves, which is the part of mediation that people typically do not like, it's the parties like the least. In co resolution, when you caucus, each coach will go off with their own disputant. So the disputants have their coach at their side during the entire process. So you know that your coach isn't revealing information that you told them in confidence because you're with them. You're sitting next to them the entire time when you. And, and so the way that's worked is that because the coaches are focused on making sure their dispute and feels comfortable and they're good at signaling each other because they build that kind of rapport. If you notice as a co resolver that your disputant is feeling uncomfortable or like really wants to tell you something but not have the other side there, then you just signal and say, hey, I think it would be a good time to have a caucus. And then you go off with your dispute and you talk, talk to them apart from the other two. And you, you know, help them structure what they're going to say and you know, you know, give them feedback and do all of those great things that you can do in a caucus before coming back together and talking as a kind of like a four person process.

Interesting. And so let me ask you a bit of a devil's advocate question.

Sure.

So let's say, well, Nate, why even bother having these people who are, we already know are mad at each other? They're here because they can't resolve the conflict themselves or some barrier. Why not just leave them and have the coaches talk to each other and figure out what the best deal is after talking to their parties separately?

So this is like an idea that's like way down the line. You could potentially have the disputants agree that they can leave and the co resolvers continue to negotiate. But I think it's at least In Co Resolution 1.0, you know, the focus is on making sure that the disputants trust the process as much as possible. And at least in my experience, the disputants really do, you know, trust the process and really buy into it when they know that they have someone who is sitting next to them and is helping them to express themselves in the best way possible. Like really put the, the best, the best look on everything that you want to say in the process. So there hasn't really been as much of A need for the disputants to decide that the co resolvers can go off and, you know, negotiate the final bit. And I will say, even if that does happen, the disputants would need to agree to what the co resolvers negotiate out. Because again, this is a negotiation only process. Unlike litigation where it is backed by the law that is compelled on everyone within a society, this is only focused on negotiation. So both sides have to be fully agreeing to all aspects of it from the beginning, from entering the process to the actual resolution.

Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more and we will be right back after this. Yeah, I like it, Nate, I really do, because I'm thinking about the unique, the many different unique value adds of this. But one of the things that you mentioned over and over again is trust. They trust the coaches and then they trust the process. A big part of trust is in transparency, right. And so as long as they're always at the table, they feel like they, they're being part of the process, it's transparent, they understand what's happening and they feel more in control of the process and the outcome. So it makes a lot of sense. And I, I think this is really, really great. And so let's shift onto your experience. Can you tell us a few kind of marquee stories about your experience doing that? Of course. Respecting confidentiality, lawyer to lawyer, right?

Yeah, sure. So my overall impression has been that when you sit down next to disputants and you tell them, I'm going to be your coach, they don't question the, this process. And I get a different reaction from practitioners because co resolution is somewhat similar but not the same to legal negotiation and mediation. Practitioners of those dispute resolution processes may take some adjustment to kind of understand the differences. But disputants, when you sit down next to someone and say, I'm going to help you negotiate, I'm a professional negotiator and I'm going to help you communicate as best as possible to structure offers and counter offers as best as possible. People love that. They latch onto it, they need it. So my experience has mostly been in custody and parenting time disputes. That's the two year pilot project I was able to get together in co resolution was in the Franklin county domestic relations mediation program. And so a couple of, couple of stories that illustrate kind of how co resolution works. So I had one case where it was not the mom and the dad negotiating, but it was the dad's sister and the mom and the dad's sister was getting custody. And so I had the mom and she had a very difficult, difficult message to communicate to the other side. And so what happened is when we were cauc, she was fully expressing herself because after sitting in the four way discussion and seeing how well I was communicating with the other co resolver and they were communicating with me and also how supportive and focused I was being on her, she bought into the process. And so we had a really honest discussion about what her concerns were, how best she could structure this. And so what I did is making sure that I wasn't going to be doing anything or supporting any kind of position that would offend the long term relationship I had with the other co resolver is I proposed a way to bring this up. And what we did is we talked about the mom's experience with the father of the children, who's the other party's sister, sorry, brother. And so that was really able to like connect with her and really bring a lot of empathy to my party. And once we kind of express what we needed to express in a way that was, you know, very respectful and not touch, stepping on anyone's toes, then the other party was just really shocked and you know, really happy with all of this. And of course she had the support of her own coach who was able to, you know, prepare her for this concession that, that my side was, you know, probably inevitably going to have to, gonna have to come to. But she was, you know, really thrilled with how we presented it and it would, it would have been talking to the other co resolver. She suggested in mediation this would have been a very difficult case, could hours probably not resolved. But we were able to get it resolved in like under a half an hour with all of that. And so yeah, and then just in, in general we, we took post surveys from the disputants and people rated their own co resolver as on average 4.8 out of 5. So people like their own co resolver. But the interesting thing is, on average, the disputants rated the other co resolvers. So the person helping the other side, they rated them 4.6 out of 5. So still good, but, you know, not as good as your own co resolver, but it's still, it's better than how you would rate the other side's attorney if this was a, you know, a legal interaction. Yeah, no, I remember as an attorney, my clients having like nightmares about the other attorney popping up in their, in their worst dreams.

So.

Yeah, not, not something that happens in co resolution.

Wow, this is, this is great.

That's.

That is mind blowing to me that somebody on the other side could be. Who could reasonably be perceived as on the other side could be rated that highly. That's, that's, that's, that's incredibly impressive. And the. Probably the only reason they weren't. Right. Rated 4.8 is because they were on the other side. There's still that bias. Right. I. This is great. And the story that you shared reminds me of this simple fact. Not all parts of these difficult conversations are created equally. There are some parts of these conversations that are more important and more impactful than others. And if you fail during those parts, everything could fall apart. Right. And so now we have a system where the coaches can identify those inflection points in the conversations before they happen, manage the message effectively so it's delivered in a way that doesn't cause unnecessary damage to the process.

Exactly. You know, and you're touching on something here that is. Was kind of the impetus for me proposing co resolution in the first place. And that was me serving as a mediator and watching disputants fall into these same traps that tend to make most negotiations implode. And just thinking, like, if I could just tell you, this is the way that you might want to phrase this, or this is an interesting solution that you might want to consider proposing to the other side. But as a mediator, you can't do that because you need to be impartial. The disputants probably wouldn't take kindly to someone who's going back and forth between them saying, now you do this and now you do this other thing and you just. That wouldn't work. But when you have these two coaches who uniquely compared to other personal advocates at a negotiation, because they come together, they have all of these incentives to be cooperative, and then suddenly you're getting assistance that is based on the types of principles that are espoused in mediation and the types of collaborative dispute resolution that you are a very strong advocate for in this podcast.

Absolutely. This is great. And so for the listeners out here who are listening and saying, okay, I have a conflict coming up, unfortunately, co resolution isn't an option for me at this time. What are some of the lessons that you've been able to take from co resolution that we could use in our everyday negotiations and difficult conversations?

Awesome. Great question. And yeah, there are important lessons from this. The first is there are no enforceable rules in negotiation, and that creates certain outcomes. But there are strengths and weaknesses for negotiation because there are no enforceable rules. First, negotiation tends to be cheaper and more efficient than full blown litigation. But the weakness compared to litigation is in litigation, a judge who has the power of the law behind him or her can order the parties to exchange information and then oversees the presentation of evidence. So there are enforceable rules in litigation, but you don't have that in negotiation. And the problem that that creates is that even though negotiation is at its core a voluntary coming together of both sides, and that involves cooperation, there's nothing that can really enforce that cooperation to be 100% trustworthy. So if one side can get a slightly better outcome by appearing to be cooperative, appearing to be open with information, appearing to jointly explore what's going to be in the best interest of both sides, but meanwhile holding things back, holding information back, maybe expressing more interest in a certain idea or position than they actually have just to try to gain leverage over the other side because there are no rules in negotiation. This is the primary tension that negotiation professionals such as you and I need to confront. So what co resolution offers about this, the insight is the importance of relationships. Because you can't enforce rules in negotiation, but relationships are very powerful in negotiation. So this is why savvy business negotiators build patterns of reciprocity between them and the other side. From things just like a business lunch to, you know, a kind of constant back and forth of you, you know, I give you, you give me, I give you. Because that then builds the kind of rapport and pattern of reciprocity that is a relationship. And it's also why savvy negotiators draw attention to their potential long term interactions. Because you want to get the other side thinking that, you know, it's not just this negotiation, there will be other negotiations. And I don't want this person to not trust me when something comes to light that shows that I was not being, you know, forthright with the information that I have. So the. And you know, Qualitative research supports this finding that attorneys that tend to interact in smaller bar associations or tighter practice areas will tend to negotiate better than attorneys in very large pools of attorneys. Because then you may be negotiating across from someone who you're not going to negotiate with in the future. And at that point, what incentive do you have to, to not exaggerate things and to hold back information because you can assume that they're probably thinking the same thing about you. And it just doesn't make sense to try to give the other side more and let yourself be taken advantage of. There's a lot of psychology that indicates that people would rather go without than be taken advantage of, even if they end up getting something in the overall outcome, right?

Oh, that's the good old ultimatum test, right? Yeah, the ultimating game. So if you just Google that, I won't bore you listeners with the study. I'm trying to be better about sharing too many studies. But this is really great. And really what it comes down to is the reality that the relationship itself is not only a, I would call it maybe a social accelerant, right, A trust accelerant. It also serves a protective purpose as well because people are going to treat you better when they feel as though they have that relationship. And so let's say we're in a situation where you could reasonably make the argument that this is a one off type of transactional interaction. What can we do to give more of a long term perspective to the other side when we assume that their level of aggression is because they think it's a one time transaction?

I mean, and that's the entire thing I'm trying to address with co resolution is to bring in two coaches that have this built in relationship. Because it is very difficult to just manufacture that if you're in one of these truly one off situations and you can't find, you know, people out there that are practicing co resolution? You know, the thing that you need to do is to be able to draw as much attention to the possibility that you're going to be interacting again in the future. If you get the person thinking that, you know, if things go badly here, then the next time we interact with each other it's, it's still going to be, you know, bad. And if things are good here, the next time we interact, things are going to be better and better. Because in the, you know, the classic prisoner's dilemma, the, the only way out of that is to repeat that prisoner's dilemma game repeatedly like infinitely into the future. Because as soon as someone thinks like, well, this is gonna stop, then they can work back and think, well, you know, this is the time when I'm going to take more of the pie for myself. And then once you think that, once you think that, then you know the other side's thinking that and it breaks down. Cooperation. And as you've been a very big advocate of in this podcast, that type of open cooperation is really what produces the best negotiations. Because negotiation is a voluntary coming together of both sides. And the more openness and cooperation you have, the better the outcomes are, the smoother it is and the more satisfied people are in the outcome. So the more you can do to try to bring in this kind of long term perspective, you know, the better you can make negotiations go in terms of how they run and the outcome you get from them.

This is fantastic. Nate. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom. We appreciate it. Again, for the listeners, let them know about where they can get in touch with you and work with you if they have a challenge that is ripe for co resolution.

Sure. So my website is outsideinnovation.org I'm starting up the Outside Innovation Institute. There's material on there about co resolution and other ideas and I'm putting content out that is very bite sized training materials that would really allow any two negotiation professionals to be able to do co resolution because it's different, but it's really not a super complicated process. Once you understand the basics, it really runs itself and it shows the power of relationships in negotiation.

Fantastic, Nate. Thanks again, my friend. We really appreciate it.

Awesome, thanks for having me.

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