How To Counter With Difficult People in Negotiation With John Dieffenbach

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. John, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me, Kwame.

Hey, it's my pleasure. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Oh, sure. So I lead a negotiation team for EY for all our large, complex deals. I have 12 people on the team and that's all we do all day long, is negotiate deals. I've been doing this for now almost over 30 years. Started with IBM as a deal maker doing large outsourcing deals, technology services deals, and have just been at it ever since. So it has become a career and a passion for me.

This is great. And can you tell the listeners about your blog too? Because I want to make sure that they. They have access to that.

Oh, sure.

And we'll link to it in the description too.

Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. So I have a blog called Running the Room and it's really just my own monthly musings on negotiation theory, preparation, psychology, sales, leadership, all those kinds of things. And the notion behind the name comes from what I always say with my team is an effective negotiator, is somebody who can go in and run the room. And that hearkens back to days when we actually sat in conference rooms and did negotiations, which doesn't happen as much anymore because of the impact of technology. But a good negotiator can walk into that room. And I often joke that it's a little bit like the reality shows where somebody gets dropped in the jungle and they've got to get from one end of the jungle to the other and they're given one tool to do it with. And in the case of a negotiator, that one tool is your experience. You have got to walk into that environment, take your experience and assess, what am I dealing with here? What am I up against? How am I going to shape this? How am I going to get this from this opening conversation about, hey, we're going to do something together, all the way to signature, and all the different challenges you're going to have along the way, both internally with your own organization and then externally with the client. Because everybody's got escalation points and approvals and things. So you've got to get that whole plan out there and then you got to get everybody aligned and you've got to get them all working collaboratively to get there so that you get to done on the job. So that's where the concept of running the room comes from.

I love it. And listeners, I will vouch for this. It is a great blog. It is a great blog. So kudos. I really enjoy reading it. So I think this is a great jumping off point for us, really, because you've been into the game for a while, you have a lot of experience, and you have seen all sorts of different negotiators at the table, and you've had to learn how to adjust with the times and with the personalities and the challenges that you've been facing. And so when you think about negotiation over the last two or three decades, what are the things that have changed in the game?

The thing that probably has changed the most is people's awareness of the science of negotiation. And by science, I mean all of the different elements of psychology, of influence, of emotion, people, interpersonal behavior that have come into it. So if you go back to 1981, when Fisher and Uri wrote Getting to Yes, they were really the first ones to look at the negotiation environment and break it down into these seven elements that you could, you could look at strategically and prepare. What is the other party's interest? What are the options? You know, all of all those things that took us through. And so you now Had a structure. And then you had Robert Cialdini's book three years later on influence. So those to me are two of the, the quote unquote, holy trinity of negotiation books that not only do you have to read in order to really be a good negotiator, you have to operationalize them. You have to figure out, how do I take this information that's in here and make this part of my negotiation strategy, my methodology, the processes that I use. So Cialdini's book obviously is a psychology book because he is a psychologist, he's a psychology professor, and when he broke out those six elements of influence to say, these are the triggers that marketers are using. Because the beauty of Cialdini's book is he wrote it for us to be aware of how others were trying to influence us. And, and people like myself and marketers have taken it and used it instead as a tool for how can I influence other people? So rather than it being a, so to speak, cautionary tale for consumers about watch out for how you're being influenced, the influencers have taken it and flipped it and said, oh, now I know how I can be more effective with this, how I can be more intentional with this. And, and it really is about being intentional. When I say operationalize, it's about being intentional and saying things like, okay, what is the most important thing I need to think about before I walk in the room for this negotiation? What, What? And as a constant, you always want to think about, how do I get the other party to like me? And not like, like in the sense of they think I, you know, they think I'm a really swell person, but how do I get them to see I am like them, Right? How I am familiar. Because the word familiar comes from the same root as family. So how do I get the other party to think of me as family? Because then the other book that came out around the, the Trust equation, Charles Green's book, then talked about the importance of trust in negotiation. And so all of these things, these little pieces start to come together. So the people who used to go in the room and bang the table and say, this is what we want, or else suddenly you realize, wow, I really have to think more deeply about how I talk, my tone, what I wear. You know, Amy Cuddy's piece on competence and warmth, what are your first, what are the first impressions the other party takes of you in the first five minutes? They did studies to find that warmth was very important that you come across as non threatening to them. So I Intentionally wore what I wore today. I actually pay very close attention to what I wear when I'm going into a meeting. So I wear blue very often because blue is a trust color and I will wear a blue tie. But on the blue tie I've got little pizza slices. So the pizza slices are there to kind of be, you know, a little bit fun. And so I'm not, I don't take myself too seriously. You know, I wear this stuff, but I'll wear something that's a little funny. And you had somebody on Remy Smolinski who, who had a way of framing this that I thought was, was really brilliant when he's, when he talked about the panda bear, when he said a, an effective negotiator is a little bit like a panda bear that you come in, not that you're cute and fuzzy, but that, you know, panda bears appear non threatening to us. And so you like to watch a panda bear and see what's a panda bear going to do. And it's the same thing with a negotiator. You don't want to come in like a grizzly bear. You don't want to come in like threatening, I'm going to kill. You want to come in and be somebody. It's like, okay, you know, this, this person doesn't seem like they're a threat to me. And then all those risks, you know, again, going back to the biologically, all the risk elements of what's going on in the other person's brain start to drop down and you start, and the other person starts to say, okay, this is not a, this is not a fight or flight situation. This is somebody who I'm going to be able to work with. And then you start to build a dialogue, you start to build a discourse of where you're able to talk to one another. So. So a long way of saying it's science is what has changed that, that we think more deeply about the science of, of negotiation and apply it.

John, this is a masterclass. I've already taken so many notes. And for those listening via audio, the background that John has is a ton of different books. And it is very clear that you are well read. And I love the fact that what you've done is you've married the science with practicality. And what's really been fascinating to me when I talk to people who have a lot of experience in negotiation is that the fundamentals never change. The fundamentals never change because we're dealing with the same operating system year to year. The culture will Change the technology will change those type of things. But the underlying psychology is the same. And what's really interesting about these great negotiators is that through trial and experience they've been able to really home in on the things that work. And then subsequently the science caught up with the practice and, and validated the things that have been working. So now we understand why it works. And then we can also recognize that some of the kind of old school, more power based negotiation strategies, like you said, where the person's banging on the table, it's not that that works or it's effective, it's that when people use it from time to time, they are successful in spite of the fact that it is very harmful. And so I love the fact that we're using the science to substantiate this. And, and really the thing that I want to focus in on is the word focus. Because people are not coming into these negotiations and freestyling. We're very intentional. The word you said was intentional. And being intentional about the putting yourself in a position to get the person to like you. Not in a way that puts you in a position where somebody can take advantage of you, but it makes you more likable and it makes you seem as less of a threat. And we can understand those psychological barriers that are in our way. But if people start to like you and see you as part of their team, become familiar, now those barriers are out of the way and it makes persuasion a lot easier.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm going to say something that's going to sound a lot more perhaps nefarious than it's intended to sound. But in negotiation, it's like poker. You play the people, not the cards. That's where the focus has to be. It has to be on the people. And the reason for that is the people make the decisions. The deal only gets done when you can take the no that's in somebody's head and somehow find a way using words of influence, using the environment you have, thinking deeply about what is their perspective and how am I going to move this no. And you get that to a yes. That's about the substance at that point doesn't matter. Right. In terms of what's the nature of the deal. It's not about the substance. It's not about is it more money, less money, this or that. It's how do I get the person to say yes in the environment that I have presented to them right now? How do I get them to understand the weakness of their batna? I don't think people thought deeply about the concept of batna until Fisher and Ury wrote about it. And people have said one of the problems of getting to yes is it doesn't address the issue of power in negotiation. And that's patently untrue. The whole point of a batna is the most powerful person at the table is the one who cares least about the deal. Because if I don't care about the deal, what am I going to do? I'm getting up, I'm leaving, right? And now the other side has to put more options on. They have to make the deal richer for me because I can go somewhere else. That's the power of the batna. They didn't talk about power in the sense of, you know, physical power, like being a tough negotiator, you know, some. Something like that, wearing people out. It's the power of the choices. And what, how have you teed that up and have you made the other side aware of the fact that you know something, I don't actually need to do this deal with you. I can do this deal with somebody else. And suddenly the power shifts. That's what I mean about you play the people, not the cards. I don't mean it in a way that, like you're doing Jedi mind tricks or something like that, you know, and you're, and you're being untruthful or deceitful or something. It's thinking about how do I motivate the other side to say, you know what, what John is saying does make sense. It does seem like the better option. I'm going to go with that one. And that all depends on my ability to influence and the words that I'm going to use.

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, 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 arts with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. It makes so much sense and it shows how dynamic these negotiations have to be. Because if we can't be prescriptive from a podcast in terms of the specifics of a negotiation we can talk about the principles. We could talk about our war stories and how we've applied the principles. But if somebody says, what should I do in general in this situation? I say, I don't know who you're negotiating with. I don't know the context, right? Like, how tall is tall? Are we talking about a person? Are we talking about a building? Those are very different things, right? And so when it comes to understanding the person on the other side and being very intentional about the words that we use, the approach that we have, and the conditions that we create for persuasion, what are the elements that we need to look for in the people and the circumstances to make those adjustments on the fly as necessary?

Well, it's interesting because today, of course, there's a lot of. A lot of ability to research people before you. You walk in the door, right? You can get online, you can go on LinkedIn. People kind of explain who they are, their background, everything else. And there's a lot. A lot of stuff you can read into that. So the things that I look for are, what do I have in common? What are some things that at some point I might be able to introduce and say, hey, you know, we. We share this. And I'll give you an example of that. Years ago, I was doing a large outsourcing deal down in North Carolina, and there was a. The person who I was negotiating with was a chief operating officer for the company. It was about a $600 million deal. So it was a lot of attention on it. Very important for him to get this thing done. And he was a driver. If, you know, if you think about social styles, he was a driver. This is, you know, we're going to do it this way. And the team had had a lot of problems with him because he was a very direct individual. And so I got involved. So we worked together for a couple days, and then at a moment during a coffee break, just listening to his voice, you know, we're down in North Carolina. I have a little bit of an ear for accents. And I said to him, bob, you don't. You don't sound like you're from North Carolina. That's like a New York accent you got going on. And you laughed. He said, yeah, I'm from the Bronx. Well, for me, that just opened the door because I'm from New York. I said, oh, where are you from in the Bronx? He said, castle Hill. I said, all right, I'm going to take a shot at this. He had an Irish last name. So I took a shot and I said, oh, that's St. Raymond's parish, isn't it? Because I knew St. Raymond's High School was in Castle Hill in the Bronx. He said, yeah, I went to St. Raymond's I said, oh, no kidding. Do you know Bill Donovan and Tom Lowry? He says, oh yeah. I went, his brother was in my class. I said, oh, my son plays baseball with his son. Oh yeah, back and forth, blah, blah, blah. And my team looked at me and they said, what the heck just happened? I mean, all of a sudden, the conversation between me and Bob became very collaborate. We're joking and everything else. He said, what did you do to him? And I joke with him. I said, I call that New York Catholic high school mafia, because I went to Catholic high school in New York. If I'm doing a deal in New York and the other person went to, I can figure out they. To a Catholic high school in New York, I'm going to know which one it is and probably know somebody. So I've got a tight network there. Now. I got lucky because I was in North Carolina and I had a guy from New York down in North Carolina. I don't usually get that, that kind of a break, but you got to look for these things. So one of my colleagues, he was doing a deal in Tokyo and he's a big guy from Nevada, big, you know, Western style guy. He walks into the office. The client, he's 6 foot 5. The client is about 5 foot 4, right? Nothing in common. Japanese, Nevada, you know, nothing in common. He sits down in the office, they start talking. He looks around the room like he's trying to find it. He's. He's a professional negotiator. He's trying to find it. He sees pictures of roses. He says, these are beautiful pictures of roses that you have. And the guy says, oh yeah, you know, I grow roses as a hobby. And my colleague says, I'm a Rosarian as well. I didn't even know that was a word, a rosarian, right? And boom, that was it. It's like another guy who looked cross culture, other side of the world, but we both like roses. Did that mean that the deal got done and it. No, but it was a connection. It was that familiar that, oh my gosh, even though we seem so different, there is something we have in common. And then you can start to build on that because there's something that it says about you, that you share that trait. So you're always trying to find those, those things that might help. And, and you have to be careful about it. It has to be handled subtly. You can't, moment, you walk in the office, look around and say, oh, I see you went to such and such, you know, I went to, and try and do it. You can't be ham handed about it. It has to be played carefully. And, and so that's, that's where you can start to build that affiliation, start to build that trust. When you build the trust, you get collaboration. When you get collaboration, you get brainstorming. You get brainstorming, you expand the Zopa. When you expand the Zopa, you get a better deal. Right? So it all, it all escalates up and it all starts with the science of psychology.

I love all of this. And John, quick thing, I'm going to be a glossary for the listeners out here. So ZOPA zone of possible agreements. And so when we talk about example, expanding the zone of possible agreements. Now we're expanding our possible, our, the, the likelihood of us getting a deal because people become a little bit more malleable when they have a better perspective of you. And let me try to think about this in a, in a metaphorical type of sense and tell me if this is a fair way of conceptualizing this. It seems like there is, it's about removing barriers ethically. And then as we're removing barriers, we're also building up positive momentum. So when we think about the trust, when somebody trusts you, it makes your words more persuasive, they're more vulnerable. There's reciprocal vulnerability. It just makes it easier, the conversation becomes easier, those barriers start to go down, they're less skeptical, things like that. But then at the same time, they start to see, hey, I like this guy. We are like each other. There's familiarity, you know what, I can share a little bit more with him. And so we're starting to build that positive momentum that gets us in the direction of a deal.

Right? That's, that's, that's exactly how it goes. And, and again, the science supports this because what they have found, for example, in when an individual sees a new face, there is a reaction in the brain that is consistent with the notion of fight or flight. I have to assess, I have to figure out is this person, somebody who's going to hurt me, help me, you know, what's going on here. That reaction does not happen with a face that is familiar because the brain has already processed that. So the sooner that one can get the sense of risk down, and this is where you get into Amy Cuddy's piece on warmth and competence. The sooner that you can demonstrate warmth and competence to the other party, the faster that risk is going. That risk factor is going to drop and the trust is going to rise because of the competence. So the notion is when you show warmth and competence, you come in and you demonstrate to the other person you're the panda bear. You are somebody who is not threatening. You know, you wear a goofy blue tie with pizza on it or something like that. You're engaging in the. In the way you first come in. You're respectful. It's not about you. So, you know, I had a guy who I worked with on a deal one time. He showed up and he was wearing a bow tie and those bucks that you see in the 50s movies that are like brown and white oxford shoes. And it looks like he's going to the hop and, you know, dancing to the jukebox or something like that. And I'm looking at this guy and I'm saying, he's a dandy. He's a peacock. He wants this to be about him. It's the wrong message to send to another party when you're coming in to show up, you know, dressed flamboyantly in some way. You can go into a negotiation wearing a clown suit if you want, but just be prepared for the fact that that's going to have an emotional impact on people. When you show up in a clown suit and they're going to say, I'm dealing with a clown here, you know, so how is this going to work? So you get that the warmth aspect and you sort of build that, get rid of that risk. And then the other side of it is, now I've got to demonstrate competence. Now I have to show I know what I'm doing, I'm somebody who can help them and start trust. And that's the slower build, right? The competence isn't going to come immediately. The first impression is real and then there's a competence. And here's the thing. When people say, oh, you know, so when does a negotiation start? Does it start, you know, when you shake hands? Does it start when you walk in, you know, walk in the room? And I always tell people it starts as soon as I know who the other party is. As soon as I hear or I say, when you are known to me, that's when the negotiation starts. Because. And I've done this when I've done training classes, I'll ask people. So if you were. And I use different people back, you know, years ago. So currently I would say, you're going to do A negotiation. And you're about to. And the negotiator who's coming in for the other side of the table, it's Vladimir Putin. Are you ready for that negotiation? You know, and I saw the expression on your face was sort of like, whoa. So I've never met or dealt with Vladimir Putin. I assume you have not. And yet both of us would have a reaction to the fact that Vladimir Putin's coming in to negotiate. Now I say to you, the other person who's coming in to negotiate with you is the Dalai Lama. And you have in your head a different reaction. You say, oh, a Dalai Lama. This, this will be interesting. And perhaps, perhaps, you know, you're like this when you hear Vladimir Putin. And then you maybe go like this when you hear the Dalai Lama, you say, oh, this could be enlightening for me, right? What is it about them that caused the reaction if we've never met them? It's their reputation. Your reputation starts the negotiation before you enter the room. Because if the other party, any familiarity with you or with your company, they're going to have a reaction. And immediately in the risk, the risk, walls may start to go up. You know, certainly if you heard a name like Vladimir Putin, all of a sudden, like, whoa, we got to get ready for this one here. But maybe with the Dalai Lama, maybe it only goes up like this. Let me, you know, get to know this guy. But generally he should be okay to work with. But that's what happens to us when somebody says, well, you're going to be negotiating with Kwame Christian. If they know of you, they'll say, oh, yeah, you know, I've listened to his podcast. I know he's. This could be interesting. In fact, I may even learn something from him. But if you are somebody who has built a reputation in the industry, particularly in my industry, in the technology services industry, I've run into some of the same people over time. In fact, I had a negotiation where I showed up a little early. Get in the conference room. I like to sort of assess the environment, see what I'm going to be dealing with. And there was a guy, there was a guy who was in there, who is what in the, in the industry is called a tpa, a third party advisor. And they are consultants that are hired by our clients to advise them on large technology deals. How do we work through this? Can you help us negotiate it? And so he was, he was their third party advisor. And I had worked with him on another deal. His name was Rich, and he saw me and he said, oh, hey, John. And I said, hey, Rich. How you doing? Good. He said, I'm just getting things set up. He was going around the room putting little tent cards on the conference table with everybody's name on them so you knew where you were supposed to sit. He was. He was a. A little bit deep into details when he did these deals. So I'm looking around, I don't see my name. There's no ten card. I mean, my name should be the center of the table, because I am going to be negotiating this deal probably across the table from him, because he's going to be negotiating this deal. But there's no card with my name on it on the table. I said, rich, where's my card? He said, oh, you're over there. And he points to a chair sitting by the door, and he says.

And.

I look over, and there's my name on a 10 card sitting on a chair next to the door. And he says, in Diefenbach, if you give me any trouble tomorrow, the chair will be outside the door. So I. I laughed. I said, all right, Rich. You know, I picked up the card, I walked over to the table. I put it down across the table from him. I said, you know, I'll. I'll see you after lunch. He saw my name, right? The negotiation started because we'd worked before. So he's like, all right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna give Diefenbach a little tweak here. And he sets me up, you know, next to the door to try and knock me back on my heels. Okay. You know, we're gonna have some fun, aren't we? So, you know, that's. That's the. The notion of the reputation precedes you when you come in there. And so one has to be very careful about, first of all, you know, what's out there on social media, what kinds of things you're putting out there, because people will research you. But then also, how are you. How are you known in the industry, and how's your company known in the industry?

You're so right, John. And it's almost like when people ask, when does the negotiation begin? The answer is, it's already has. And they say, which negotiation? All of them. You're doing it right now with your character, your essence, your reputation. It's so powerful. It's true. And I think it'll be fun to do a little bit of a psychoanalysis of that move with Rich at the negotiation table, because there could be a school of thought that say, oh, this is just meaningless banter. It doesn't matter at all. But then there are people who are thinking like, hey, there are some serious little meta negotiations that are happening here. So when you, like, psychoanalyze that situation, what do you think is happening behind the scenes?

Yeah, it's definitely something to exert dominance in his case. And, And. And this was a long negotiation.

I mean, we.

We worked this out. And so there's a. There's another. There's another Rich story that goes with this. It's actually kind of fun because he did prove to be difficult. And, you know, and this is the. The notion around when people say, how do I deal with somebody who is difficult person on the other side? There are ways that you can handle it. And so in the case of him, what he kept doing was he kept challenging our credibility. He would say things that made it sound like maybe we were lying to the client. So. And this deal had to get done. This deal was in a big hurry. We didn't have time to mess around. You know, so I was aware of that, that we were on a tight, very tight timeline. And he would say, for example, well, that's not what you said in your submission. You guys are changing your answer now. And I said, rich, that's. That's not true. You know, here's. Here's what we said previously, and here's what we're saying now. And so I had to, you know, show that it wasn't true. And then he said it again, you know, maybe a day later, something again, that said, that's not what you said. You said something different. And this time I said, you know what, Rich, we need to show you what we said before, because what you're saying is not fair and it's not true. So we're going to take a break, and we're going to go away and we're going to come back with the information to show you. And we left and we went away for an hour. Now, I had that information in my briefcase, but I didn't want to show it for an hour because I wanted the clock to tick. Because the business guy who needed this deal done was sitting next to Rich, and I wanted him to see Rich is wasting time. We came back in and we showed them. You see, this is what we said before. This is what we're saying now. And he said, okay, fine. And then again he said it. Well, that's not what you said before. On another topic, I said, rich, let us go away and get that information for you. And we'll come back. We left again. We left for 90 minutes. I had the information. I could have brought it out in 30 seconds. I wanted the clock to tick. I wanted their business guy to sit there sweating it out, saying, what is taking so long? We came back again. We showed Rich what you said was not true. Well, guess what happened the next day. Rich was sitting at the end of the table, and the business guy was at the center of the table. And again, this goes back to. This is, again, operationalizing all of these issues around interests. I sat there and said, what is the primary driver? What's going on here? Time. And the decision maker is the guy sitting to Rich's right. And the one thing he doesn't want to do is lose time. So if I can show him that Rich is wasting time, I will get Rich out of the driver's seat. And that's. That's bringing all of those pieces together to be thoughtful and intentional in your strategy of influence.

Oh, man, this is a masterclass. Okay. And I think we can. We can. We can summarize this briefly, and then I want to go deep into it, because really, this goes back to what you were talking about before, like you said, with operationalizing the psychology. But again, listeners, I want you to pay attention to this really important fact. There is no book that can give you the insight that John just displayed. The best it can do is give you a menu of potential circumstances and potential tactics and strategies. But you have to have the insight and expertise to be able to know what to do at what time. So you have to have an intricate knowledge of the psychology behind the tactics to understand what tactics to work, will work in this situation. But you also have to be able to read other people, understand the psychology of each individual person in the room, and then understand the group dynamics about how those. The different psychological tendencies interact with each other. And so then you can create a bespoke strategy in the moment, but the only way you can do that is with expertise. And so, John, I want to go through and take a little shot here, and I want you to tell me where I. Where I'm on track and where I'm off, because I want to try to break this down a bit more. Okay, so at the beginning, when we think about the joke, behind every joke, there's a little bit of truth. Like, there's. There's a lot of social dynamics that happens when it comes to humor, like, what is the premise of the joke? And that's where we find sometimes the hurtful truth. Because when you think hey, John, this is your seat. It's by the door. Ha ha ha. The premise being, if you misbehave, I put you there. But the real meat of the matter is I put you there. I am dominant over you. And so I think some people might laugh and just pretend like it's nothing, but it is something significant. So you laughed to show that I am not bothered by this. And then you assertively took it and put it right in front of him and say, nope, we're equals. Nice try. And then when you go back, what you've done is you've made it clear like, hey, you're going to try some stuff, but every time you try stuff, I'm going to check you. And so he said, all right, that's not true. You directly said, it is true. And here is why you didn't say, well, I can understand from your perspective how it might seem that way. No, this is a direct attack on my credibility, and I need to put a stop to it immediately. I can't let that stand. And so you checked him every other time, but it continued. And so that's when you had to escalate. And so what I've found is that difficult, people, they have a pattern of behavior. It's different for different people. And so I think his pattern might have been, hey, you're lying. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. He has more repetitions playing that game. And so what you did is you took control of the interaction by changing the pattern. Hey, you're lying. No, I'm not. You sit here in timeout and wait for me to come back, and then I'll show you that. That you're off. And then you extended the amount of time. So it's essentially a social punishment, but playing on the key lever that you've identified, which was time. This will hurt them more than it hurts me. I have more time than them. Every time they try to check me in this way and assert social dominance over me in this way, I'm going to hurt them in a way that hurts them, not me, which is time. Sit in timeout. I'm in control. Is that a. Is that a fair analysis there?

Yeah, it is. And. And you highlighted a very. A very important aspect of what he was doing. Because the first time it happens in my. You know, I responded right then and there. I said, no, wait, here it is. Here's the truth. Here's what you said. And in my. And the second time it happens, then all of a Sudden the light goes off in my head and I say, whoa, this is not a question. This is a tactic. Let's see what happens when I respond to this tactic with a tactic and see what he does next. And then he comes and he plays the tactic again. And I say, okay, now I've got a strategy. And my strategy is to keep responding in this way because I have an outcome I'm going to produce over there. And there's a great quote. I wish I could remember the name of the Marine general who said it during the Second World, Second World War. He said, amateurs use tactics, professionals use logistics. And what he meant by that is, professionals prepare. You think about. Because in. In wartime, logistics win, right? If you look at this, our victory in the Second World War was because we kept the supply lines going. We could get stuff to the troops at the front, whereas the Germans and the Japanese, they were not able to over a period of time because we shut the supply lines down. And so their people were fighting without support. And his point is, if you prepare, you will defeat tactics in the long run. But you need to identify what the tactics are and then make sure you're adapting to them. And this is perhaps the most valuable trait that a negotiator can have. And under this word, there are a whole bunch of other words that play into it, but it's adaptability. You have to have adaptability because you said it. It's a dynamic environment. People will come and go. The situation will change, People will get introduced. That weren't part of the conversation before that. Now you need to shift gears. We had this in a deal I was doing in New Jersey with a pharmaceutical company. We sat down and. And talked about who do we have to influence on the other side of the table. And we named everybody, had them up on a whiteboard, talked about their social styles, how are they going to behave? How are we going to influence who has the relationships? So we mapped all of that out. And then somebody said, well, what about Sheila, the chief risk officer? And we all did what I call a collective Scooby Doo. We all went, well and said. We said, who is Sheila? Oh, she is the new chief risk officer they just hired. Oh, what do we know about her? Well, we know she doesn't like services being delivered from the Philippines. And guess where we were delivering our services from? The Philippines. So suddenly it's like, whoa, we've got a whole new situation here. We gotta shift gears and figure this out. And in every environment that you go into, again, you land in the Jungle. Got to assess the environment. How am I going to get to the other side of the jungle? Here there are people who must say yes, and there are people who can say no. Those are two different groups of people, and they require two different strategies of influence. Because the people who can say no, the focus in the negotiation is mitigating risk for them. Showing them this is safe. You can say yes to this. This is going to be safe. The people who must say yes are probably looking at different options, and you need to show them why. I am the yes that brings the most value to you. It's a sales exercise. You're selling to the people who must say yes. You're calming the people who can say no. So you need to be, again, intentional in your strategy of influence, of how am I going to run the room and get this to signature among all these different people that I'm dealing with.

John, I feel like almost every sentence that you said could have been a podcast. Like everything, I just want to keep on going deeper and deeper and deeper, but unfortunately, I have to wrap for time. But I would love to have you back on to continue to explore. Explore. This is great. And. And I think listeners are saying I need to know that more about this John guy, and I want to learn more about his blog. So before you go, can you remind them about you, how you can get in touch with them and. And those type of things?

Absolutely. Runningtheroom.com is. Is the blog. I've been writing it for over 10 years now, so there's a lot. There's lots of content out there. You know, this was just. I've always been a writer at my core, and so I just like to sometimes get my thought out on paper. So it's, you know, I just really write it for myself and for people who may find value in it.

So I love it. Yes. Listeners, again, I highly recommend is a great blog. And John, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your expertise with us. Really appreciate it.

It's been my pleasure. Kwame. Thank you so much.

Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team, so welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations again. Thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.