Holding the Calm: The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Defusing Tension With Hesha Abrams

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted special specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Hesha, thanks for joining us today.

My pleasure.

So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Well, I am a lawyer and a mediator and I work in the trenches of human conflict. Doesn't that make it sound very exciting? I joke that I am basically the E Doctor of the law. That's really what mediators are. We get people at their worst. Angry, fearful, greedy, arrogant, self righteous. Negotiations have completely failed. Bring them actually back on track so World War Threes don't happen.

This is great. And so listeners, now you can see why I had Hescher on, because I am a lawyer and a former mediator as well. So this is really good. So one of the things that you talk about a lot is creating small or small winnable victories. And I think that's a really important mindset for people to understand. I want to get your ideas of exactly what that means and why it's helpful.

So that's very good that you grabbed onto that because that's a technique. I've done a lot of podcasts and you're the first guy who's actually Asked me about that, which I like because that's an actual implement. How do you get things done? So look at the issues of our day. Abortion, gun control, immigration. They're all big, huge things that require complex types of solutions. And what happens is that those are recipes for failure. When you try to handle them, big conflicts are eroded externally from the outside in. So that's the benefit of creating commonalities and good communication and all the stuff that you and your listeners already know. But how do you hit that dopamine hit? Like the little chicken hitting the lever to get a pellet out. You get a dopamine hit when you have a win, any kind of win, it doesn't really matter. So even something as simple as, where would you like to sit? What would you like the temperature to be? What music would you like? What do you want to eat? Where should we start first? Even subtle, simple little things like that, that you think, oh, they're just pleasant trees. No, they're not. When the other person gets power, they're like that chicken whacking the pellet, getting a little pellet out, and all of a sudden they get a little dopamine hit. You start giving people dopamine hits. What happens to the cortisol, to the anger management hormone? It calms down, it relaxes. Because what happens when we're in tension or conflict? We get something called ocular occlusion and auditory exclusion. That basically means tunnel vision and your ears shut down and they call it. Neuroscientists. Shove people in MRIs, and they can study all kinds of things now. So we know how the brain works across genders, ethnicities, ages, socioeconomic groups, education groups. It's a human being factor. So when you have this ocular occlusion, auditory exclusion shutdown mode that creates what's called a refractory state. Lasts for about 20 minutes. So me trying to give you information, get information from you, communicate better, listen better, all the good stuff we do in negotiating and conflict resolution can't happen in that 20 minutes because you're shut down, totally shut down. So by creating small winnable victories, I avoid triggering your amygdala. I avoid that fight, flight or freeze response. Even if we're friend or foe, you're my enemy. You're in a negotiation, and I'm not going to do this win, win junk. You're my enemy. I want it. There's no win win to the Super Bowl. I want to get what you have, or I want to stop you from getting what I have. That's A negotiation, just ratchet it up a little bit, and then you're in conflict management. It's the same exact continuum. But if I change the power dynamic and I allow the other guy to create small, winnable victories and perhaps lead him or her along to give me small winnable victories, I've actually created a pathway. And the examples I gave you were small, little, stupid things, because often the problems are so hard, you can't tackle the big stuff. So tackle small, little stuff, tangential stuff, things on the outside, human being, interactive stuff. You're not a morning person, so you want to start at 10:30 instead of at 9. I'm okay with that. Just that subtle little things dramatically change the dopamine response, which now we're using brain chemicals to our advantage. Chloe, that's great stuff.

This is really, really good. For me, as a. As a lawyer, I appreciate this. But for me, as a somebody who studied psychology, I appreciate it even more. And I think you're the first person who came in and actually talked about dopamine in the negotiation process. Because we always think about cortisol, stress hormones, and the amygdala taking over, but we don't talk about dopamine. And I think one of the coolest ways of describing dopamine, they say dopamine is the universal currency because dopamine drives us to do things. And so, for instance, if we think about something like a sugary snack, right, People think that the dopamine is released once you. Once you eat the snack, but the dopamine is what drives you to eat the snack.

Exactly.

And then the dopamine actually goes down once you have it. And so really, really what we're doing is that in many ways, you're creating an almost addictive negotiation process because you're giving.

That should be my next book. Let me give an example to your listeners that is just so good. Let's just say apples. I like apples 25 cents each. How many would you buy? All right, buy a couple apples. Apples, four for a dollar. How many would you buy? 35% boost in sales. Exactly the same thing. That's illogical. That's irrational. I can buy apples 25 cents each, or I can buy apples four for a dollar and get a 35% boost in sales. That's the dopamine. It's the wanting, it's the desiring, and it's the completion of that desire that actually makes that work. But look what happens in most negotiations, whether it's a negotiation or resolving conflict or a mediation, which Is all like the same continuum. I'm going to take a really hard stance. I'm going to do what they call insurance negotiating. I'm going to anchor crazy high, you're going to anchor crazy low. And then we're going to use car salesmen or rug merchant salesman along the way, which is brutal and aggressive and unsatisfactory, satisfying. And you never know if you left money on the table. Why, why do it that way? Now I will say high anchoring is a tool. There are times you use it when you get someone ridiculous and so you have to match them in ridiculousness. But what you're really doing is matching them power to power. And then once you get the power dynamics bracketed. All right, who's going to take charge of this now? It's going to be me because I understand the hormones and the way that the body works and the way psychology works. And. And I want you buying apples. Four for a dollar. I don't want you buying two. I want you buying four. And I don't care if two of them rot in your fridge. I want you buying four. And all the big data companies that are marketing and selling us, they use this stuff all the time. And we can use it. This. One of the reasons I wrote this book is that I've got 30 years in the trenches of doing this stuff in a laboratory. What actually works with real people and, and real conflicts. Whether it's some couple thousand dollar thing or hundreds of millions of dollars. You do all of it because it's human beings with bumper car egos. How do we maximize our positioning? You know, and then there's questions like if I'm negotiating with you and it's a one off and we're done, all right, I'm going to be a little tougher with you because I don't really care. I just want to get my deal. If this is a relationship, well, I can't do that, can I? I have to be a little more careful and cautious about what we're going to do. So that's why chapter one of the book is speak into the ears that are hear. You don't use every single thing in every single situation, but when you know and you have tools that you can use, you know, bada boom, bada bang. This is great stuff. You're. You're way more armed going into, into anything. And then that's one of the reasons I named the book the secret to resolving conflict and diffusing tension. Because all conflict, every single one of it starts with tension. It May be unexpressed, it may be quiet, but it's there. There were preventative opportunities along the way that were just missed. And if you can, can I give your audience a quick visual analogy? Because I'm the analogy queen. My people tell me. So if you drop spaghetti sauce on the counter, you wipe it right up with a sponge, right? No big deal. You leave it overnight. What are you doing? Scraping it off with a knife. Leave it three months. What are you doing? It's old and moldy and gross. That, my friends, is conflict. If you can notice things when the spaghetti sauce is wet, wipe it up. Big deal. Okay, the next day, scraping it off with a knife. All right, I should have handled it yesterday. But don't wait the three months. You'll get it done, but it will be old and moldy and gross. And I should have made that. That'll be a chapter of another book.

I love it. This is so helpful. And that visual is really helpful too, right? Because we have to address these things when it's easier, relatively speaking, to address it. But a lot of times our fear hold us back. And I like the fact that you're talking about tension existing regardless of the situation, because a lot of times we try to deny the fact that tension is playing a role. Can you go a bit deeper into the the impact that tension has on these interactions? Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate, and succeed.

Well, it's huge. One that prevents the dopamine hit, you know, which is what you want to have. You actually get a cortisol hit. And that's not what I want you to have because then you're going to be more rigid and more uptight and more protective and more difficult. With me, I want you to be open and relaxed and calm so we can get things flowing. I want you to buy four apples, not two. So I got to keep that sucker moving, don't I? So it's so important to notice it because it also does something else. Let's say someone's getting tense. You see me, I'm upset. You're caring about that. You're trying to fix that. You're trying to resolve that. That is also a form of a dopamine hit. Because think about this. How many people in the real everyday lives feel heard, valued, respected, maybe even loved? I give lots of speeches and I always ask that question and ask people to raise their hands. Very few go up in the air. People stay in relationships that are miserable for them. They wear clothes that are uncomfortable for them. They are in jobs that they hate and they don't want to do. They will even eat food they don't like just because it's familiar to them. Why? Because it's just. The status quo is what keeps ourselves calm. It keeps ourselves relaxed. You don't have to be able to do that. And so when somebody is expressing an emotion, which is all tension really is, fear, anger, frustration, it doesn't make a difference what it is. They're starting off, usually quieter, but you don't see, you don't hear. So what happens gets louder, uglier, and more aggressive. What would have happened if we could have caught it earlier and said, I have a technique in the book called Vox Validate, Understand, clarify, summarize. And for our listeners, you're going to laugh. You vuk them now. You'll never forget that acronym, will you? I made that up on purpose. You'll never forget it. Validate, understand, clarify, summarize, you vaccum. And what happens with people is you. The first part of validating is if you can validate. Obviously you validate, but let's make it hard. Let's do the advanced class here. What if you can't validate because I just think you're stupid or irrational or idiotic or greedy or whatever adjective you want to do? I can certainly name the emotion you're expressing. You seem angry by that. It seems frustrating to you. You seem concerned how that's going to happen. Even if the person says, I'm not angry, I'm frustrated. Okay, Data. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. You're frustrated. Okay? Now, in that interaction, Kwame, who's got the power? Me or the person who's being reacted? That's what holding the calm does, is it creates a moat around our emotions because we're human. You're human. I am. You and I both do this all day, every day. So, Kwame, you and I, I'm assuming, have long, you know, wicks on our candles before the Dynamite goes right. But I bet you anything the right person pokes you in the right way, you're going to blow. Same with me, because I've got an amygdala. We're human. But when you say, I'm holding the calm, I'm holding the calm. I'm holding the calm like a mantra or a talisman or a rabbit's foot. It calms you and creates a moat around those emotions. So that refractory state I talked about earlier, where the eyes shut down and the ears shut down gives you some space. And into that space, well, I've got choices now, don't I? What am I going to choose to do? How am I going to choose to handle this? I've calmed my cortisol down, and if I can make a connection with you, bing, bing, bing. I'm that little chicken hitting the lever. I get a tiny little dopamine response because I've been successful. That's why I joke that never in the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down. It's just. Isn't that what we all do? And it's the worst thing? But I'll give our audience here the science behind it. It's not because I don't like your words or your attitude or what you're saying. It's that if I'm out of control, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I'm. Whatever big emotions I have, I am out of control. Now, I'm not going to admit that to you and hush on you to tell me that. How dare you. I just get worse. So what's my amygdala doing? It's screaming, powerless, Powerless, powerless. Grab power. Do some power. Get something to make yourself be okay. That's what it's literally doing. But when you say I'm holding the calm, I'm holding the calm. That's a power position. I got power here. I'm telling my amygdala, stand down, baby. I got this. We got this. Now, if I'm dealing with you, let's say, Kwame, you're all reactionary and upset. Now, you and I both know this. You have my book. Maybe I'll say, let me hold the calm with you. But if not, I will say, how can I help you? How can I make this easier on you? What would be beneficial? Can you just see the amygdala just calming down? And what does it take a minute? It's nothing. It's the eyes to see it and the moat around your own amygdala that enables you to do it. That's why I called the book holding the Calm, because I got to say that to myself. I am holding the calm so I can create that space for myself. Now I've got a moat. Now I've got choices.

I really like this. It's really helpful and it makes a lot of sense, especially because it is tracking with the psychology. Right? The best negotiation and conflict resolution strategies are built on the psychology, built on the science. And that's what you're doing here. And let's say there is an old school negotiator listening who was completely power based, only their only tool is leverage. And they come from that positional bargaining type of background. And they're saying, hesha, what you're telling me is by giving them power, we're actually helping the situation. That seems counterintuitive because if I empower the other side, won't they then use that power and leverage against me? So I want you to speak directly to that old school positional bargainer who is sounding very skeptical right now.

Well, first of all, I always call my skeptics my holy skeptics, because thank God, otherwise we'd be mustang horses just running, you know, off of, off of a cliff. And what happens for people is that they do something and if it works for them, they stick with it. But I want a toolbox. I want a hammer and a wrench and a Phillips head screwdriver and a slot screwdriver. I want a lot of tools to use in different situations. The power based, I call it Russia negotiating, very aggressive, very power, very leverage based. There's a place for that. There legitimately is. There are times when that needs to be the right approach. But what I usually say is if you're going to have an iron hammer, put it in a velvet glove. So much better. You can get so much more done. And you don't know how much better it could have been if you got them to voluntarily come with you to what you wanted as opposed to browbeating them into getting them what they wanted. And what I will say to some of our old school folks is that people don't forget resents. They just bury them away like nuts for the winter where they get old and moldy and gross and then they will always come back at the most inopportune time. That's the reality of it. So if you're going to do something, do it artfully. Why not? Because if you have leverage, you use your leverage tactfully, skillfully, elegantly you're going to get more. But let's again do the advanced course. Let's say you don't really have any leverage. So you're bluffing, you're faking it, that you have leverage. All right, there's a time for that. This is not Pollyanna Kumbaya. There's a time for you to do that better. Have a plan B if they call your bluff, right? So having some of these other tools and techniques at your disposal lets you diagnose better. So you don't do Russian negotiating. You don't hit everyone over the head with a hammer. You use the hammer when it's appropriate. But for somebody else, that aggressive kind of leverage approach just destroys the negotiation, destroys relationships, and makes them say, you're not someone I can work with. So it's the whole squeaky wheel gets the oil, but it's also the first to be replaced kind of paradigm.

I love it. And I love the fact that you said there is a place for that. And I think that's something where interest based negotiators, people who have a more collaborative type of style, they often struggle is because they struggle with the reality that there are some times where you have to be really, really tough. You know, I think about it how I opened gifts on my birth or Christmas. And so when I get my gift, it's like a Tasmanian devil. You know, I've been opening the gifts the same way since I was a child, right. And Whitney always criticizes me. And now, now Kai opens his gifts the same way. She's like, this is terrible, right? And the way she opens the gifts, it's very nice. And she's treating with this rapping with the respect, right? But every once in a while she's going to run into a box where this box simply cannot be opened in a very nice way. And the only way you can open it is with the Kwame Tasmanian Devil style of opening it. And so it's important to have that range. So I think in this example, Whitney is a much better gift opener than me because I'm creating messes when I don't need to create messes. Right. And so I love the fact that you're. You realize that there are going to be times where we have to be tough and sometimes we have to flex those positional bargaining muscles, but that should not be where we start.

Well, it's also, you don't want to go to a doctor who says, well, you know what, these, you know, red and blue pills work great for the patient before You. Why don't you try them? You would look at like, let me run out of here. What the heck is going on? That's crazy. And you know a famous behavioralist named Edward Maslow who said, if all you have is a hammer, all you will see are nails. And I view it that I expect in the next. I've been doing this 35 years. I'm pretty good at what I do, but I think in another 10 years, I could be great at it. That's how I really look at. I'm really curious to see how good can I get in another 10 years. So I never plateau and I never get burnt out because I'm always investing in my own growth and in my own opportunity to learn something new, challenge something. Every negotiation, every conflict situation is elaborate. You've got different test subjects in front of you. Play with it. See what actually happens. And so I like to have a bigger and bigger and bigger tool chest of more and more stuff. And what I would say to the audience here is, anytime you're in conflict or anytime you're in a negotiation, it's a laboratory. You've got test subjects in front of you that voluntarily give themselves to you. Try something new. Experiment with a different approach. Try something different. There's something in the book I cover that I write about called Bulwerism. And Bulwar was a guy that was the lead labor negotiator for ge, you know, decades and decades ago, and he got so tired of all the labor strife and all the difficulty, and he said, you know what? I'm just going to come up with a fair thing and say, that's it. That's the proposal. No more discussions. Discussions are off. Well, I'm sure that people listening are laughing already. Did that succeed? No, it was a spectacular failure. Why? Let's say it was fair. Let's say it was reasoned. Let's say it even had lots of Excel spreadsheets and data charts and all this good kind of stuff because it made the opponents feel powerless. I got the power. I'm going to impose it on you. So now it doesn't matter if it's fair or it's reasonable. I had no part in it. I had nothing to do with it. It's now a violation of federal labor standards to even engage in that anymore because it's presumed bad faith. So here's this guy who thought he was doing something really brilliant. Colossal failure, because he doesn't understand human beings. That's what's so important. My husband is an airline Pilot. And all the big airlines have trainings that they call human factors. The cockpit's all set up, beautiful. Everyone is technologically advanced. They can push 9 billion buttons all over the place. But the human factor is, how do people screw up? How does a plane land where they didn't put the landing gear down? Now, big airlines don't do that anymore, but you know how often that happens. I'm busy, I'm not thinking, I'm not paying attention. So you know what they did? The little lever for the landing gear used to be a lever. They made it round like a wheel, so you can see if the wheel is up or the wheel is down. Subtle small things like that deal with human factors. And what I tell people is I've been mediating now, you know, over 30 years, I've done, God, tens of thousands of cases. And I said one basic truism. You take the exact same facts, you change the human beings around the table, you got yourself a different game. And that is absolutely critical. Why? All this touchy feely communication garbage that we all have to do, yada, yada, yada, is critical because it's diagnostic. So if I'm listening to you whine or argue or complain, I could sit and argue in my head, or I can sit, yeah, yeah, and do that kind of nonsense, or I can look at it as a diagnostic. What are you saying? What are you not saying? How are you saying it? Does your body language match your words? Does it match what I think your self interest is? And can I give another analogy, another visual, because I love that for folks. And hopefully you're listening, you're not eating, because this is a, you know, an alert. This is going to be disgusting. So imagine you go into the ER and you get a stomachache and you go bleh. And you vomit. Now all of us would go, oh, God, gross. And we look away. But not the ER doc. She looks at it, does it smell right? Are there pills in there? Is there metal in there? Is the color wrong? It's a diagnostic for her. So what is it for those of us in the soft sciences, which is mediation, negotiation, lawyering, conflict resolution, psychology, tension hr, and just general leadership, all of that, high emotions are vomiting. And what we tend to do with high emotions is calm down, get a hold of yourself. Which is, of course we've learned, you know, freaking the amygdala out, which just makes it feel more powerless. But then on top of that, it does no good at all. And I'm throwing away this fantastic diagnostic tool that has landed in my lab. Because you're telling me one thing, your body language is telling me something else. You're not talking about this thing. That. I think that thing is probably more important than the thing you are talking about. Why are you focusing on that thing? Oh, let me pull that thread and see where that puppy leads me. Who's got the power in that encounter? The person who can hold the calm. That's why I wrote this book for everybody. That you don't need some master class, you don't need a PhD. You don't need to take some certificate from somewhere. It's not that hard. You just have to have somebody look at. We've been cavemen and cave women eating with our hands. Here's a fork, a spoon, chopsticks, a knife. These are things you can use to make your life better that are battle tested. That works. Anyway, that was kind of a long answer to a short question.

No, I love it. This was really, really helpful. Hesse. And I think a lot of listeners are saying, I need more of this because we're, we're struggling with our difficult conversations. Emotions are really challenging to deal with and they're looking for a tool. Do you have, before you go, do you have any suggestions for a book that they could read that helps people to, I don't know, like hold the calm or something like that?

Well, for sure, that's a lovely lead into my book. Thank you all so much. The book is called holding the the Secret to Resolving Conflict and Diffusing Tension. And I'll tell you, I insisted with the publisher that it be in paperback and It'd be under 20 bucks. I wanted it cheap and I wanted it easy and I wanted it accessible for people to get and I wanted them to be able to buy one for the crazy sister in law and the difficult boss and the horrible neighbor so that there was a lexicon that people could talk about. And then what I, what I do also is if you go to my website, holdingthecom.com and it's calm C A L M. So holdingthecalm.com they can sign up and every month, or quite frankly, whenever I feel like it, I just send stuff out for free, you know, so what I've started doing is doing little one minute videos on a tip, on a tactic, on a technique, on a something. Then in one minute you get a little bleep and they're all on the webpage. And then when I come out with new ones, if you sign up, I just send them out. My goal is to I mean, I have a day job, so this is not my job to go, you know, do this and promote the book. I'm trying to just get it out there. Because we've got people running around with guns shooting each other because they can't talk to each other. We've got people engaging in fist fights and excommunicating each other from families and churches and synagogues and mosques because they can't talk to each other anymore. And so the one tip I want to leave the listeners with is let's say you have to talk to somebody or negotiate or be in conflict with this person. By the time you have to do that, you think very poorly of them. So let's do the advanced class here. You're an idiot. I hate you. I think you're the devil incarnate. That's how bad it is. You're getting nothing done there, right? There's no small winnable victories. There's no dopamine hit. There's nothing. So the one thing you can do to do a paradigm shift is look at that person and say, first I'm holding the calm, and then would they pull my kid out of a burning car? 95% of the time the answer to that is going to be yes. So that means there is some redeeming value in them, isn't there? There's something there. Let's dig further and see what else we can get. Where can we agree as opposed to where do we disagree? And so often what happens for people is we think someone's trying to win. And Amos Twiersky and Daniel Kahne, women were psychologists that got a Nobel Prize in economics for actually proving that that is not true. Some giant percentage, like 85% are trying not to lose. Game changer, isn't it? Are you trying to win or are you trying not to lose? I'm going to approach you very differently, aren't I? Depending on what that is. And for the vast, vast, vast majority, I'm trying not to lose. So what is the gooey soft candy center you're hiding and you're protecting? Maybe I don't want any of that. That's not relevant to me. But that's why you're being so fierce, because you're protecting that. Well, let's go over here because I really want that anyway. And you keep that soft gooby center. In fact, I'll help you protect it. Game different, right? Totally game different. I mean, I have mediated. Oh my God, you know, hateful situations, big dollar situations. This works in every single situation because it deals with human beings. And if we look at it that way, as opposed to, I took some class in win win problem solving, and that's my bat. Now that's the way we're going to do it. Okay, here's a fork. Let me show you how to twirl spaghetti on it. That's much more fun.

I love it. Hesha, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

It's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

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