How to Integrate Artificial Intelligence into High-Stakes Negotiations with Tichaona Gandhle

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.

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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.

Teach, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

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

Sure. Teach Gandle. Originally from Zimbabwe, moved from Zimbabwe extremely young age and went to college in the UK on a rugby scholarship actually, and did study. My undergraduate undergrad was in computer science and my master's in architecture. So moved to the states back in 2000 actually and been here since then. I did some architecture, but mainly I stayed in the tech side of things. I do run two businesses currently. Mayhem Shield, which is cloud services, AI services and cybersecurity, and Blue Melon Capital, which funds for fix and flips, big construction developments or just regular rental property funding. That's pretty much where I'm at. And we've been using mostly AI to be of help to what we have been doing to minimize waste and be more efficient.

Yes. Oh, this is great. This is. It's funny because my family's from the Caribbean, so immigrant as well. And I see that immigrant work ethic in you. Not one business isn't good enough. You have to have Two, always working. So listen, I respect that. And the work that you do is incredible. Growing following on LinkedIn and other platforms. So I'm excited to have this conversation and listeners, let me just set the stage for you here. So the work that Teach does is pretty technical, whether it's on the tech side with his tech company or the funding side. Both of those are very technical industries. So we're going to first do an overview of how he gains clients and collaborators because he has a really great process, a strategic process for how to do that. Then I think we're probably going to spend the majority of the time talking about how he integrates artificial intelligence into his negotiation strategy when he's having these high level conversations. And just a little foreshadowing here, we'll talk about how he took some, like two of my books and put it into AI and use it effectively. It's so cool. It is so cool. So I can't wait to get into this. So Teach, how about you start off just setting the stage with what types of conversations you're having with clients during your business development process and then we'll go into the strategy.

Usually we have clients who come in with problems or challenges that they know or do not know. Most times they do not know the challenges that they have. So I try to make sure that when we talk, I probe enough to understand what is it that they are doing so that we can help each other to come up with a solution which works for them as well as satisfactory enough for us to say, we have offered this solution to this client and this client is happy and that's how they can refer other clients and so on and so forth.

Very nice, very nice. Now, when you are having these conversations, it's pretty technical, pretty technical. And so you're gathering all of this information, getting a good understanding. And as you're gathering this information, because you're familiar with the field, you're already starting to formulate solutions. But in our previous discussion, you mentioned that at this time, as you're gathering information, you're intentional about not giving those solutions. At this time, can you tell us about that part of the strategy?

So a client comes in, they have a problem, let's say, with how slow their customer service responses have been. So we try to do is find out why and why and why and why. And usually by the time you end up to the last of maybe the fifth why, they would have spoken about the problem exhaustively. Now, in the same spirit, in the same light of them talking about whatever the Problems they are, they are having. We then suggest solutions or give them hints of have you thought about doing this? Have you thought about doing that? Would it work much better, say, if your customer service is answering questions, say within the same minute that an email shows up, and do they have resources for them to be able to do that? So usually that's how they will then convince themselves that they need such service. And from there, the next call usually is a closing of a deal.

So I like this because it seems like for your process, you are not trying to convince them that they need a specific service or convince them that they need to work with you. It's a process of gathering information using that five why technique to get deeper and deeper and deeper to get ultimate clarity, and then steering the conversation strategically in a way that allows them to convince themselves rather than you having to convince them.

Exactly. Because what we want the clients to do is sell themselves, which means at the same time, even if they're the smaller budget, by the time we are done with the five whys, their budget keeps getting bigger. And as it gets bigger, we know we have more work to do for them. At the same time, we are helping them to solve a problem or pain point or challenge, but we are growing bigger as well at the same time.

Absolutely. No. This is great. So a couple of little negotiation points to pull out from this. There is a psychological principle called reactive devaluation. And the easy way to think about it is the I call it the just because you said it, I don't believe it bias. And so in any difficult conversation, especially if they start to see you as the other side, they put their defenses up when you're making these points. So in a business development type of context, they're saying, okay, I'm talking to Teach, he's trying to sell me something. So I'm going to be skeptical of the things that he said. So instead what you do is you say, I'm not going to say anything, I'm going to ask you questions. You say everything and you convince yourself. And then that also leads us to what's called the IKEA effect. So they found that people who buy their furniture from IKEA have a stronger emotional connection from it because they can actually see themselves in the furniture. They worked hard to create it. And then with this applied to these conversations, it creates more buy in. Because now they're not just saying, yeah, Teach is giving me a proposal, he's telling me what I should do. No, we had a conversation and I put in all of this information And I had a great conversation with Teach. And so the deal, the proposal that he gives to me, it's not him giving me something, it's I worked with him to create this. So it's our deal. Not teachers offer, it's our offer together. So there's a lot of psychology behind this as to why this works.

Actually have never thought of it that way.

Yeah, this is good.

What I thought of is being an immigrant first generation actually. We have to nickel and dime every penny. So I do not want anyone selling me anything. And I put myself in the shoes of whoever that I'm trying to sell to, even if they're not immigrant or whatever. And I find it easier for them to feel like we are partnering in doing whatever transaction that we're doing rather than I'm selling them or convincing them to buy this.

Yeah, absolutely. It makes the process more enjoyable both for you and for the other person. And then also when you think about it too, just bias is a ubiquitous element of human existence. There is never going to be a situation where bias doesn't exist. To a certain extent, it's just a question of to what degree and if it's positive or negative. And by going about the negotiation process like this, what you're doing is you're not working against the other person, you're working with the person. And so what you're doing is you're consistently making strategic deposits into the relationship bank account, gathering information, showing respect, listening, and then working together to build a solution collectively. And just that act of working together in a collaborative type of way, you're creating positive biases and trust that work in your favor. So even though at the beginning of the interaction they just look at you and they might say, yeah, he's different, he looks different, he sounds different, but by the end of the interaction it's, we've worked together and now I see us as collaborators in addressing this problem.

Exactly. I think even going back to finding confidence in conflict, unfortunately, as a minority owned business, it's conflict just to exist. So we need to find it within there how to be able to succeed and as well do what we need to do despite the already war zone that we exist in because of my skin color for say to begin with.

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. And listeners, just for reference, if you didn't know Finding Confidence in Conflict, that's my first book. And so that was I talked about my story and then talking about bias in general as it applies to there, but it was all about how you can overcome your own psychological and emotional barriers to have higher level difficult conversations. And so this is a good opportunity teach for us to transition to your approach because your tactic of using artificial intelligence in these conversations. So can you tell them about what you did with two books and then some other thought leaders and putting it into an AI? This is so fascinating.

Thank you for that question. So with knowing that I'm not going to have time to study everything that Kwame knows about psychology, I go ahead and buy the books I read. Yeah, I like what the books are saying, but I mean it's probably going to take me a lot of time to practice and understand this, all of it, despite considering other things that I have to pay attention to as well. So buy the books. Train a model on this book so that that way the model is answering. All of a sudden on my team, I've come a Christian on my team, if we're talking say 500 bucks an hour in consultation, I already have him sitting there consulting for me for 500 bucks an hour because I purchased a book and then I trained the model to answer for me. So when I'm having conversation like here my agent is sitting next to me and it helps me answer the way that excellently written book is answering. And I don't stop with one book. We add other books like Jonah Berger's Magic Words, like even Dale Carnegie, who still has quite some following, especially on that influence book, how to Influence People. So put all these books together and then teach the model to answer my questions or help me answer clients, which all of a sudden I'm a superstar instead of just being this tech geek.

This is brilliant. This is so good. So listeners, just a quick synopsis here. So what teacher is saying is that he's taking these books, that he really enjoys creating his own artificial intelligence agents is what it's. And so now whenever questions come up, he can ask that specific agent, that AI agent, how to answer the question in this form. So this is the future of communication. And I know there has been a lot of reluctance to. For the adoption of AI for a lot of the everyday professionals. But when you think about the potential benefits it could have to your career, just in this simple example is great. It's saying, okay, great. I have this tough conversation coming up. How should I approach this? Well, what would Kwame say? I have his two. Two books here, right. And so you can go ahead and create this strategy and it will decrease the amount of mental load that you have to handle. Because I'll tell you, I mean, as a negotiator myself, it takes a lot of time and mental energy to prepare effectively with the level of granularity and detail that you want to have in all of these conversations. And now you can take what might have taken hours of preparation and research and whittle it down to minutes. And so your only responsibility then is to have the skills necessary to put these practices, these strategies and tactics into play. But instead of like spending hours researching and figuring out what exactly to say, what exactly to do, what strategy to use, what tactics you should avoid. Whatever it happens to be, it's all done very efficiently, utilizing a body of knowledge that you can trust. That's incredible, man.

You can do an example of what I actually did today with a client who is looking for some zero trust solutions. And they wrote a pretty long email, which I didn't care for reading only because this was like almost a page. Who even writes a page of email? So copy and paste this email into my agent and ask it specifically. You are going to answer this in the tone of Kwame Christian on how to respond to this. So I do three of them. One let's do Kwame Christian. One let's do Dale Carnegie. One let's do Jonah Berger. And then let's put all this together. I mean, that was life. And that client responded within a few hours to say, yeah, let's do another call. But I take credit in being creative or knowing that these are the books that I need to read or need to have in my arsenal. And this is the data that I need to keep up in my agents so that it helps me when I go through this if I was to just sit, say with maybe. I mean, do I even have anyone on my team who is in your caliber? No, I don't have that. Do I have a Jonah burger? If we had to sit, that could take easy a month for us to even come up with that email.

That is brilliant.

We managed to take the work that you already have done and the work that other people have done and then used it to advantage to answer this client with this email, which was pretty long. And comparing it afterwards, it made perfect sense, which I know that could have been days upon days.

Yes.

This is great, man. This is great. I kudos to you because I think that's a brilliant strategy and I hope this is going to be really the gateway for a lot of folks to really consider, oh, wow, I can. That's a really realistic practical application of how I could utilize this technology. So I appreciate that. And listeners, clearly the takeaway of all of this is buy my books all day.

You cannot run around with that.

But, but on a more serious note, man, teach, this is great. I really appreciate this and I know we're coming up on time, but I want to give you an opportunity to cover anything that we hadn't covered and let the listeners know how to get in touch with you.

I think real quick on say, definitely buy the books, number one. Number two, especially buy an audio one that when you drive you can listen to it. I mean, which is still not. You have to have the greatest memory for you to be able to retain all that information. So definitely need an agent that helps you. And if we use, even say in other business where we do funding for projects, we actually have now agents that help underwriting, usually underwriting, if you go to any bank, they'll do like two weeks underwriting. These agents can underwrite within like, what, two hours? And then you do your own revision for a couple other hours and off you go, which means all of a sudden you saved. I mean, train it upon the best textbooks on underwriting that are out there, which by textbook, train it and then it's doing work for you. So buy it one time, build it for, I don't know, 5,000, 10,000 and this thing will work for you until you retire it. So definitely one thing to keep in mind. And now with this new introduction of you being able to have data, it still needs security, which is another challenge. We can talk about that on another episode. To get in touch with me. I'm on LinkedIn teacher Ona Gandle T I C H A O N A last name Gandhi G A N D H L E or email T with my last name T G A N D h l e@mayhemshield.com Facebook I don't play that much there, but LinkedIn is where I play the most.

Awesome teach, man, this was great. This was really, really helpful. I really appreciate you coming on the show today.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

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