How to Build Trust and Collaboration in Negotiations with Simon Dowling

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 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. Simon, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks so much for having me, Kwame.

Yes, it is our pleasure. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah. So I live in Melbourne, Australia. I. I am a facilitator and team coach, I guess is the best way to describe the work that I do. I'm working with leaders and their teams, typically helping them to become the most collaborative working unit that they possibly can be. I have a real passion for helping groups of people tap into their collective power, their strength, their ability to make things happen together. And that really fascinates me. So put me in working with a group and I'm a very happy man. And it's, it's interesting. I mean, if I go into the. What got me into this space, I think the, the thread of that is, is always kind of interesting to tease out. I don't know. Do you want to talk about that now?

Absolutely. Let's jump into it.

Yeah. Yeah. You've asked me one question and I'm off and running with a story. But I mean, this, this whole thing of working with groups and I Sort of think of your show. And I think, yeah, I started very much in the world of consulting and coaching people in the space of negotiation and conflict management. I'd come out of a background as a lawyer. That's what I trained to do at university. I worked in a firm when I started, which was very much about almost that classic style of deal making. It was pretty, you know, square, shoulder pads, coffee mug in hand, thumping the table. And I was surrounded by people who were essentially saying, so, Simon, if you want to be a great deal maker, this is how you got to work. And there was just a part of me that knew that's just not how I roll and it's not what I believe. It's not my core value set. So I became really curious around, is there another way of doing this? Because there was part of me that thought, I just want out. I'm not cut out to be a lawyer. But there was another part of me that thought, no, hang on, maybe there's just another way of doing this. And I picked up one day a book which I reckon many of your listeners will know, Getting to Yes, how to Negotiate Anything by Roger Fisher, Bruce Patton, Bill Urie and all from Harvard. And it just changed my life overnight. I read it and anyone who's read that book will know it's all about interest, space, principle, negotiation, which is not about power adversarialism, it's about understanding what people's needs are, understanding, you know, how do you generate value around that look for options, etc. And I was in, I remember I was in the middle of a negotiation at that time where there it was a big health service agreement with a, with a hospital. And I don't know what the other party thought because I went from one day being the, you know, making demands, insisting, saying, no, my client will not accept that. I'm afraid we're going to have to terminate this conversation. To in came Simon, curious, inquiring, reflecting on the fact that I'm not sure I've fully understood where your client's coming from. Maybe let's spend some time trying to understand that. And while that was that one moment in time, I would have to say I often think of that moment because it did really change my whole kind of fundamental philosophy on life, which is you can actually get a lot more done by working together. So if you fast forward to now, that's really the work that I'm doing now that started way back then in a small shift in something, you know, as, you know, transactional as negotiation.

Incredible. Now listeners I need you to pay attention here because after over a thousand episodes on the podcast, we have never heard this before, somebody using the good cop, bad cop technique. And. And one person is both the good cop and bad cop in the same negotiation. So, Simon, thank you for that.

But such. I've never thought of it that way.

It's such a great story too, because I think there is often a concern that people have when it comes to negotiation because they hear people talk about empathy and curiosity, and the initial bias is it's soft. And let's say if you've been in negotiation, let's say if you've only introduced yourself to negotiation through Hollywood and the media, for example, or maybe they found themselves in a culture like you did, where they were really advocating for that hard charging, hard bargaining approach to negotiation, it can be really scary to utilize this new technique. And so, Simon, I want you to speak to that person who's listening to this with their eyebrows furrowed, saying, there's no way that this collaborative approach can work in a real transactional negotiation. What would you say to that person?

Oh, man, wow, we need two days. Now, I would say to that person, of course you're thinking that way, because like most of us, we are coded. We are coded. And negotiation is coded as a control situation. It is a situation where the person who succeeds is the one who maintains most control. And we see that in, as you said, the media. I grew up on a diet of watching LA Law at the time, like, you know, Arnie Becker, Victor so Fuente. That, for me was what negotiation was all about. So I was fully coded. I was coded by my education, I was coded by the firm. I was working in the culture of the firm. And so that that creates. Whenever something is coded with control, whether that's a working relationship, any kind of situation, that control is that in the passenger seat next to you is fear, because next to you always is the fear of losing control. And so even though you know this is. This is going deep fast. But even though when I sit now, you know, having mediated disputes for many years, or when I sit now with very senior executive leaders who are all wanting to get their own way in terms of how the business should be running, what I see is very confident, assertive behavior. And there's part of me that goes, how do you match that? This person knows where they stand. But what I have increasingly realized I'm seeing is just fear masquerading as a certainty, as assertiveness. So what I would say is, that's your fear talking it's your fear of if you listen to this idea or you entertain the idea that moving to curiosity and asking questions in a negotiation is something I should try, but that comes with a perceived risk, which is I'm going to lose control and they're going to think I'm soft. And so you got to sit with this for a moment and you've got to go, okay, I need to play with this question of how is my fear driving the kind of negotiation, or the way I negotiate, the way I. The way I enter into a conversation with a colleague when they're raising something that makes me uncomfortable, when they're asking me to change how I react to that, is either going to be driven by that fear of how dare you threaten my control? Or by the confidence and the courage, you know, the courage to go. I don't yet know where this conversation is going to take us, and that's exciting. But one thing I know is we'll never find out where it's going to take us. If I try and maintain control the whole time.

I have to say, Simon, it will be difficult to top that last mic drop that you just had with that point. But you are absolutely correct, because what I found is that the greatest negotiators are the ones who are willing to embrace surprise. They recognize that there is no way to completely control the interaction. There's no way to completely script what's going to happen. But if you really have confidence in your skills, and let's define confidence in this case as trusting yourself and trusting the process, then, you know, wherever this conversation happens to go, I'll be able to figure out what it is that I need to do, but I don't know what that is going to be. And that is scary and exciting. And if you have the skills and the right mindset, then that can be exciting. And you can eagerly steer the conversation in ways where you will be inviting surprises. You're going to be led by your curiosity, and that's going to take you to places where you gather information that you didn't expect, and then that gives you opportunities to solve problems in ways that you didn't expect. And so I think this is really important to start off this way because there's so many people, like you said, who are controlled by fear, and they don't even recognize it. And when you are struggling to manage your emotions, that's challenging. But when you don't even recognize that you're struggling to manage your emotion, now that's really dangerous, too.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

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Totally agree. I think there's a big theme in this of letting go, but not letting go to the point of being reckless. Like, letting go of like, you know, whatever happens is fine. You know, I can't go to a stakeholder and say, so how did that conversation go? And say, well, I let go and here's the result we got. They go, what do you mean? I've still got to be really good at knowing what matters to me in this conversation. I've really got to be good at asserting that need and articulating that need. And, and I've got to be good at dealing with the fact that when I say to them, this is something that's really important to me and this is why it's not working at the moment. And this is what I would like to see, change in the way that we're structuring this arrangement or the way that we're working together. I've got to be good at dealing with the fact that their first reaction might be one of horror, might be one of repulsion, resistance, maybe even anger. And I gotta be okay with that. So this is not about letting go as a way of avoiding conflict. Quite the opposite. It is, it is, letting go is, is the ability to say, oh, great, we're now opening up space for debate, conflict in a constructive way, Discussion, exploration, tension. And I'm good with that. Again, you know, why do people avoid conflict? Because they're scared of what will happen if the conflict remains in the room. Like, I'm scared that this is going to damage the relationship, or I'm scared it's going to undermine my ability to, to have any leverage in this conversation. Or I'm just scared of what you'll think of me as a result of this, that, you know, we won't, we won't be able to talk to each other tomorrow. As opposed to, as opposed to, you know, trusting that if you allow the space for that conversation to really emerge properly, we might get somewhere. One of the greatest lessons I learned when I was. So I was making the transition from lawyering into then becoming a negotiation conflict management coach. And then I was making a transition from that into mediating disputes. I'll never forget. One of the greatest bits of advice I got from a mentor in mediation was embrace the Argy barge. Now, I don't know. Is algae badge a familiar term over in the U.S. rGBAJ, I'm guessing, is a. Is an old British term, but rgbaj is basically the wrestle, the fight, the argument. So, you know, here in Australia, you'd say, oh, there's a bit of Argy barge going on. If there was some arguments, maybe that's what it is. I've just realized for the first time, argy is probably argument.

Oh, there you go.

Arguing and barging in. So there's a word history lesson made up. So I loved that philosophy of the Argy barge is good. And so what this mentor would say to me is, don't just recognize that yourself as a mediator. In other words, don't try and shut it down. So a mediator who's scared of that would say, I'm losing control and would say, I think this is a good time for a break. Why don't we take a break, go and get a coffee. Let's go into separate rooms. I'll speak with each of you separately. And I think what I learned pretty quickly is that mediator is actually for their. For their need to retain control is actually removing from people the opportunity to go where this conversation really should go. Oh, and so holding that is the mediator's job. Holding tension is the mediator's job because most people struggle to do that themselves. And making sure you trust that if you hold it well, that it will turn into something amazing.

In chess, there's a term called productive tension. And the difference between a novice player and an expert player often comes down to their willingness to engage in productive tension, because a novice player will be willing to make a bad mistake in order to alleviate that tension. But a good player would understand, hey, this is a critical part of the game. And even though it might not be comfortable, I need to keep my peace right here in the midst of the firefight, because that is the best position for me right now. And in these tough negotiations and difficult conversations, a lot of times we make decisions based on the pressure that we feel, and we don't make the best decision because we think it's actually Going to advance our cause and advance the mission, strengthen the relationship or solve the problem. We do it just for our own comfort to alleviate that discomfort that we're feeling in the moment. So I think there's a correlation here between this, this chess principle and also what happens in our difficult conversations too.

What a great parallel. Because I imagine productive tension on a chess board. I'm no chess player and it's the first time I've heard that term in the context of chess. I imagine the reason you're calling it productive tension is because I don't, I can't guarantee 100% that this strategy is going to work. And so I'll never forget talking with one senior leader who, you know, I was, it was a team I was working with and they were kind of dysfunctional. And I, I said to one of, to the senior leader in the room, I think maybe one of the dangers here is that every time things feel uncomfortable, you essentially do all the talking in the room. And that's clearly a pattern here that everyone just knows that once you get going, don't interrupt him, he's off. And he said to me, this was a one on one conversation. And he said to me, well, when things get uncertain, control the controllables. And I said, control the controllables. What do you mean here? And he said, well, I can control when I'm talking, I can't control when they're talking. What a great moment of that assumption that we are kind of coded with this idea that the only way to steer out of danger is to just do what you know or believe is control. But as a result, what's happening in that moment is the rest of the team are going, okay, he's off. I'll just sit back and do what we do in these moments, which is to listen politely, nod quietly acknowledge in my head and look at my peers, because we're all, and I could, I, I could see this. And I'm wondering, can he not see it like they're looking at each other going, that's rubbish. But we won't say anything. And knowing that once they step out of that room, they're not what? His words are not going to change anything. And so you kind of go, where do we kid ourselves into thinking by controlling the controllables, we are actually creating a positive outcome here? He's not that silly that he can't see that. But I think the assumption is, I don't know any other way. And even if I knew. So we go back to your earlier question around what do we say to the person who says, oh, this collaborative, kind of curious, conversational, joint problem solving approach is never going to work? I'd say there's probably two things. Do you know what it could look like? Firstly, do you, have you seen it? Do you even know how to do it if you had to. If I said go on stage and put on a performance of people who were doing this, this is why I do love role play. But I never call it role play when I'm training is like, just show me how it's done. If it were done well, put on a show that is not comedy, that is truth based theater of this being done well. So firstly, do you know how it looks? And then the second thing is, have you done it enough in low risk environments where you feel like it transcends a theatrical performance? In other words, I've tried it and I've started to discover one tiny piece of evidence at a time, one tiny piece of proof at a time. I've started to discover that actually this works a little bit better than I thought, or it opens up more possibilities than I realized. And I've surprised and delighted myself in some small, tiny, low risk ways to the point where I started to go, wow, I'm gaining some confidence here. So that's the other, the other danger is I think people kind of assume that accepting this invitation to move into a space of taking a collaborative approach to anything, whether it's a negotiation, a workplace conversation, the way you're running a team meeting requires you to move from one end of the spectrum to the other in one huge jump. And I think that, that, that is where people's again, fear sitting in the passenger seat. And I say, this is someone who's teaching my daughter how to drive at the moment, sitting in the passenger seat, that fear reaches out and puts their hand on the steering wheel and says, not a chance. Yeah, where I'm not letting you take control here. So it's, it's one baby, one tiny step at a time.

I think that's such a powerful message because in a lot of areas of, in life, when you think about what it takes to truly change, it would be dangerous to go from 0 to 100 in these situations. You know, imagine teaching your daughter to drive. Hey, you don't know anything about driving. Here are the keys. Good luck. I'm not coming with you. That's. That would be irresponsible to do. And when you think about the transition transaction that we're trying to have, or transition rather, is we're saying, all right, cool. Well, let me dip my foot in the water here. Let me take this low stakes situation. When I'm talking to my partner, my spouse, my kids, my colleague at work who I get along with, I'm going to utilize another technique. I'm going to try this out. Oh, that wasn't too bad. Let me try it again. And then we slowly build this habit. And now let's say that same person who was skeptical before says, all right, Simon, I like your style, I'll try this out. But the person that I'm negotiating with, they are a tyrant. They're not playing this game. So how can you foster genuine collaboration and co creation in those situations when the other person doesn't seem to be playing by the same rules?

Yeah, and maybe we should, we should assume that if we're ever worried about taking this approach, it's probably because I am dealing with someone who is not taking the same approach. The sort of, the story or the metaphor I sometimes use here is if my, if one of my kids is having an absolute tantrum and is on the war path and is furious about something, how do I approach them? Do I go head to head and have a tantrum and yell and scream back sometimes. Yet why? Because I'm a human being. In other words, that triggers me to react in kind. But as a parent, what I do know is that it invariably will only work if they eventually submit to my power and control. And even then it just doesn't feel good. So with parenting, I think the, and this, this always seems like a trite comparison, but I think it's helpful here because with parenting, what I'm trying to do first maybe is to find a different version of my kid to talk with. How do I convert them from a place of anger and fury and storming and kicking and screaming to a place of kind of, of love that it's going to be all right. And so I think the first thing I'd have to say is that there are going to be some people who, who are so entrenched in that style and approach of working because it's not just you. They're dealing with everybody in their life like that. And, and so maybe hoping to transform them in your one conversation is over ambitious, but I would always start from the place that this is just fear masquerading as confidence. And so what I need to do is just try and create the conditions where they feel like I'm not as much of a threat as they might otherwise think. Not to be manipulative not to deceive them into then, you know, doing a deal, but to, to, to just see where they are. And that might be, hey, I really want to spend some time understanding your world right now. Like, you know, this is, this is sounding to me like a really high pressure deal or it's a really high pressure situation for you or for your client. I'm really curious to understand the context to this. I'm really keen to understand what are the kind of, the key drivers here? What are the must haves for you and why. Like, I am, and you'll notice I'm using the word curious over and over again. I am really curious to understand that stuff because I come in here and this is like this, the safety message, right? I come in here realizing I really don't have that picture at all. So help me understand. And this requires repetition, which means it requires something else. It requires a core belief that there is something to be gained from shifting the energy in this room. And so I've got to come into this kind of checking my own intentions and saying, do I want to force an outcome here or do I want to try and invite them into a space, invite them into a conversation? And so that, that's what they've got to smell, that I've got to be dripping in that intention as I come in. So that's something I got to do outside the room first. I don't know, is this, is this, is this helpful, do you think, Kwame, to that? It's incredibly helpful listener that you talk about.

It's incredibly helpful. And it's incredibly helpful for me too, Simon, because I was struggling last night putting my two boys to bed. They were both melting. And so your example was very, very relatable in that regard as a struggling parent. And let me connect with you here in Melbourne. So let's say we are talking to our friend Nick Kyrgios, who's playing tennis, hitting a serve at 140 miles per hour, right? For most people who haven't played, for most people who haven't played tennis, the natural response isn't to turn your hips, swing and follow through. That's just not a natural human response. But after you practice and try maybe with a 60 mile per hour serve and then incrementally improve yourself after time, maybe you have a shot, right? And so a lot of times you might try to utilize this technique under duress in the most difficult situation. And then it doesn't work. And then you say, see, Simon, I look like a fool. I shouldn't have tried this. But here's the thing. Just like trying to return Nick serve, you're not going to always hit it. It's about practice. It's about repetition. It's about building that habit. And I really love the point that sometimes you're going to be dealing with somebody who is just entrenched in this for whatever reason. Maybe it's a learned behavior, maybe it's a personality type of thing, but it's not your fault. But it's your responsibility to do the best that you can. It's not going to work every time. But what I've found in my experience, too, as a lawyer and a mediator, too, is that the. The majority of times it is more successful than trying to fight fire with fire. And what's interesting is that if you believe in this tactic and this tool and this new approach and methodology, then you are going to stick to it long enough for it to work. A lot of times people feel that pressure and they're collaborative for seven minutes, and then they say, you know what? You're a jerk, and let me tell you about yourself. And then the conversation breaks down. But if you can demonstrate the. That you're confident enough in your skills to not retaliate, then the other person says, this is not the typical pattern of conversation that I'm used to. This is intriguing. I keep on trying to attack and manipulate this person, and they're not moving. That's intriguing. They are relentlessly positive and collaborative, and they keep on asking me about what I want out of this. And that's intriguing. And so what you recognize is you start to. It takes time, but you start to melt the ice. And then they start to warm up a little bit. And you can be that leader who, as you are negotiating, you are teaching the other side how to negotiate with you. And by the end of the conversation, now, you're playing the same game.

Gold. Gold. Because if the. If the. If fear is in the passenger seat next to me, I'll tell you who's in the backseat. And it's impatience. And impatience is constantly asking, are we there yet? Yeah, are we there yet? I'm assuming that's a global phenomenon, that all kids do that in the back seat. In other words. I tried what you suggested. I tried what I read in the book. It didn't work the first time. Are we there yet? No. And. And there is this, you know, in. In insane thinking that any of what we're talking about here is actually about. If you say these five words, it will Transform your negotiation in an instant. Are you kidding me? That this is all, all of these words, all of these methods, all of these techniques, these strategies, these approaches, all they really are are cues to the other person of your intent. They are just cues of your intention. And as you said, if I, if I do it once, that doesn't really give them any guarantee or proof of my intention. They might not even notice it. They're so. Their brain is so busy with fear control. What am I going to say next? What's this strategy? What's this tactic that they're not even hearing what you're doing, they're not even seeing it? Or certainly, as you said, they're just not trusting it. Like, this is a ploy. So I'm going to have to give it time. So if you've only got 20 minutes for a negotiation and you want to spend the first two minutes trying to be collaborative and hope that will transform the rest, and they don't come in that way, I would say you got to get on the front foot with this. In thinking early, like, hey, you and I due to have a conversation next week, it occurred to me that coming into this, preparing for. It's really hard because I don't have a sense of, you know, the context or your concerns or, you know, how you're, how you are feeling about this conversation even I wonder, would it be worth us having like a. Just a coffee to chat about that in advance? Or should we, in fact, just use this scheduled conversation just to understand some of that stuff and then schedule, you know, allow ourselves a bit more time, schedule another session or maybe extend the amount of time we've got so that we have more of an opportunity to kind of do this properly. I love that expression. I use it a lot. Like, I'd love to do this properly.

Oh, that's so good.

Because it, it's, it suggests we could, we could do it this kind of, like, gamey way that so many. We know what we're doing. But why don't we?

Why don't we.

Why don't we. Let's do this properly. And I think. Was it Bill Urie, William Ury, who used to talk about Name the game? I'm trying to remember who it was. Yeah. And I think it's a, it's a nice, subtle smile on your face. Like, if listeners can't see me, I'm smiling when I say it, and it's a glint in your eye. This, this is good. If we do it well and you and I, like, I Trust. I trust us to do this really well. I had a. There was a. A lawyer I was once negotiating with. He was a partner at another firm. I was much younger than he was and so felt a little bit intimidated, but I loved his approach.

He.

He would. And I would. Sorry, I should say I was accompanied by the partner I was working for, who was quite a kind of assertive guy. But this partner, he was the one across the table, was the one I really admired because he was the one who was sitting there, and he was stroking his chin as he was listening, and he had that kind of, like, slight squint in his eyes as if to go, this is fascinating. I'm loving this conversation. And a slight smirk on his face. And after my colleague, the partner I was working with, was kind of making some loud, assertive protests about things, this other lawyer kind of stroked his forehead and said, so this is really useful, because what it's highlighting is I think this is where our kind of point of difference is. And it sounds to me like the real problem you and I face here is that your client wants A, B, and C. And my client's asking for X, Y, and Z. Z. And on. On the face of it, on the face of it, it seems like they're irreconcilable like that. There is no middle ground. But I actually wonder whether you and I are the people who are really well positioned to say, but what would the. What would the middle ground there look like? So he framed it as this almost like, quiz, like, problem for smart people to play. And then he said, so where would you. So where would you even begin with? That was his next question. And what he did next was the real genius. He looked at the ceiling and just sat there thinking. He just sat there thinking. And I was a bit transfixed by it. And only afterwards did I realize what he had really left open was a big space in the room for the. For my colleague, the partner I was working with, to go, well, if this is a problem for smart people, I'm a smart person. In fact, I'm smarter than you. And so the first person to speak was my colleague. And then this guy across the table looked at him and went, that's clever. That's clever. Let's keep going with that. Let's explore that.

I mean, it's just like.

It was magic alchemy.

Wow, that is such a great story. There's so many good things in that, because we can talk about. Let's go.

We.

We've referenced getting to. Yes, let's talk about separating the people from the problem. We're not approaching this in terms of me versus you. It's you and me against the problem. How can we work together to figure this out? And then also building the golden bridge. So allowing somebody to adjust their position or approach while allowing them to save face. And so utilizing silence, just letting that ride, letting that, that soak up the room. And everybody's focusing on the exact same thing, and then the generosity, too. I don't need to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, I recognize you have an ego, so let me let you be the smartest person in the room. Oh. And while at the same time challenging that ego, smart people could get this done. Are you smart, sir? You didn't add that last part, but it was insinuated. And you just lead that negotiation. And I think that's a great, great example of how somebody can be behaving in a certain way. You just take that as a negotiation. This person is offering me bad behavior. Thank you, but no thank you. Here's a counteroffer. It's good behavior. Would you like to engage in some good behavior with me? And you're utilizing some conversational leadership. And your colleague followed, Followed that lead, and you had a productive dialogue.

I think that's a nice term for it to conversational leadership, because it's not. It wasn't passive aggressive game playing. It wasn't like, oh, so you think you're. You're smart? I'll show you what smart is. There was none of that energy in the room. And I, I now retrospectively think it would have been great to actually debrief with that other partner. Probably not legitimate, but to debrief, to understand the true intent. Because the, the feeling I had in the room was his ego was not a play. He himself, he didn't. He really didn't care whether anyone thought he was powerful or not. He just was quietly confident about this. This is going to be fine. And so if I link it back to all the conversation you and I have been having, I think there was this energy of like, you know what, you're. You're making demands, you're being assertive, you're being intransigent, and that's okay because of course you would. Anyone in your situation might do that as well. That's okay. I don't take that personally. So what I'm trying to do is to almost set up a separate table here for the other part of you that is not yet in the room. I want to allow that person into the room. And I have to create the conditions for that person to even want to come in. Why would they come in otherwise? So if we go back again to if you're dealing with someone who is aggressive, hostile and so forth, why wouldn't they be? Why wouldn't they be? But if you don't ever create the kinds of conditions and that kind of trust where they might bring another. Another part of themselves, like I often think to the. A little kind of bit of advice I often give to people is just try and imagine. And be generous here. Try and imagine what they like when they're talking with their partner at home or their mum over Christmas lunch or their kids. And you can't demonize them when you do that, because what. What we'll do is we'll go, oh, I can imagine them all right. Yeah, pass the salt, or I'll file for divorce. You know that's not what I meant. Yeah. Assume they're a good person in there.

What.

What would that conversation look like? And now how do you create space for that person to come into the room?

Incredible. Incredible. And. And now, Simon, I am going to intentionally ask a poorly structured question because it will be three questions in one. So listeners do not emulate this question technique. So hypothetically, if there was somebody who was saying, this is okay, but I really need to get a book on this topic, or I need to get a program on this topic, or I live in Australia or New Zealand, and I'm looking for a facilitator for my executive teams. Do you have any suggestions for them?

Well, it's funny you should ask that, Kwame, because this is my work. Right. This is the world I do. So it would be. It would be a shame not to say, hey, if. If this conversation makes you go, oh, there's some interesting threads in there, or I would love to explore how I can do that a little better or how I can. How I can bring that into my team, the leadership team that I work with. We would love to have conversations where we can hold that tension, where we can kind of create a new dynamic between us. Then, yeah, please, please hit me up. So there's. There's a few ways, right? So one is a book. So you started with a book. I did write a book called Work With Me. Work With Me, which is not meant to be a marketing strap line. It's Work With Me, how to get people to buy into your ideas. So when I wrote that book, which was in 2016, it was very much around Taking all of these threads of collaborative negotiation and playing it into the world of how do we, how do we lead within our organizations without being the capital L leader, the big L leader? And I reckon that's such a core skill. So work with me is essentially that kind of essence of like, how do I get people to work with me even though I'm not the boss or even if I am the boss, that I don't want them to do it because I'm the boss. I want them to do it because they choose to. So please look out for that book. It was also published under a second title, which is a bit confusing. And interestingly, it was published under this title for the North American market. So it was published under the title Get Heard, Get Results. So if you look me up and find both of those books, don't buy both. Pick your favorite title. The other thing I mentioned that for is I do. So I have an online kind of program that I offer called Get Hurt, Get Results, which is all about these skills. So we go right into, we've got a four part series of modules, video modules, where I really unpack the science and the art and the philosophy and the belief and the mindset of building collaboration. And even though Get Heard Get Results sounds like it's grabbing the microphone, it's almost tongue in cheek because it's more about getting heard Get Results is actually allowing them to get heard to get results. So it's a bit of a flip on that. So everything I've just talked about in terms of the philosophy and the belief system is something I unpack at a really practical level in that program. So if people would love to find out more about that, I would say go to my website, SimonDowling.com and send me a message through there and I'll send through more details on that. And then of course, anyone locally who's saying no, we'd love to bring you in to work with us as a facilitator or a conversation leader, a guide or to help coach us on how to do that better. Then same website, email me. And I work with a lot of corporate, medium large sized organizations and their leadership teams doing this kind of work, which I love that I get to do that.

Incredible. Simon, my friend, this was an absolute masterclass. It was great getting to know you and hearing from you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Kwame. And it's just such a wonderful program too. And no wonder, the way you interview your guests is just magic. Thank you.

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