How to Handle Your Toughest Difficult Conversations with Din Jenkins

I want to let you know that my new book, titled how to have Difficult Conversations About Race is coming out September 13th. And after years of working with professionals just like you all around the world, I found that conversations about race are particularly challenging because of too much fear and too little confidence. More specifically, people struggle with the fear of discomfort, the fear of damaging relationships, the fear of being misunderstood, canceled, or ostracized for what they have to say. So who did I write this book for? The the person who is passionate about changing the world and their organizations for the better, the leader who leads a diverse team, and the professional who wants to learn how to overcome the hidden barriers that make it tough to connect with people with a different background. Whether you consider yourself an ally or you just want to avoid making mistakes when discussing race, this book is for you. And as a listener, you know this already, but I'm going to say it again. I believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. That's my motto. And that's why my goal is to help as many, many people as possible by making these difficult conversations easier. And after six years and 600 episodes of negotiate Anything, I am asking for your support in this endeavor to make this world a better place. At the American Negotiation Institute. Our goal is to change the world, and I am not afraid to say that. And this book plays a major role in that mission. And we would love to have your support as we try to make this book a best seller. Because if it hits that number, if it hits the best seller list, that means more people will know about the message within that book. And if we hit the bestseller list, that means that we can get this message out to people all around the world and we can't do it without you. So if any of this resonates with you and you want to join the mission, check out the link in the description of this episode to find out where you can buy your copy of how to have Difficult Conversations About Race.

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Hello my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at and I We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations, and we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier. Both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings, both virtually and in person, all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Dean, thanks for joining us today.

I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

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

All right. Well, by day, I am a police officer. I'm a sergeant for a town that's about 30 minutes south of Boston called Stoughton. I am. I wear a bunch of different hats. I do accreditation, I do training. I do public records requests, and I am also a defensive tactics instructor. And if that's still not enough, I'm also a member of the Regional Crisis Negotiation team.

Fantastic. When you started it off, it sounded like you were going to describe yourself as a superhero, which you did. By day, I'm this. But it sounds like by day you're actually a superhero.

Well, that's only by day. What brings me here today is what I do the rest of the time, which I the CEO of a company called Supply the Y. And one of the things that we do is we have podcasts that focus on having difficult conversations. So that's what brings us. That's what brought us together.

Absolutely. Yes. Yes. This is great. That's great. And so Supply the Y is the name of the podcast as well.

So the name of the podcast is Difficult Conversations by Supply the Y, but Supply the Y is the actual company name. So, you know, we do trainings and facilitate DNI conversations and whatnot as well. So we offer a lot of different products.

That's great. So, listeners, there will be a link in the description to both the podcast and the Supply the Y company as well in the description. So we're excited to share that, too. I'm excited to have you on. This is going to be really great. And so what we're going to do is run through your framework that you've created for how to have difficult conversations. It's really well equipped for the most difficult type of conversations that we're having today. It seems to be race and politics. Those are the things that are coming up the most. But you were telling me before that this is something. Something that is universally applicable as well.

Absolutely. Kwame I like to look at these five steps that to having a difficult conversation is. I call it a universal adapter. It is the Swiss army knife of conversational tools. You can adapt it to race and politics, like you just said, but you can also use it for deciding what you want to have for dinner with your significant other, which I know in my house, that's one of the most difficult conversations that I have sometimes.

Absolutely. No, this is great. This is great. And the thing that I love about the framework is just that, the simplicity, but also the broad applicability and the power. Right. Because a lot of times you get into these conversations, you're absolutely lost. But now with this framework, you can actually follow the framework and know exactly what to do, what to say and. And especially what. Avoid mistakes you need to avoid, too.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I'm super excited about presenting this, and I, and I hope you. You see the value in these steps, and I hope that they help somebody out there.

Fantastic. Well, let's start with the first one. So start small. Tell us about that one.

All right, so the first step is super important because you want to start with a small number of people in these conversations. So again, this is geared towards having difficult conversations in that I believe that some of the most difficult conversations are ones that are emotionally charged or it's about a polarizing topic. All right, so what, you know, what I like to do is I like to limit the number of participants, because what happens as human beings, Kwame, when we are involved in something that's emotionally charged, we tend to gravitate towards others that share our ideologies and our values. So when you embark in one of these conversations, and let's say there's five people that, that agree that agree with you, and 10 people that don't agree with you. Now the 10 people, they develop that pack mentality, and they are now attacking that five, because that's kind of human nature. You gravitate towards situations that are comfortable, and you gravitate towards people that share your ideology. So that's why you want to start with a small conversation. One on one is optimal in these type situations.

Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. I mean, when you think about any system, the more variables you add to the system, the more complex and complicated the system becomes. And these conversations are hard enough as they are. Right. So we don't need to add that needless complexity. And we're seeing tribalism creep into these types of conversations more and more often and is becoming incredibly problematic and hard to manage. And I think this really simple solution here, starting small, is really powerful to push that away 100%.

And like you said, as you call it tribalism, I call it a pack mentality. Some people call it groupthink. But no matter what label you put on it, it is making people not want to have difficult conversations. It's actually pushing people into the corners. And people are suffering from widespread spread avoidance. People just are avoiding going out of their way to avoid having conversations that we all need to have in order to move forward, especially in organizations. In order to have a well run organization, you need to be able to have difficult conversations.

Right? And something else that we have to consider too is the more people that are involved in these conversations, the more of a performance it becomes. Right? So it's not necessarily even me and you talking to each other, it's me talking through you to the people who are around us. Right? You see that all the time in the news. I think that's the perfect example. It's not a true dialogue, a true conversation. It's me signaling to my people, right. What, what it is that I believe. And the same thing happens in these conversations too. And so the next one is be realistic. So tell us about that one too.

So be realistic. It can, it seems a little vague, but roll with me on this. So you have to be mindful of the fact that, that you're most likely not going to solve a complex issue in one shot. All right. I call it conversational lasagna because there's layers. There's all these different layers that you have to peel back in order to finish your plate. Well, it's the same thing with these conversations. So you have to go into them knowing that there's most likely going to be a follow up or knowing that you're going to have to, you know, maybe stop and then revisit it at another time. Like these conversations that we're talking about. Like for example, like race, for example. How do you have and solve racial issues in one conversation? Well, the answer is it's a loaded question. I'm asking because it's not possible. If someone out there figures out how to do it, contact me Dean, at supplythewhi.com, we'll get together, we'll make billions of dollars because rocket in this thing, because it's not something that can be solved in one conversation. So you have to, you know, the goal is you want to enact kind of like a butterfly effect of positivity and you want to create a situation where now you're building some trust, and you can. You know, once you have that trust, that foundational trust, you can have more conversations. People feel safe to have more of these conversations. And that's really the goal here with this. You know, you have to be realistic, and you got to start small right off the bat.

I love the simplicity of this, too, because a lot of times with these conversations, it feels like you're trying to boil the ocean, right? This massive situation and challenge that we're dealing with, and we're trying to solve the problem right now. And then we wonder why we're so frustrated, and we wonder why we are frustrated repeatedly in all of these conversations we have. It's like, I can't accomplish my goal. Well, is your goal realistic? That's a legitimate question. It reminds me of a time when my son Kai, he was two, I saw him in the backyard, standing on his little chair, reaching up into the sky, and I said, kai, what are you. What you doing there, buddy? He says, I'm trying to touch the moon. That's what he was trying to do. And I feel like a lot of these conversations, people try to touch the moon. They're trying to do something that is physically impossible to accomplish in this conversation, and just simply giving them the license to say, listen, we're not trying to solve everything. Let's be realistic about what we can solve. I think that that makes people a lot more willing to actually engage in the con conversation because they can actually see the prospect of what could be a productive conversation or maybe some modicum of success, 100%.

I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it's just. You're exchanging ideas and thought processes. And in order to do that, it's just like a highway. In order to. For cars and traffic to flow, the highway has to be free of obstruction. And being unrealistic is a huge obstruction to your conversation. And it's one of those things that people don't think about. I think everybody knows it, like, deep down inside, you know it. But sometimes until it's said or it's presented in such a way, you don't realize it.

Absolutely. And so. So now we have that construct of being realistic. We understand that. Now let's make it practical.

What.

What does that actually look like in application in these conversations?

All right, so in these conversations, you have to go in, like I said, with a realistic goal. So suppose. Let's stick with. With police, use of force. Let's go. There's. That is one of my specialties. One of the things I talk about, I teach it. And when you are trying to explain maybe a given situation, you have to be realistic in the fact that you can't say, well, why did the police do this? Couldn't they just shoot a knife out of a running person's hand?

That seems pretty hard.

No, no. You know, you're laughing because it sounds crazy to people that understand the difficulty of something like that. That's something that you see in movies and in old westerns and people, that becomes people's reality. They don't realize that if you've never handled a weapon before and you don't realize the complexity of handling a weapon and then the rules that you're bound by as a police officer in that you have to be cautious of your target and what's beyond it. So it's not even like you can just sit there and shoot. You have to like, you can't just shoot at something and then not. Not have an idea of where that bullet might go if it misses. Because if you put somebody that's downrange in danger, you can't take that shot. You're not supposed to take that shot. So just little things like that is, is, is part of being realistic. And that's when, that's when building this trust and having these one on one conversations helps. Because I can then say, hey, listen, I understand what you're saying and I get it. In theory, force is ugly, and it's not something that's attractive. But you have to understand all these little things that aren't readily apparent to an everyday citizen. And that's one of the things that's part of the realism you have to present to people when they're talking about options that might not exist.

Right. And with that little case study that you provided there too. The thing that I liked about it was that you were not dismissive of the claim. Right? You weren't dismissive of the claim. And you also said you understand where you're coming from. And you explained that you understand where they're coming from. Right. So you're not just saying, oh, I understand. You know how people just say, I just. I understand. It's like, no, I understand because you said this. Right. I think that's brilliant. And at the same, at the same time, you're adding to it. It's kind of like the improv technique of. Yes. And Right. So yes, that is a really good point. And another thing that we should consider is the complexity of the situation, for example, these variables, those type of things. So, like you said layers were adding to it gradually, but at the same time you were really well, you approached it really well with not like just taking away a layer, just slapping away dismissively too. Because that could be problematic as well.

Absolutely. If I, if I, if I belittle somebody and I make them feel small for asking a question which to me seems, might seem like, wow, how do you not know this? But I have to realize not everybody does what I do for a living. So they don't. You know, it's just like if I walked into, you know, some famous chef's kitchen and then I thought I could cook because I made a great burger the other day on my grill, and now all of a sudden I think I'm a five star chef. If they start shouting out terminologies and telling me to do things, I might not understand it. And it would make me never want to be in there again if someone smacked me verbally and said something that was hurtful or belittled me with the comments. So part of our tenants is we try to make sure that we embrace convers and we make people feel comfortable in these conversations. It's paramount.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's paramount, but we often forget it. Again, going back to what we were talking about with that pack mentality, when you see somebody from outside the pack, the first thing you say isn't just thinking about it from a primal level. Right. Base human psychology. We're not saying, oh, that's a different person. Let me welcome them in. Usually it's like, that's scary. It's going to be an aggressive response. That's the baseline human response. So again, what we're doing here is we're creating these unnatural, I'm using air quotes, unnatural responses. Because oftentimes your first response in these conversations, the first emotional response you want to have isn't going to be very productive. And so I really like that. One of the fundamental tenets of this entire approach is embracing conversations and making sure that the person, your conversational partner, feels as though they are included and feels as though they are respected. So they are actually more willing to engage.

100%. You got it right.

Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're Especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more and more. We will be right back after this. And so the next one. Staying focused on one topic. So why is this so important?

This is so important because this is. Out of the first three we've gone over, this is the one that really requires the greatest amount of internal discipline. Staying focused on one topic is. It's difficult to do because, let's face it, when we get emotional and we feel a certain way about something, now we are in attack mode, right? We're presenting our case and we're trying to win, win, win. And when that happens and we let emotion take over, we forget the fact that, again, what's the main point of a conversation? It's to have an exchange of ideas and thought processes. So you start with one topic to make sure that the receiver is following you. All right? You have to make sure, like, how can you have a conversation with someone if they confuse. And let me give you a prime example of that. Before I ever got into police work, I was in sales for years. And one of the things that we tried to do in sales, I sold two things that don't really, that are very difficult to sell. I sold long distance phone service. That tells you how old I am, because that was a thing at one point. And then I also sold credit card processing terminals. Those are two industries that people really don't understand how they work. So right off the bat, I'm starting off with a huge wall of defensiveness from people because who wants to feel stupid? Nobody does. Nobody wants to feel stupid. Nobody wants to feel like you don't. Like you're not smart when someone presents something to you and they're really talking above your head. So that is when I really realized how important it was to stick with one topic, one component of what I was selling at a time to make sure people were with me. So if I could get somebody to give me 30 seconds of their time. And I started really by asking what was important to them. Like, you know, for example, we're talking about long distance service. Do you have anybody that lives outside of, say, 30, 40 miles away from whatever the mileage was back then? And people, of course, everybody says, yeah, I have an aunt or this. I said, all right, well, how often do you talk to them? How Important is this to you. And then as soon as you do that. Now I've made it about them. I've stuck with one topic. I've talked about the amount of time they use it, what time of day they use it, and now I've built some trust, and now they're with me because I've brought them along in the conversation. Then I go into what the distances are for. When the long distance kicked in, it kicks in after this distance. So if they live from this city and beyond all the way out to Japan, you're going to be paying your long distance service. And that's what I would do. And that's how you bring people on. So I just have taken that sales approach and I've applied it to my role as a supervisor, as a leader in a police department, because again, sometimes when I have patrolmen or even people that are above me that don't do what I do, and they need to be brought up to speed, you start slow. You start with one topic. You offer people an opportunity to ask their questions and to be brought up to speed and to clarify, and then you move on together. It eliminates that talking at people, because you're speaking with people, it's so important.

Absolutely. And so it sounds like what we're doing here, when we're talking about one topic, we're not saying necessarily one topic for the whole conversation. We're saying one topic at a time.

Correct. We're bringing people along one topic at a time. So that could take. It could take 30 seconds to do that. It could take. You could end up having a meeting that's only about one topic. I mean, it depends on what you're talking about. And it depends on. On. On the gravity of the situation that you're discussing.

Yeah, okay. No, that makes a lot of sense. And now let's say we're in a conversation and we say, all right. I remember Dean told me one topic at a time. I got it. Now I'm going to try to do that. And I say, all right, so let's talk about this issue. But my conversational partner, the person on the other side, they are going all over the place. They're talking about 15 different things. It's even hard for me to keep track. So how do we address those situations where even though we're trying to talk about one thing, the other side is trying to go all over the place?

I love this question. I'm so glad you asked me this, Kwame. I the. One of the techniques that I like to use I'm a very direct person is. I like to, I like to slow things down. So if the conversation turns into a verbal ping pong match and that, and it's just going all over the place and you're having trouble keeping track, slow things down, say, hey, Kwame, I understand that you have a lot that you want to talk to that you want a lot you want to talk to me about, but let's stick to what we started with. You started out with, this was your main, main thing that you wanted to talk about. So let's stay there for a little while because. Because you kind of lost me. You were making some great points. I was following you, and then we moved on to something else. So would you mind slowing it down so I can follow where you're going with this? Empower them.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's great. So, listeners, let's break this down because that was, that was a masterclass right there. Dean, you made it look so easy, but there were so, so many layers to this. Okay, so first notice how our pace, just throughout this podcast interview, what it's been, right? We have a high level of rapport. Our cadence, our tempo has been a pretty high tempo, right? But then in the example that you gave when you said, I'm going to slow things down, you actually slowed down your rate of speech to convey that to the other person, slowing it down. And I'm assuming too, one of the benefits of this is not only the fact that it actually, in terms of time, slows it down, but also calms the person down. It was intentionally soothing with the way that you did that. The other thing that you did, you didn't belittle them again by saying, you are scatterbrained, like, where are you going? You're just everywhere, right? Blaming them for it. But what you said is you made a really great point here. And so you lost me for a second. And so you're kind of taking responsibility. Not like, hey, this is your fault. It's like, hey, I got a little bit lost. You made a great point. Let's focus a little bit more on that point. So it showed that you're listening and it showed that you cared about the point that they made. But at the same time, you're taking control of the conversation, too, but not in a domineering type of way, in a. In the way of a. I would say a caring leader would. In a conversation, too. So this was that. I love that example that you just.

Gave, and I'm glad that you see the power in that, because the key word you said there was leader. You know, like, you know, this is. This is very much like the ability to have a difficult conversation and to make it make people feel safe. Having these conversations with you is very much a leadership skill. It's one of the, I think, one of the least talked about leadership skills. You know, if I take just a quick detour, just really quick. If you talk to people about what the biggest failures and successes in their organizations are, I would guarantee you if you said list five things among those five things, there's going to be some form of communication in that, guaranteed in a failing organization, there's going to be a lack of communication or there's going to be improper communication, like what you talked about earlier, where people aren't having that emotional pause so they can have, you know, they can, they can access that emotional intelligence that you need to be successful leader and thinking about what you say before you say it. And conversely, in an organization that's great and that's thriving, there's going to be phenomenal conversation and communication. There's going to be phenomenal trust. There's going to be all of this great feeling towards one another in the organization, and that is also communication based. So this is, you know, it really is a lead. It's leadership development, I believe.

Absolutely. No, it makes a lot of sense. And then the next point that you made when citing specific instances, do your homework. This is great because a lot of times people fancy themselves to be experts on very esoteric issues, right? These are very complicated and complex things, and then they don't do their homework and then they lose credibility. Right. So tell us a little bit more about the mistakes that you've seen here and then how to do it.

Well, all right, so the mistakes that I see here, again, I'll go. I'll go back. Excuse me, I'll go back to my role as a police officer. It's a statistical job. People love to throw stats around. Just like in sports, they love to throw stats because as you and I both know, if you give. If we both have the exact same group of stats, we can make them say different things. It's all about how you present them and how you shape them in your conversation. So one of the quickest ways to lose credibility in a conversation is if I am presenting in the conversation to you, the receiver and I introduce stats and you say, well, wait a minute, Dean, I thought it was this. And then you present your facts and it turns out that you're correct. And it's more than just a slip of the ton on my, on my part. Let's, let's quote, let's make sure that we understand that too. It's not just, you know, like, if I say, you know, you know, one for every hundred, but it's supposed to be one for every thousand, and you say, isn't it one for every thousand? It says right here in this space, it says, oh, sorry, slip the ton, one of every thousand. This is not that. This is me introducing facts that I didn't do my homework on, and I'm presenting them like they're the gospel. And now I've lost all my credibility that I built up. I mean, what, I mean, this, sometimes this happens midway through or even towards the end of a conversation. So all that hard work, you did, everything you did to get to that point and build that relational credit score, so to speak, whereas, you know, you build that foundation of trust and now you feel comfortable having these conversations. Well, now you've just ruined it because you just brought in something that wasn't true and then you tried to sell it like it was.

Yeah, that you lose credibility, you lose trust, the relationship suffers. It makes, it makes a lot of sense. And it's tough to recover because trust takes time to build and it takes even longer to rebuild in some, some cases, too. So especially as a leader, too, if we're bringing this to the Conte context of leadership within an organization, a family, company, whatever it might be, you might have a long time to build it up just because of this mistake.

If you take step three, which is staying focused, and then you couple it with this, with doing your homework, what happens when you lose people? They retreat back into a defensive posture. And that defensive posture is tantamount to, if you want a visual, it's like building a wall with a moat in front of the wall. So every time, so every time that you lose credibility or you make somebody feel confused or you make them feel like they like, like they can't keep up with you, that moat grows, it gets deeper, that wall gets taller. So if you keep going on that way, you're going to make it so it's insurmountable. And like you said, you are not going to be able to recover from that and, and get what you need to get accomplished through that conversation. So very important.

Makes a lot of sense. And now when we do this properly, let's say we actually do our homework, we have our stats and statistics, evidence, everything down pat, and it's the right. We understand it the right way. How do we introduce it to the conversation persuasively?

Again, it's an exchange of ideas and thought processes. So the best way first of all is you let everybody get their turn talking. All right, that again, it seems so simple. But if I am so hot and heavy to introduce what I want to talk about to the point where I'm not even listening to what you're talking about, I'm just listening for the break in your conversation so I can start talking.

Right, Right.

We all, we've all had conversations with people like that. That is a way that it's not going to work. So you have to be patient and there has to be that trust that both people are going to get an opportunity to present their sides and present their points. So as far as stats go, if I'm not a big stat guy, because I think that you can get tripped up on stats, but if there's something where I, where I do decide where I have to introduce statistics, I am going to present it in such a way where it flows with the exact topic we're discussing. It has to flow with that conversation. It can't be willy nilly. I can't just throw it in because it sounds right. It has to be relevant to what we're talking about right then at that time.

Yeah, absolutely. It makes so much sense. And one of the things that I've seen oftentimes is people use the statistics and the data as a crutch. Right. Instead of communicating the message, they just share the data and hope that the data communicates it for them. And so I think it has to have synergy within the conversation. It can't be the only part of the message, but it will be an important part. But you have to use it the right way. And I think the point that you made especially about giving people the opportunity to feel heard before introducing that is so important because sometimes if they feel like you're monopolizing the conversation and then now you're going to hit them with a lot of data and statistics, people are just going to tune out. So even if the data is great, they're not receptive yet 100%, you know.

Because again, I mean, there's certain segments of the population that loves data, like people that are math and science minded and they, and they like things in neat little boxes. They love statistics and data. Again, I'm not really that I prefer context. I'm the person that makes, I might make somebody uncomfortable because after they've introduced the stats, I'm going To say that sounds great. Can you provide a little context as to how that applies to what we're talking about? And sometimes that. And you have to be. If you're going to introduce your statistics, you have to be worried. I'm not worried. You have to be prepared for somebody like me in the audience that's going to ask for context.

Right. That makes sense. I think that's powerful. And then I know the last one, the last point that you make out of your five step framework is the most important one. So tell the audience what that is and what it means to us.

All right, the fifth and final point. Don't try to win. Don't try to win the conversation, folks. Again, it's an exchange of ideas and thought processes. It is not a competition, it is not an argument. It's not even a debate. You're trying to exchange information and ideas for one main purpose. You're seeking to understand your conversational partner. And how does that play? We're on negotiate anything. How can you negotiate with somebody if you don't understand where they're coming from and what's important to them? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am going to say it's very difficult to do. All right, so you have to get rid of that I'm trying to win mentality, which is difficult for somebody like me. I'm a former athlete. I am ultra competitive, ultra competitive. But this isn't that. This isn't the time for competitive. This is the time for you to take a deep breath, access your emotional intelligence, and really seek to understand the people that you're in these conversations with.

That makes sense. And now let me play devil's advocate here, please, because somebody would say, well, Dean, you've been in sales, you're trying to close deals. Now you're in the. You're in the academy, right? And so you're leading. You need people to. To do things. They might not be doing it now. And now you need them to do it in crisis negotiation. Right. They are doing something extremely illegal. You need them to stop doing that. So how can you accomplish that if you're not trying to win?

Phenomenal question. So every conversation has different points at which you have to. Either you have to progress in the conversation and in some point in police negotiation, for example, there might be a point where we're no longer compensating. Now it's time for you to do what we need you to do. I need you to put that weapon down on the table and I need you to come out of the house with your hands up and then listen to the officers that meet you at the door. That's when it progresses. So you have to. And again, if you use your police academy example, there are very few conversations in the police academy, Kwame, when I've been through two. And. And it's mostly they say you do. They take jump, you say, how high? And that's the end of it, you know, so. So that. That's something. I wish it was more conversational. Would have made for a much more enjoyable experience, but it was really. Wasn't really that way. But. But of all serious, you. You really want to, you know, emotional access that emotional intelligence. You want to utilize it. You want to take a deep breath, and you want to remember that the main thing you're trying to do is you're trying to seek to understand. Once you've understood, then you can start looking to close your deal, your sales deals. If I know what's important to you, Kwame, I know how to close you now. I can simply just rehash what we talked about, and I can access all those points in the sales pitch that you didn't even realize was a sales pitch. You thought it was me just having a caring conversation with you. And it might have been that, but it was also me trying to gain information as to what I need to do in order to get you to say yes to the deal.

Yeah, this is powerful. And really what it comes down to is the reality that sometimes we try to persuade too soon. We focus so much on our agenda and what it is that we want and what it is that we need that we try to impose ourselves on somebody else. I remember I was doing a negotiation training. Speaking of supply, the. Why, this was one of those times where I'm like, man, I wish I didn't hear that. Why I had folks say, hey, so brought you here. What do you hope to accomplish? And this guy said, I want to learn how to impose my will on people. I'm like, oh, man, you're in the wrong place. I don't want to be an accomplice or whatever it is that you're trying to do. But, yeah, but I think that's how a lot of people approach it. They're like, this is what I want, and I need you to get in line, and that's it. And then people get resistant. They get. Get defensive, as you described earlier. But if we take the time to understand this. This important part of the process, understanding and empathizing, then it positions us to then get what we want. But we have to suspend our agenda in order to accomplish that.

Absolutely. And a real quick side story on how this works in real life. And again, I was the receiver of this. I wasn't even the presenter of this. So in the. And I was in the process of buying a car for my wife and I don't know about you, I don't enjoy that process. I really don't enjoy it. I would rather buy a house. I thought that was a better process and a more enjoyable process than buying a car. So I found this young salesperson that I just liked. We had an instant synergy with, but the deal didn't make sense. The numbers didn't work. So I didn't do business with him. Then I came back to this person four months later, I ended up buying a car from someplace else and I still went back to this person later, ended up buying a car from them. Because we built that relate that relational credit score that, that baseline of trust. Like I trusted this person. He took time to explain things 1, 1, 1 item at a time, right? He stayed focused on why, on my needs and what I wanted. That was very important to him. It wasn't him like, hey, listen Dean, you know, Even though you're 6 1, 255 pounds, let's try to stick you in a, in a small two seater car, you know, where you're eating your knees when you drive. He didn't do that. Which had, which has happened to me when another car buying processes. So the whole point of that was this person didn't try to win. They listened to me, they heard what was important to me. So much so that I said, you know what? Even though it didn't work this time, I'm going to come back to this person. Because they did all of the steps, right? And even though they weren't able to close me per se, we left as friends and we left on a high note. Which again, you know, you're not going to close every deal. You're not going to, you know, I'm not going to stop every bad actor in my negotiation role from doing what they want to do. But what I can do maybe is I can build some sort of relational credit score with these people where the next time I deal with them they can say, you know what? You were fair with me last time. So I feel very comfortable having a conversation on how to move forward with you.

Yeah. Oh, that's a great example. That is a really, really great example. Fantastic. Well, I know we're coming up on time, but I want to make sure that we, the listeners, know who you are, what you do, and how they can get in touch with you.

All right, everybody, again, I'm Dean Jenkins, and I am here today from my company, Supply the Y. I have a podcast which is every Monday night at 7pm Eastern Standard Time on the Supply the Y Facebook page. I am on LinkedIn, I am on Instagram, and we have podcasts on all of your favorite major podcast platforms. So check us out. Connect with me on LinkedIn like the supply the Y page, and let's get to know each other.

Fantastic. Dean, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Kwame, 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 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.