How to Develop Authenticity in Negotiation with Mori Taheripour

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 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. Maury, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you, Kwame. So happy to be here.

Yes, and we are happy to have you, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

So I teach at the Wharton School and the legal studies and business ethics department. I teach negotiations. Have been there, almost scary to say this, but almost 20 years. And outside of the Wharton Schools, where I do a lot of my teaching as well, or speaking engagements I know you're all too familiar with for corporations, academic institutions, foundations. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, small business owners. Really, it runs the gamut that everything from agents to my undergrads at Wharton to executives, MBA students to White House fellows, you name it. From learning to do better. I do some work in sports. I do some diversity, equity, inclusion work in sports. I do player engagement work in sports. But since I published my book, I have to say it's been all negotiations all the time, sort of taken up the majority of my life, particularly because the book came out right at the beginning of the pandemic. So you throw that into this whole virtual world of raising awareness about the Book, virtual speaking engagements. Like I said, it's all negotiations all the time.

Incredible. I love it. And listen, that's why we're here. All negotiations all the time.

Sure. So, yeah, the. My book, which is also now out in paperback, is found wherever you can buy books. And I think it was maybe a year plus into the pandemic after seeing all the content that was out there, both in negotiations and just personal development, leadership development, you name it. And really, I think a lot of it came from the sort of the introspection, right. The spending that time in one place and starting to think about the things that you want in your life, maybe rethinking the way you've lived your life, your career, so on and so forth. And negotiations became a really big deal in a lot of ways. It's very time consuming. So it wasn't just, let's throw something out there and see how it works. And I think after spending a good amount of time listening to people, listening to my students, figuring out where the gaps were, and wanting to provide content that's built on from yourself, that stayed very much true to what I was trying to teach and my own values and the way I see negotiations. We published, I think, about 22 months ago, so we've had about 22, soon to be 23 editions of the newsletter. And it's just gotten better and better. But I think it's partly because. So my fingers are on the pulse, right? I'm in the classroom all the time and I listen to people and what people say they need, first of all, is so human. And it's something that we all struggle with. And whether it's, you know, you brought up humility before, when we were speaking before the podcast, they. This notion of like, pride versus humility, grief, you know, so many self care and self love, all of these things that I think imbalance, all of these different things that are so much a part of our lives that I just want to give a voice to it and more importantly, create conversation around it. So that's the newsletter. It's a lot of ways it talks about all the different things that sort of get in our way so that we can't actually bring ourselves authentically to negotiations. And once we deal with those things and once we talk about those things and once we realize there's actually community around these things, then I really think that we have the courage to. To be authentic and to live our lives from that perspective. So that's the book, that's the newsletter.

Love it. Yeah, this is great. And everybody, we will be linking to the book tomorrow's website and to the newsletter as well, so you can get access to all of those things. And I think when I'm thinking about a good place for us to start, I know today we're going to talk a lot about authenticity and negotiation. But I want to start with an interesting pedagogical philosophy that you have, because you were telling me about how you often share information with your students that you don't particularly agree with, which is very different from what a lot of professors do. So can you go into that?

Yeah. So for on my syllabus I have a variety of different readings from books to articles. And there are some that are just always there because I believe them to be my truth. And then there are other readings that particular articles that I find and different perspectives for mine. Right. And I think it's really important that my students actually also hear different voices, that they learn about different perspectives. Because one of sort of my core tenets is that anybody can be a great negotiator and that this is not a subject where we have to be prescriptive because any, there's really no way of predicting who you're speaking to, how they're going to react. You can be really well prepared, but any moment somebody can surprise you. And rather than somebody saying they're thinking, well, well, what did she teach us in class about the subject? I want people to have the confidence in themselves to be able to navigate any situation and to be able to really stand on their own. And so I think that it's important that they hear different voices than mine and to really pick and choose things that align with their own values and their own convictions. I think it's, and it's really an important characteristic, I think, of any successful negotiator is no matter how confident you are, always be humble enough to know that you can't possibly know everything. And you open your mind, you open your heart and really trust yourself in a lot of ways. You know, once you're of a certain age, I think life experience shapes us and we learn. And if we learn to better trust ourselves while being humble enough and open minded enough to learn and be curious, then I think that's the magic. I think that's what makes for a great negotiator.

I love it. I agree, I agree. And this reminds me of one of my law professors early on first year. One of the things that he said is, as I teach you, one of the things I want you to start to develop is Your lawyer senses you might not specifically know a law, but you should be able to get a sense like, man, that sounds illegal to me, you know?

Right.

And it sounds like what you're helping people to develop is their negotiation sense. So you're not going to be prescriptive and say, one plus two always equals three. This is how you do it. It's like, no, I want you to get a diverse perspective of how you can approach this. So you can, on the fly in the moment, start to create a path forward that's unique to you.

And.

And I think that one of the things that often happens in the negotiation industry is that we codify our personalities. And so here's what I mean. So we create these books that say, this is the right way to negotiate, do it this way. But perhaps the reason it works for you is because you are you. And it might not work for me because I am me. And so that's why I really like your approach focusing on authenticity because it doesn't necessarily tell us exactly what to do, but. But it helps us to figure out what we ourselves can and should do in the moment in a way that's authentic and real for us.

Exactly. Because then you can stand by it. Right? You can. No matter how the negotiations go, you can look in the mirror and say, you know what, at least whatever I did aligned with my values. At least I didn't sort of sell myself out. I feel good about what I did regardless of what the outcome is. But when we don't do that, and again, our actions are misaligned with our values, then it's hard to not be resentful or regretful of ourselves and what we did and the choices that we made. So I think it's really important to find your own voice to have the courage to speak it. There's great power in that.

Absolutely. Now let's start to get into the. How does one start to develop their own voice when it comes to not just negotiation, but difficult conversations in general?

So I think this is another place where I'm different from a lot of other people subject or speak on it. I do more therapy in some ways and focus on the mindset and sort of the better understanding of yourself, that sort of self work, if you will, than I do want like all the tactics and strategy, because I think that's actually not that hard to teach. And I think when the two are married, that's the best outcome. But I think the hardest work is actually getting a better sense of yourself and again, having the courage to Be able to live by those things. Right. And to speak your truth. Right. And to hone in on what that means is really, I sort of look at my own life and understand that sort of some of the hardest negotiations I've ever done have been with myself. Some of the most difficult conversations have been with myself or my family members and very personal negotiations. People usually think, I teach a Wharton. It's gotta be a business deal. It's gotta. No, actually, to found my own voice and to feel like. To have life of purpose, to find satisfaction in my own life, that I had to get over a lot of things and, oh, my God, I'm getting emotional, Mommy. I had to get over a lot of different things and the roadblocks that nobody else had really built but myself. And those things included telling my parents I didn't want to be a doctor at post college and being able to honor that, not because I knew what it was that I really wanted to do, because I didn't, but to say that I'm okay finding out because I'm not satisfied. I'm not doing right now. I'm not doing something that feeds my soul or feeds my passion. And at that point, if you said, well, what was your passion? I don't know. I don't know what it was. But to have actually stepped into that kind of scary place of saying, but I will figure this out. And it took a great deal, I think, of courage and knowing that I lived a good portion of my life up until that point, not having done that and feeling like I had missed out on so much, whether it was college classes or experiences. And, yeah, I went to Barnard. So I was in New York at Columbia University. And you could walk through college walk. And you see these amazing buildings and Socrates and Plato and. And these, like, great minds are sort of. Their names are on these amazingly old, beautiful buildings. And I remember going back for one of my college reunions, and I'm looking up at these buildings and I thought, what did I miss? I came here, I studied for four years and prepared for myself for a career that I necessarily. I didn't necessarily want, but did it for somebody else and didn't have the courage to say, that's not for me. And I missed the opportunity to learn from these great people, these amazing professors. And whether it was poli sci or sociology or religion, I really felt like I missed out. And I don't want to live a life of regret, which is why I lean very heavily into negotiations because I think while those conversations are really difficult Isn't it better to have them? And even though it may not go as well as you want to say, okay, didn't go great, but at least I did it. And now I can work on maybe bettering this situation in a way of sort of resolving any conflict and so on and so forth. Isn't that better than to regret the choices that you didn't make? And frankly now with complete confidence, I would say absolutely. And so yeah, I think that's where all this comes from is I want to teach other people to find that confidence, to do that soul searching, to do it early, not late, to find happiness and satisfaction in their lives by doing the hard work and grappling with those really difficult things and not doing things like that negative self talk that we have, the sort of the imposter syndrome, the lack of self respect and dignity that I think is so poisonous because those are the things that get in our way. And is that hard? So hard. But if you do that, then I think everything else will be so much easier because it all really that again, that better understanding of yourself and who you are and what you want to stand for allows you to make better choices, gives you better satisfaction with your life, creates better relationships. So that's the work I do is really almost the preliminary work that's a lot harder, but I think is to so much more crucial.

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. Absolutely. Oh, this is powerful. And it's almost like your life in many ways is a case study for your methodology too. Authentic negotiation. Because a lot of times when people start and they just think purely strategically or tactically, they're looking for that magic thing that they can say to get the person to do what they want them to do. But what you're talking about is a complete paradigm shift when it comes from a place of authenticity. You first have to start with self negotiation to figure out who you are, what you stand for, what your core values are. Because if you don't have that, then you might negotiate and get exactly what you wanted out of the negotiation. And it might be the worst thing that could happen to you because you didn't recognize that dissonance between your values and what you were actually asking for. And one of the things that you said that was really powerful is that when you start to walk authentically and start to make decisions for yourself and live your life the way that you want to live, it takes a lot of courage. But at the end of what you said is that you feel a lot more confident now. And I think that's really important because we have to feel that fear and do it anyway. Without fear, there's no courage. Then it's just action, right? But people can look at your life and say, you're successful. But what you're recognizing here is that you're successful because you took that step to become authentic. And when we think about that fear of living a life of regret, I think about it in terms of the dichotomy between the fear of failure versus the fear of regret. And so for me, it's okay to be afraid. Just be afraid of the right thing. I'm afraid of regret. I can handle failure. I can get over that, you know, so this is really powerful. And what we can see too is when you think about respect, a lot of times respect comes from just being willing to listen to the other person and give that space. And what I'm sensing here is that possibly one of the challenges that we have when it comes to showing other people respect in negotiation is because we haven't done that self work to show ourself that level of respect and dignity. And if we haven't done that for ourselves, it's going to be impossible for us to offer that to other people.

Absolutely. And really interesting you say that because, well, one, people will only treat you as well as you treat yourself, right? You're the role model for that. But the other part of it is that you said something about the respect and how you can respect others and only if you respect yourself. And the truth is that when you don't respect yourself, when you don't know your worth, when you don't know your value, when you don't trust yourself, right? Then it's really easy to take, for example, no as a personal rejection, right? So if somebody says, no, I can't give you a raise. No, I can't give you that promotion. No, I can't give you funding because you didn't have maybe that sense of self worth and the confidence in yourself, then the minute you hear no, that sort of feeds into this story that you've already told yourself, right? Maybe I wasn't good enough, maybe I wasn't worth it. And then you turn that around and now it becomes sort of conflict with that person. Oh my God, I can't believe you just said no to that. And now it's head, right? Whereas if you have that self confidence, if you believe in who you are, your self worth, that self talk is that of a really positive story, right. That takes pride in who you are and your accomplishments and your worth. Then when somebody says, no, I can't give you that raise, then you actually have the confidence, I think, to say, well, is there something else that I could have done that would have made this conversation more successful? Or is there information that I could give you because you're going to be advocating on my behalf to HR or whoever else that could arm you better with information that you need? Or okay, if it's not now, maybe I come back later. Or if it's not the money, is there something else? Can I get, I don't know, an extra day off a month to go back to school for ever, to get my mba, whatever it is, you know, get off earlier for work on Fridays so I could spend more time with my kids? The no didn't become rejection because you had more self respect and you had a much better handle on your self worth. And, and so you just took that as okay. It's not rejecting me, it's just rejecting that thing that I asked for. What else can I do that could turn that no into a yes? And that only comes when you actually have that confidence to sort of stay in that no and work it out so that it can become a yes. So I think that's why the respect piece that you brought up is so important. Because when people say, what does self worth have to do with, with office? Everything. It's our foundation.

Absolutely. And what we realize is that we are essentially trying to, in many cases, stack negotiation tactics and strategies on top of a shaky foundation. And it can be incredibly disempowering. When you go to these incredible programs, do this training, read these books, and then it's still not clicking and you don't understand why. And a lot of times it's because we haven't taken the time to do that self work. And like you said, it helps us to be more resilient because we're not taking things as personally. So you can stay in that problem. Solving mode for a longer period of time. And then this is something that might happen is you might get rejection and then you call an audible, you shift a little bit. Okay, well what about this? We stay in that problem solving mode and then we might realize that there is no deal to be had. And that's okay too. And when you have that confidence and that self worth, then you say, listen, if they cannot pay me what I deserve in this situation, this is not the deal or the relationship or whatever it happens to be for me, and I have enough personal value that I can find the relationship, the opportunity, the deal that is right for me and you can move on. And I think it's just so empowering when you can have that self worth, that confidence in order to move on. But again, we have to do that work. And that's the hardest part. It takes the longest time, but it's worth it when you do it.

It's ugly, it's messy, it's scary, but it's so worth it.

Absolutely. Now, when it comes to the authentic approach that you have, you talk about in your courses and in your book, what are some things that you say in general, regardless of who the person is, are some fundamental principles that people should keep in mind in general when they're having these negotiations?

I think at the core of it is that this is all about humanity, right? It's humans connecting. And when we realize that, I think it changes everything, because it's not. I don't subscribe to this whole transactional notion of negotiations because if you see it as a transaction, it'll only be a transaction. And I said, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, for example, and rather than think about these things and sort of this having this tunnel vision, like, let me just get this deal now. When you start thinking about humans connecting, when you think about this from a perspective of relationships, when you think about this from perspective of service, then all of a sudden the transactions, and even if it is that, it's not just for the here and now, it's in perpetuity and don't we want that to be the way we see everything? Right? And I think the moment that we tell ourselves that, oh, I'll never see this person again, or I'll never do deal, deal with this person again, we give ourselves permission to, I think one, maybe even pretend to be something that we're not, because you're like, they don't know me or behave badly, neither of which are good. So I think authenticity is really important because when you can show up as yourself. When you know who you are and you can stand again by your values and really treat people in a way that says to them, I'm not pretending this is not a game, that this is me as I am trying to make a connection with you. This is more than just a transaction. Even if it is just a transaction, even if it's that you're just buying a car, isn't it more likely that you'll get a better deal at the end of the day when you are connecting with somebody at a human level, dare I say, a more vulnerable place than robotic and transactional? I just feel like that's when people don't like negotiations because it feels very inauthentic. It feels like it has. You have to pretend to be something that you're not in order to be a good negotiator. It feels like you're not really showing up as who you are. Which creates a lot of room for regret later, right? Regretting the way you treated somebody, regretting the way you acted. It takes a lot of courage to be authentic, especially these days. But I don't know, there's so much pride and dignity in being your authentic self. I think when I get emotional, I do get emotional. I get very emotional in my classes, particularly sort of with my students at Wharton, my undergrads. I feel like they're coming into this world that's really, really difficult and asks them to be something that they're not all the time. And I can say to them, that's actually kind of easy. Showing yourself and having that pride in yourself and knowing that you belong there, that this is your seat at that table, is as deserved as anybody else's. Not because you're pretending to be somebody else, but exactly as you are. Isn't that what's most important? And I just feel like, especially as an academic, especially as people who are this way, we influence people. And I think our greatest duty, especially in this sort of place of this world of negotiations, is to say, don't try to be something that you're not. In fact, it's harder but so much more satisfying to be exactly who you are and you want to be better, then work on yourself. Don't try to be something you're not. Do that sort of self work, but stay exactly as you are from so foundationally and then get better. I don't know how life is worth living if you don't do that.

That is powerful. And I think, really, the thing that I cannot shake, Maury. The thing that I cannot Shake is that I just keep on telling myself as this interview progresses, man, I got to read that book and get on that newsletter. So before you go, just to let the audience know again how they can get in touc with you and tell them about the book and the newsletter too.

So go to my website, maurytayboy.com and as soon as you get there, it'll be a pop up for my newsletter where you can subscribe to the newsletter. We do a lot, we publish a lot on LinkedIn, so I have a pretty heavy LinkedIn presence, from articles to. We do a lot of sort of polls to figure out what our subscribers want for the newsletter. So we're always asking for people's opinions and thoughts on things. I'm on Instagram, actually, anywhere, pretty much on social media. I'm there fortunately or Unfortunately. But Instagram, LinkedIn, my website, you'll find access to the book and you'll get access to my newsletter.

Love it. Maury. This was exceptional. And again, I just want to pause and thank you for bringing humanity back to negotiations. It's so important and it's a refreshing approach because I think, like you said, it's harder and harder today for people to be authentic and to see somebody of your caliber doing the work that you do, inspiring people to be themselves as they negotiate and find ways to live their best lives through the art and science of negotiation, I think that's really powerful. So thank you for the work that you do.

Thank you. Kwame and I talked a lot about sort of the bad content that was out there. You have some really great content. And when I first came on Today, I said, I feel like I'm talking to a celebrity. I've been following you for a really long time and I appreciate your perspective on things and I appreciate you bringing so many different perspectives into your work, and that's powerful as well. So thank you for allowing me to have this conversation with you, inviting me in to do this. I very much appreciate it.

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