How to Make a Positive and Influential Impact with Maxwell Bevilacqua

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 A&I, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate, 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. Max. Thanks for joining us today, Kwame.

It's a pleasure given how many episodes I've listened to. So to be. To be a part of it is surreal. Thank you for having me.

No, man, the pleasure is all ours. So how would you get us started? By telling the listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure. I am a person who loves negotiation and like you, sees how often we do it and given that we're all doing it all the time, believes we should be doing it better and more efficiently. My path to where I am now has been through the program on negotiation at Harvard Law. I went to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy to study international negotiation, was lucky enough to ta several of the courses through the program on negotiation, which is fantastic. I was a senior trainer at Vantage Partners, and I recently spun out my own firm, Max Negotiating.

Fantastic. So, Max Negotiating and with your new firm, what types of things are you focusing on?

That's a great question. The idea is to work with people that are already excited about the possibility of emotional intelligence and what maximizing the potential of human capital can do. I definitely like working with military clients, as I have in the past, and that's of interest. I think I'm interested in being as much a part of the public conversation on the way we talk to each other as possible. And so for me, that means public government is exciting. Dealing with environmental policy, I think like a lot of what we know as regard with regards to the problems we have isn't how to. Isn't what to do, it's how to do it. Right. Like we have solutions for the environment, we have solutions for what to do in terms of violence in prisons. Right. There's a guy, James Gilligan, that I love talking about that literally has gotten homicide and suicide rates down to nothing and talks about the difference between shame and pride cultures and guilt and innocence cultures. Whatever. The point is, we have answers. We don't know how to be effective. And from my perspective, that's what we both do is try and help people with that.

Absolutely. This is great. This is great. And so, listeners, Max and I have had a few conversations now, and we are essentially. Max is my spirit animal here. You know.

I'm flattered. And that's actually one of the icebreakers that's used in the negotiation workshop at Harvard Law, which I think is great to say, because I think when people think of negotiation and Harvard Law, they're like, oh man, that's white dudes in suits at a conference table. Okay, fair. And yes, there are things in the industry that need to change, which we'll talk about. And the reality of the Harvard Negotiation Project or the Program on Negotiation is what's your negotiation spirit animal? Creating intimate spaces where you can actually develop as a person and drawing self portraits of yourself as a negotiator and then explaining them to other people as you start creating a space of. Of growth.

That's fantastic. That is really great.

Surprising.

Right, right, absolutely. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show, besides the fact that you are very incredibly knowledgeable on what it is that you do, is that you have unique insight on the negotiation industry. And we've had conversations about this. And so I know we're going with a scandalous title here of the episode of what needs to change in the negotiation industry. And we're starting to see a very slow shift, but again, it's slow. And so let's just open up with that simple question. In your opinion, what needs to change in the negotiation industry?

In short, access. The trainings and tools and materials that are offered by many wonderful and brilliant consulting firms are wonderful. My understanding is that going back to the beginning, which for many of the program negotiation people starts with Roger Fisher, the idea is that the more people that understand interest based negotiation, the better for everybody. That whereas we think about strategy as something to dominate the other person, that's actually incorrect. That if the other person knows your strategy of trying to surface what you actually care about and to generate options that make you both better off, that is better for everyone. And I think that's really Counterintuitive. So the idea. And again, something. I can't be on your show and not just tell you how much I love a. And I. But something that I like is if you believe in it, give away the tools. Right. Like, we need more, not less. And we need people like you, and ideally, hopefully people like me as well, to help translate in different contexts. But the idea of holding onto something and trying to sell it as a system, I understand. Like, there are business realities, and the more people that know this, the better. And the reality is that people, when they receive the ladder of inference or seven elements, or any of the wonderful tools that many people use in some form, they need help applying them. Great, let's do that. And we need more people to come into the industry. I say access also. How do you get a job in negotiation? What does that look like, man? Like, how did you get into it? You, you know, you did law, you did business school. You have tons of training. I mean, I'm also just, like, genuinely curious about your path to negotiation, because it's always winding.

Yeah. And it's really interesting, Max, because when I discovered negotiation in law school, I said, I don't know how, but I need to make this my thing. I don't know how to do it, but I will. And so I practiced for a while. I did some civil rights work. I started my own law firm. I did some negotiation work. I was a mediator for some time, did hundreds of mediations through the courts. And so I was trying to gather up enough, like, reputation points to earn my way to be able to do this. And then I realized that I'm trying to get these points, but who is keeping score? Who am I trying to prove this to? Because one of the things I was doing for business development for my firm, getting more business clients, was doing negotiation trainings. And I had to stop and ask myself this simple question. If everything in the world was free, what would I do with my time? And when I'm mentoring people, this is a question I ask them all the time. If everything in the world was free, what would I do? And I said, okay, well, I would do these negotiation trainings. By far, that's the most fun that I'm having with what I'm doing. And so I said, well, I'm going to do that now. And so that's when the American Negotiation Institute was born. And so to your point, how does one get into negotiation as a professional career? I didn't see the path, and so I had to make it myself.

Yeah, well, I think that's fantastic. Number one, what I hear when you talk about eliminating time and money and responsibility in terms of what you want to do is developing interests or helping people understand their interests. And when we talk about being a good negotiator, I think we talk about. We think about smooth talking, power, bashing people's bat nuts and calling bluffs. No, I think a good definition of success for a negotiator is how well are you satisfying your interests? And guess what? It's really hard to satisfy your interests if you don't know what they are. So I love that. I mean, and also, just thematically, when you talk to someone that's excited about negotiation, you'll start to speak the same language. Like Kwame. We've never met in person. We've had a few calls. But, like, I already can see you because you're a person that asks the question, right? The power is in the question, not in the answer. And what I think we do ideally is we don't say we know more than you. Let me help you, though. I think sometimes that's the consulting model. It's more like, I've had these humbling experiences, and here are these tools that I still use every day. Just like Ruth Bader Ginsburg keeps a cap to Pocket Constitution in the Harvard Negotiation Project or in other places, you keep the seven elements with you. Like, I still keep it in my wallet. And that's the idea, is that you're never done and that there's this weird tension in trying to market it in the industry, which is to claim expertise, when in reality, we know that the way we speak is not necessarily reflective of our current ability, but should just be about our excitement of developing.

Absolutely. No, that's a really great point. And again, back to what you said about access. You're spot on. And I want to revisit that point. The counterintuitive reality that if both people are playing from the same playbook, everybody is in a better position. So let's go deeper into that. So from your perspective, not just in the business world, but in the world in general, how does the world change if more people have access to this type of knowledge?

I believe that it looks like people living better lives, and I think it looks like people having better relationships. I think it looks like teams creating better products together. I think it looks like realizing potential rather than wasting it. And that's what, at least for me, when I think about that ineffable something that makes me excited about negotiation, that I also hear in terms of, I mean, like, why would you start your own thing unless you loved it? It's crazy otherwise. But for me it's that whole idea is that there's this potential hanging in the balance and it could be discarded or we could realize it. And negotiation is trying to help people realize that we can be better off when we work together. And insofar as you're not Henry David Thoreau and you do live in a society, we're all trying to negotiate how to make ourselves better off with other people. And obviously that's really difficult when it comes to a range of identity and culture. But generally speaking, I would love the foundation of a new American culture to be strong, ethical and responsible.

Negotiation 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 we will be right back after this. Absolutely. Yeah. I heard one of my friends, actually, she's a contract trainer for us to mediator Veronica Cravener. She said that one of the things that she likes to do is try to make sure that she's playing her role in creating a more peaceful society. And essentially, regardless of the way that you frame it, there's no doubting the fact that the more people that understand this approach, the better the world will be. And we can't always identify specifically how it's going to get better. We just know that it will. And I think we can bring that from the macro back to the micro and say in conversations that I've had, I don't always know exactly where it's going to go. I don't exactly know what their interests are, but I know I have the skills to figure it out. I know what my interests are and I figure out how we can work together to make things work as much as possible for both parties. And so even in that micro sense, we don't know exactly what things are going to look like. We just know that it will be better through this process.

Exactly. I Think it's a combination, too, of we are experts in the positivity about the assertion that it could be better. And we don't know what it will be. And we can't know because you have to have this regard for other people as thinking, autonomous people. Right. And I think that's powerful and counterintuitive to approach a student, a teacher, a client, a family member, to say, I have no idea what's important to you, but could you tell me?

Yeah. It seems like you're giving up the control. And I think that's one of the things that makes people so scared about doing it this way. But at the same time, you have to realize that you are gaining more control through the acquisition of information. And as you get the control, you are wielding that control with benevolence in order to not only help yourself, but help them through the process as well.

Yeah. You know, I feel stuck between two places. One is that I recently talked to a group and we talked all about how you have power when you're asking the question and not when you're talking. And I think for a lot of people, and I'll just say, I think men in particular, the feeling is I need to be in an active position, and that's speaking, not this listening, sitting back, passive, whatever you want to call it. So I think, like, gender. Gender is so involved. And I know gender is a word that evokes a whole range of emotions for people all over. But what I mean to say is that the way we talk about conflict and what is active and what is passive? Is listening passive, or is it active listening? Are you in control when you're speaking? Are you in control when you're listening? Are you powerful when you're loud? Or isn't it more likely the case that the people who are quiet actually carry more power? So insecurity is actually loud. I mean, that's why I talk so much. Kwame. And so my other experience, just to push on this, because I'm curious what you think is, I just had Jiu jitsu before this. I'm a white belt. I was rolling with a purple belt who choked me with my own belt, which is a great metaphor, by the way, of, you know, be careful what you say and what you do, because it can be used against you. But I think something that bj, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu supports in terms of what you said is, don't fight back. You'll lose energy. You'll waste energy. That's not in your interests. Try and redirect Momentum, try and go with it instead of fighting. And we have this tendency to fight. And, like, you know, as I was being choked out, like, yeah, my fight or flight is going. I feel like I'm drowning. I just want to go home and cry and, like, be. Be nursed and all that. And then I think there's a very real point of view from my background in international relations, which is something I said earlier, which is not a line I like, but that the strong will do it, the will what they will, and the weak will suffer what they must, that this is the foundations of realism. And so at the same time that we're talking about really lovely realizations of potential, which I think we really believe in, I think there's fair pushback, which is okay. And that's how we should do things. How about the real world? What if we grew up in conflict zones? What if we were even less privileged than we were? Right. Like, what should our expectations be for other people's behavior? And the best answer I have is the best way to change other people's behavior is to negotiate so well that it's an instructive moment for the other person.

This is great. Yeah. It's a tool of mutual understanding. Right. And when I know sometimes when I've taken some time just by myself trying to stay quiet, and I tried to do an introspective process, ask myself some questions, discover some things, I'm often surprised at what I can find. And then often on the other side of that is sitting back in awe of how I am the closest person to myself. And yet I knew so little about myself until I took the time to be quiet. And so recognizing now that we're living in a world with more distractions than ever, where we're busier than ever, and on top of that, we wear busyness as a badge of honor, so we try to stay busy. Right. It's very unlikely that the other person is going to take the time necessary to go through that introspective process. And in many ways, you are leading them, like you said, in this process to help them get not only a better understanding of you, not only a better understanding of the situation, but also themselves through the process.

Yes. I think that a strong negotiation counterpart in some ways mirrors a therapist in the sense that what you're doing, or at least in a certain school of therapy related to unconditional positive regard is what you're doing is you're just reflecting what the other person is doing. Maybe you say, maybe they're yelling at you. And you say something like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but you're yelling right now and believing that they could. That they will rise to the occasion to be their best selves. I think this is the reason that talking about fairness in negotiation is so powerful. No one wants to be the person who is administering unfair treatment. So when you use fairness or criteria as a sword and a shield, it's pretty effective. And I think that it's also. I'm sure you get these questions a lot of like, okay, well, there's this really toxic person, or, this person's crazy, or, I have no power. And then I think that's a thoughtful conversation of, you know, how much are you contributing to that narrative and how much of that is the case? But also, what do you want to do about it? I totally agree with you. There's something more. When we say negotiation, we're talking about something more. We're talking about healthy conversations about power, self worth, and how to navigate existing inequality.

Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the things that I've recognized over the years is that one of the challenges people have is that they look at negotiation as a tool. And it is a tool. But I find it more helpful to look at negotiation as a life philosophy. And so every single interaction, I'm filtering through this philosophy of negotiation. And then when you do that, you recognize, okay, there are inequities, there are power dynamics at play, there are unique interests for me and the person I'm talking to and other people who aren't even in this conversation but can play a role in implementation or syncing the deal. And so, again, it speaks to the value of not just access, but also increased awareness overall of when you have the opportunity to negotiate.

Yeah. And I think something that's interesting and something that I enjoy of the many things about us talking is that look at two people who, in some, from some perspectives, could be labeled competitors. I don't think I'm at that level, Kwame. But the idea is, look at this. We do the same thing and are even talking about how our products in some ways aren't differentiated. But we're saying that that's good news. And so what we're doing to satisfy both our interests is to talk together on a show. And that's good for both of us. Right. So this is the idea of life philosophy. I'm a little martial arts oriented and playing around with thinking about negotiation as a practice, much like meditation. And I like what you're saying in terms of the busyness of society, which is that it's really hard to negotiate in the way we're saying when you live in this society, we do. When you don't have the timeline or the sense of time that you feel like you need to see another person or, or also if you've been raised in a society where you don't feel listened to. Right. Like, my favorite line from this, it's like a crisis negotiator handbook, is that we don't talk hostage takers out, we listen them out. And you might find that some people have never been listened to in this way before. So you can think about it being a mitzvah or a good deed to just listen to someone. And guess what? It strikes me as really good news that that also means that you will probably get more out of it. But that can't be the reason that you do it.

Absolutely. It makes so much sense. And I think this is a good opportunity to circle back to the core question, like the focusing question of this episode. Considering everything that we just talked about, what is it that needs to change with negotiation? One of the things that you talked about was access. Let's go deeper because right now, like you said, what we're trying to do is, yes, this is just. This is fun for us, right? So this is a BR brainstorming and we're learning together and at the same time creating content for other people. Access has been a challenge. What was making it so difficult for people to get the access to this information in the past?

I think money. And when I say that, I'm just talking about the sheer cost of training and for people who want to pave their own way, who need to go to graduate school programs to do it, There are all these built in costs that continue to make negotiation training pretty pretty much reserved for corporations and a luxury market. And look, I'm a part of that. Like, I definitely benefited, especially in graduate school, being a TA for these Harvard programs. That helped a lot. And I think it's what we're doing, I'd like to say, which is to create jobs, which is to say, okay, you're interested in negotiation, come work at my firm. Right. To proliferate this more and to decentralize power from whether it's Harvard or any other name school or any other organization that's well funded. I think we're learning as a country that you need to decentralize power and you need to decentralize the materials, or rather proliferate the materials and get them out there. Like I think we were Talking about early, which is rather than trying to make these things a product that are mine and that you can't have, or rather than pretending that I'm a really smart person because of the schools I've went to or gone to see that we need to be humble and demystify it, which is to say the fact that these tools about communication residing in certain places is happenstance and coincidence. And with that being said, we also don't need to bite the hands that fed us, which I think is another path coming out of Harvard negotiation, which is to say, I was there, I did all this stuff, and I know better. Yeah, let's take our negotiation training and say yes and right, yes, this stuff has come out of Harvard and a lot of the foundational stuff. And what's good about it is not the. The name on it. What's good about it is the extent to which it can affect your life. And that's up to you to decide. And I think it's for people like us to say we still struggle with negotiation. The way we struggle with it is a better process likely, and we'd like to help you. Because when someone else goes through that process and someone's like, hey, man, I tried that thing that you did that you said, and it worked. I'm like, great, now you've got the bug. Now go tell someone else. I think access is very much democratizing the information and it's also making it accessible.

Absolutely. No, man, this is great. This is really great. And before you go, I want again to let the listeners know about your podcast that you didn't mention at the beginning. So you need to mention that how they can get in touch with you and again, remind them of the great work that you're doing.

That's so kind of you. I have a podcast that I co host with Gwen Krause called trainertalk, where those of us who do what Kwame and I do in rooms tell stories, personal stories, usually from things we've messed up in that even the expert trainers have learned from. So Trainer Talk is a space for negotiation trainers to talk shop. Kwame will have to have you on whenever you have the time and inclination. Yeah, I have Maxnegotiating.com and I'm Maxwell at Max negotiating, and I'm genuinely happy to either serve your negotiation needs or direct you to someone who can do it better. Something surprising in negotiation studies, or whatever we want to call it, is that a difference of preferences is actually value generating, that there is good news when we don't like the same thing, because that means we can figure out an arrangement between us or amongst us that's higher value for everyone. We always tell a story, the orange story. You might tell it, you may have heard it, right. Someone wants the fruit, someone wants the peel, but the parent doesn't know that, so they cut it in half and waste half the value. The idea here is that when we do think differently, when we do want different things, that's actually an opportunity for a better solution. So I think whether it's team culture, organizational culture, or national culture, the idea of opening up access, far from a rallying cry for communism, is good news for better outcomes, because we're more informed and we make better decisions and can just do more when we have people, when the table's longer, right? And I think people like us that do this are the first to say, come and take a seat. And I would definitely say, for those people who are interested in joining this community, find people that are. That are inviting you, because I think that's a really good sign that it's a table that you can learn, learn at.

That's great, Max. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again for sharing your wisdom. And we're looking forward to the next time having you on, my friend.

Thank you so much.

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 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. 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.