How to Win More Using Strategic Preparation with Mike Smith

I have some incredible news. My second book, how to have Difficult Conversations About Race, is now the number one new release in its category on Amazon. I'm so excited, so excited for this because we've put a lot of work into it and this was risky because as a lawyer who's focusing on negotiation and conflict resolution, talking about race seems for many to be outside of the scope of what I usually do. But again, how are we defining negotiation? We, we define negotiation as anytime you're having a conversation and somebody in the conversation wants something. And as the podcast is titled Negotiate Anything, we can negotiate anything. And in my years of doing all of this work in the professional world, difficult conversations about race is something that comes up over and over and over again in the workplace. And there isn't really a solid resource out there that blends the fundamentals of negotiation and conflict resolution and effective communication with this particular topic. So it's risky. It is risky to venture in this way. But I'm really excited and encouraged by this early result. So this is not just a win for me, this is a win for you too, because you are part of this tribe. And so a quick note about the book who did I write this for? I wrote this for the person who was 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. So whether you consider yourself an ally or just want to avoid making a critical mistake when discussing race, this book is for you and for you as a podcast listener, I'm making a direct request. After six years and over 600 episodes of Negotiate Anything, I'm asking for your support in this endeavor to make the world a better place. Our goal of the American Negotiation Institute is to change the world and this book plays a critical role in in making that happen. And we would love to have your support. We have the links in the description of this episode so you can get your copy of how to have Difficult Conversations About Race. 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 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.

Mike, thanks for joining us today, my friend.

Very happy to be here. Kwame, thanks for having me on.

Yes, it is great to have a fellow colleague at Carlyle Patchett Murphy joining us today. So how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure. I've been a lawyer in Columbus for about almost 40 years now, and I've been at Carlisle, Patchen and Murphy since 1991. Worked with a couple of larger firms for a while. So I've actually done transactions with our former president, Mr. Trump over time and done a lot of things. So I do general business work. A lot of that is everything from setting up companies to negotiating contracts to working on contracts to buying and selling to mergers and acquisitions and finance and all that, all those kind of activities. So negotiation comes into play and understanding others and their point of view comes into play quite a bit during pretty much everything that I do.

Absolutely. And that is why we are excited to have you today, because this is going to be a good one as far as especially when you consider like strategies and tactics in these negotiations, too. And so, listeners, the three things that we're going to focus on today are, number one, gathering information, the appropriate way to do this and how you can do this in a strategic way, then understanding what moves them, really getting behind their motivations in these conversations. And then lastly, how to put this all together in a fluid conversation and making it sound organic. And so, Mike, let's start off with that first part, gathering information. What are the things that we need to know about that?

Well, Kwame, I think, and even let's take even a step back further from that. I think that one of the things that all of us humans tend to do is that we want to make sure that other people understand our position and they want to understand where we are coming from. And we want people to understand what we want and what we're trying to do. And as you've indicated, in the areas that we're going to try to cover here today is talk about is that what I think is important and one step that a lot of times we miss is trying to understand the perspective of the other human on the other side that we're talking to. And that is based on their background, maybe where they're from, maybe their nationality, maybe who they work for, what their company is, their corporation, you know, if their business or whether an individual, any of those kind of things I think are very important. So I think that we need to. One of the things is very important is to take the time to try to understand to the extent that we can, the person who we're involved with. And I think if we can and person or persons that we're involved with, and I think if we can do that, then I think that that gives us a better opportunity to not only achieve the goals that we try to achieve, but achieve a goal that is mutually satisfactory to the parties and you know, get somewhere that, that, that everyone's going to be happy with or happier with as opposed to everyone being unhappy. Because no one, no one understood each other and people just kind of yelled and screamed and you know, pounded the table with their own position without really trying to understand where the other person is coming from. So I just wanted to set that as a, as a back, as a bit of a background, as part of that. So in doing that, I think that the, the, you know, so one of the main skills obviously involved there is listening, obviously is listening to what they say. Because a lot of times people won't tell you directly what it is that they, they want, what it is that they need, what it is that they're after. But I think if your listening skills are good enough and you've done it enough times that it can be very helpful for you to try to figure out, okay, what's really behind what are the meanings behind the words and what are their really, what's their pain, what's causing them to be there and what's their motivating factor. And so asking questions, I think is the best way to do that, and listening to the responses and asking follow up questions if need be is what really helps to gather that type of information.

Yeah, and this makes a lot of sense and I want to really impress upon this for the listeners too, because think about it, you're representing clients, they have needs. And so what you're saying is in these negotiations you still make sure that you take the time to get a better understanding, not just of the situation and gathering evidence and those type of things, but you're also taking the time to make sure. That you understand what's really motivating them so you can craft an agreement that's enticing to them to some extent. Right, Correct.

Absolutely correct. And a lot of times what is important to them may not be as important to you. And so there may be things that are important to you and to your perspective and to our perspective that we can trade. Okay, so something that's really important to them doesn't matter to us. And that's very easily something we can hold and say, well, we'll. Well, sure, we'll give them that, but we want something else in return for it that's more important. Important to us. And so understanding those. Those issues and so understanding not only your position and what's important to us and where we want to get in the end, but if we can understand where they want to get in the end, that helps as well, too. So.

Right. And so now we're talking about gathering information. Now let's think about the fact that sometimes people are really, really aggressive when it comes to their negotiations. And when you think about us as lawyers, too, the system that we use is actually called the adversarial system, especially when you think about the court perspective. And so for many times, in many situations, it's almost bred into certain attorneys that they need to be adversarial in their negotiations, not just in the actual courtroom scenario. And so in that situation, if you're trying to gather information and you're asking questions and you're up against somebody who is more adversarial in nature and they don't want. Want to give that information, what types of things do you do to encourage them to share when they don't want to?

Well, you know, obviously, to the extent that you can build rapport with someone, that helps helps to get them to share, but that's not always going to be. That's not always going to be possible. That's not always going to. Not always going to be something that you can achieve. And if you can't, then to some extent what we really need to try to figure out is what are behind the questions. So if they're not giving up the information, if instead of giving up information and helping us to understand their position, they're making demands, then the easiest thing to do with that is to try to ask them to explain their demand. And why is that demand important to them? So if their position is, I need this and they're pounding the table and this has to happen and we need to get this taken care of, then, well, help Me to understand why that's important to you. What risk are you trying to cover there? What are you trying to accomplish? So what, what did it? What is this? So, you know, if you can have them to, not only to state a position, but to have to explain their position, then I think that gives you a level of understanding there as well too. Because if they can articulate it, it can explain it very well, then it's probably a more important one to them than one that they just say, well, it's just because. And sometimes we get to just because. And that those are the ones that are harder to deal with because, you know, I've, I've been working on a large transaction recently and we've had several of the just because. And it was just like, well, you know, we explained to them why maybe their position didn't make the most sense or why it wasn't, why it was, you know, why it wasn't as important to them. And then their position just basically come back and say, well, we want it anyway, you know, and so I guess you learn something there too. You learn something. What their position is is that they're just making demands and they can't necessarily backup. So maybe that's something we need to try to find. And we can trade some things that are other things for those positions if those are really important to us and if they're not that important to us and we're not going to spend that much time, you know, worrying about it and fighting over it.

So yes, and you, you mentioned something in almost in passing. And I really want to make sure that people understand this point because it's really important. And so a lot of times when people get an offer, especially when it's articulated in an aggressive type of way, saying this is what we need and they're just trying to bully you into giving in to their threats, we often look at it as a threat and then we respond in kind, we respond aggressively in return. And so then it becomes a fight. And so when you think about the classic approach from getting to yes, we have positional bargaining versus interest based negotiation. And so if you're dealing with somebody who's positional saying this is my position, this is what I need, and you need to give it to me, you have to remember that every offer comes with information too. You have an opportunity to gather information because it's just the, it's common courtesy to try to substantiate your position after you ask for something. And so what you said there was really important because you take that offer as an opportunity for them to explain what it is that they want and why they want it.

Very much so. Very much so, I think. And none of this is really magic. It's not anything that's necessarily that I've invented, but I think it's very useful. I think it was, you know, Mr. Covey back when his book. I think his point, principle number five was, you know, seek first to understand and then to be understood. Right. So that's. So I think that, you know, if you can keep that in mind, I think that's a very important concept to do, and it helps to disarm some of these people, you know, help me to understand why it's important to you, then it gives them the chance to explain. That's not. That's not an aggressive response back to him. It's helped. Help me. I'm. I'm the poor guy here. I don't understand. I don't understand. Help me to understand this. Especially if you get some of these people who want to prove to you that they're smarter than you are, then you can. You can use that maybe to some extent against them that have them educate you in a way that. That they weren't intending to, so.

Absolutely. Because in that process of education, they're going to share a lot of information. Right. And so sometimes it's. It's. You almost want to momentarily and strategically tap into that ego where you're saying, oh, well, you are smart. Can you prove to me how smart you are?

Right, Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I'm always willing to play that, play that role. You know, I have very little ego, Kwame, So for me, it's very easy to have them share with me and educate me on what's important to them.

Absolutely. And think about it, too, Mike, because that's a really important point.

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So we have to be able to keep our ego in check in order to be curious. And I think humility is a key part of curiosity because if you think you already know the answers, you're not going to ask very many questions. Right?

Right. Yep. And I've been in that situation where I thought I knew the answer, you know, myself. I've had, I've had that happen to me before where I made that mistake. And, you know, and that's happened to me. I'll give you a quick, quick war story on that. And this really isn't a negotiation, but this is an instance where, you know, the lawyers thought we knew the answer when really we should have known the answer was something else. And we weren't smart enough to go with what we knew and that. We had a client one time who had, who had fired an employee and he had fired the employee because the employee basically was lazy. He was in charge of production and testing of some of their products and things like that. And he was sending products out that hadn't been adequately tested. And so some of the clients, some of their customers got the products. The products weren't sufficient. They weren't adequate. The client had to replace them. They fired the employee. The employee went to work, went to work for someone who was theoretically a competitor of theirs, but never had the ability to produce a product that could get licensed and was comparable. So they produce a very technical, very specific product that goes inside of computer hard drives and it has to be very pure. And this competitor that this employee went to work for could never produce a product that was good enough. Well, suddenly he went to work for them. And our client manufactured their product at a toll manufacturing facility. They essentially rented out someone else's manufacturing facility, sent their people in. In two weeks, they ran the product and then they left. Well, he went to, this fired employee, went to the same toll manufacturing facility for his new employer, and lo and behold, they could now produce a product that was, that met our specific, met the specifications of the, of the customer. And they'd never been able to do it before. So I jumped to conclusions. The client jumped to conclusions. We all decided, ha, he's told them how to do it, right? He's, he's gone in there. He knows, he knows how, he knows our secrets, he knows our manufacturing process. He's told this competitor how to do it. He's got a non compete, he's got a non disclosure. And we went to court to get an injunction against him. And what we found out, Kwame did this Is that we jumped to conclusions. What I say about why did he get fired? He got fired because he was lazy, right? He was lazy. When he went to work for the competitor, he couldn't produce the product. He couldn't get it to work. So what happens when he couldn't get it to work? He went home, he went back to the hotel and got dinner and stayed there. Now, the guy who ran the machines at the factory, he knew what all of our settings were. So he wasn't. He was the guy the cook knew. The cook was the guy that knew. That knew the secrets, knew the secret sauce. He changed all the dials, changed all the settings of what we did, ran the product, and it worked fine. And so that's, you know, ran their materials through using our secret formula, our client's secret formula, and we're fine. So all of us jumped to conclusion. We didn't think it was the cook. We thought it was this nefarious guy. But no, he just quit and went home and somebody else figured out his problem for him. So again, that's not a negotiation, but that's just an example of sort of jumping to conclusions. And we got the whole issue resolved and sort of, again, the manufacturer got slapped on the hand a little bit too, for, you know, their behavior of their cook. But, you know, we still use them and everything's good. But. But that's just an example of sort of jumping to conclusions, right? And not using. The information that we had was that this guy was lazy. We fired him because he was lazy. We thought, he's out to get us. You know, that's really what it was. But he wasn't motivated enough to be out to get us. He was still lazy. He just happened to find run into a cook who was able to solve his problem for him.

That's such a great example, Mike, because it's funny, because as you were telling that story, I was saying, oh, man, he definitely did it, going to that same conclusion. And the thing is, a lot of times we find ourselves in those types of situations in these difficult conversations. We're not going in there to gather information. We're not going in there with a spirit of curiosity. We are coming in there as judge and jury, and we are simply letting them know, hey, you're bad, I'm good, I caught you, and you need to suffer the consequences. And it doesn't work that way.

We think we, you know, it was my case and, you know, situation and thinking that I knew the answers, right? I pieced this together in my head. I walked into the situation, known what, what. What had happened. I had it all figured out. I didn't have it all figured out, but it take a little more time to, you know, to, to have walked through it and thought through it and maybe done a little more talking and gather information gathering. It would have, Would have, Would have gone better and would have gone differently.

So absolutely. No, I think that's a great example. And I think also too, this is a great opportunity for us to transition to that second point, getting a better understanding of them because seeing how this can tie in, gathering information. But let's dig deeper on motivations. Tell us a bit more about that.

Well, you know, so I call it finding their. Finding their, Their pain. Okay, so what's hurting them? What, what, what it is? If they, if it's really important to them in a negotiation, if it's an important item to them, it's an important issue to them, what is it? And if I can find, figure out what that is, again, they may not tell me directly. It may take. It may take two or three tries to find it out. And maybe it comes out directly, maybe it comes out indirectly. But if we can find that out, then I think we can help craft a path to get to where we want to be and where they want to be. And maybe we find out that, look, the two sides, what is important to us and what is important to them are mutually exclusive. And maybe we just shouldn't be talking to each other. Right? Maybe we should move on and, and, and be doing business with someone else and not with them. So if you can find out their starting point, their pain with their motive, you know, you can call it their motivation, their pain, or whatever you want to call it, but what it is, then I think you're. We're. We're in a better position to, to get. To be able to change. Change their mind, change their motivation, satisfy their. Satisfy their concern at the same time covering what we want to have covered. So if you can, if we can be creative enough to do that, then that, you know, then I think we've got a much better chance of succeeding. But if we don't know what really motivates them and what their real pain is, and it's. It's harder to. It's harder to do that. So.

Yeah, and another thing that you said in passing, Mike, but I want to bring people back because it was really good. They won't tell you it in. Sometimes they tell you indirectly. Sometimes they try to hide it, and you have to ask multiple Times, and this is an expert point, because we often can't tell the difference effectively between rejection and resistance. Because in these conversations we're going to have a lot of resistance, especially in an adversarial type of interaction like this. People aren't going to be very forthright or giving in a lot of situations when it comes to this information, especially if it relates to their pain. But you have to stay persistent and keep asking questions, maybe approach it from different angles. And then over the course of time you build more trust, their resistance starts to go down and then you get the information you've been asking for.

Yep. Especially if, again, if you listen and you keep, keep mental notes, you keep track of what it is. Because if they said their issue was something else one time and they say it's something different the next time, you know, which is true, which is correct, or are they both correct? And maybe, you know, and, and then you can use that in the discussions and in negotiations in a, in a positive way. And you know, for example, we're talking about, you say, well, you know, help me again understand this. Well, that's different from what you told me last. You know, when we talked about this before, you said it was this, so how are those two relate, you know, I don't think you want to be accusatory of them and you don't want to be telling them, well, you told me this last time, now you change your mind and you were lying to me last time. It's no, it's like help me understand how those two relate and which, how, why are they different and which one is one more important than the other. And then you can, you know, that's the way you can, you can hopefully gather the type of information that you need to help again resolve the issue, resolve the problem.

Absolutely. And one of the things that you said was finding their pain. And so I think it would be great to tell the listeners the distinction between finding their pain and then versus finding what it is that they want. So we have that negative thing that's driving them, but also potentially a positive thing. But you focused on that negative and I'm sure there's a reason why.

Well, it is because, because normally you think that they will tell you what they want and they may, they may verbalize it, but if you can find what really is their pain and what's really motivating, then that's a, that's a deeper, that's a deeper situation. Maybe I can illustrate that better, that I can just put it in words. Let's say that I come to you, and I'm a guy that sells pens, okay? And you're. You're my customer, and you're gonna. You're gonna. You're out to buy pens. And we come into the. We come in, and I sit down across the desk from you, sort of like we're sitting across virtually a virtual desk here right now. And. And you tell me, you know, do it. Do I sell blue pens? And I'm gonna be all over that, right? I'm this guy that's not listening because I. I sell. We are the number one manufacturer of blue pens in the world, and we make. We sell 80% of the blue pens that are sold all over the country. And so I'm answering your. I'm. You told me to sold blue pens, and I'm throwing up all over myself to tell you how good I am at selling blue pens and how good at we are in manufacturing blue pens. And then. Then what I find out is that you say, you know what? I wanted somebody that's really different. You know, I don't want the blue pen world. I want to be the green pen world. You know, I'm. I'm. Whoever this marketing genius was at Huntington Huntington bank here in Columbus, Ohio, that came up with putting all these green pens all over the. All the city. And you find thousands of these things everywhere and like that. And. And they've. They've attached green to their name and their market and everything else.

So.

And so if. If you are the. If you're the buyer and what you really were with somebody who's gonna be creative and different, then your pain was. Look, your pain was, I want someone who's different, okay? But what you told me, you know, what came out, what I heard coming out of your mouth was, I wanted someone who's the market leader and, you know, and doing this. And what you really wanted was somebody who was the opposite of the market leader. And I came in and told you how I was the market leader, so I'm not going to get the business. Our negotiation didn't go well. Right. Right there. Because again, I didn't listen and I didn't find out what your motivation was. What would have been a better opportunity for me was to ask you questions about Kwame. Why is it that you need the blue pens? What's important about blue for you as far as pens go and you. That you would tell me toys is, well, I really don't want blue pens. What am I. You know what I really wanted something different. I Want to get min name out there so people recognize me. And I don't want to be caught in part of this, this. This massive flow of blue pens. I want something different, Orange, green, whatever it is, you know, you know, rainbow color does. It doesn't matter what it is. But. But if I would have taken the time to ask you the question and to find out what your real motivation was, again, it kind of goes back. Back to the same thing we were talking about before. But finding out where you're coming from helps me to get. Get both of us to a place that we want to go.

This is a great example because it really exemplifies one of the biggest problems that people have in sales and negotiation. And it's that we try to persuade too soon. We think we know the answer. And so we start selling and creating these arguments as if what we assume is actually true. But if we do that sometimes, like in this example, we could completely miss the boat.

Right?

Yeah, I love that. And so now let's talk about this last point of putting it all together, because one of the things that I hear a lot of times is you hear the complaints about the salesperson. It's like, oh, here's this slick talking salesperson. I know when they're trying to sell me and something like that. But really, when we're persuading, we want it to sound authentic, we want it to feel organic. And so how can you take these negotiation strategies that we discussed, but make it feel more authentic, conversational?

Well, I think the way you make it feel conversational, at least in my mind, the way you make it feel conversational and the way you make it make it impactful is that you don't. You make sure that you. You communicate to the person who you're talking to that. Now, I do understand your pain, I understand your concern. And what I'm trying to do is address it. Okay? And I'm trying to address it in a way that satisfies my concern, my pain, and yours.

And.

And I'm trying to find something that works. Works for both of us. If I think it is a situation where I'm just trying to get what I want and you're just trying to get what you want, then whoever of us has the most, most, most leverage and the most forceful personality and, you know, may win. But if I truly make you understand that, I understand what your problem is, and I recognize that that's a realistic problem, let's see if we can find a way to address it, at least in the legal World in which, you know, which you and I operate a lot of, let's see if we can find a way to address that problem. And maybe I've got a solution for it. If I do, if we change this or we do do it this way instead of that way, can that help us to. Can that help solve your problem? And if it is, does that alleviate some of your pain? Does that alleviate some of your concern? Is that enough concern that we alleviated? So, you know, this is a long conversation. It's not just, you know, like I've expressed it here, but to the extent that we can, you know, that you can make them understand, understand or believe. And I think I, you know, I'm not a good enough salesman. I really have to. Have to believe it myself in order for me to communicate it to someone else. Understand. I understand it. I know what you're coming from. Your position is a legitimate one. I'm not, I'm not. I'm not going to minimize that. Let's see if I can find a way and let's see if we can find a way to address your position without ruining mine. And that's. I think that's the way that you can kind of put. Put it together.

So, yeah, I really like that. Because think about this. When, if you're thinking about a sales pitch, we think about something that is well rehearsed and it doesn't change regardless of the situation, but to show that you are, this is organic, to make it more authentic, what you're doing is you're incorporating what they just said into what you're saying. And so of course, we do this through summarization, just empathy and repeating backwards to demonstrate our understanding. But what you're saying is that we're taking it to the next level because we're saying, not only am I summarizing it to demonstrate that I heard what you said, but I'm also going to incorporate what you said into my solutions. Because I respect your needs and see them as legitimate. Correct?

Right.

And so for attorneys or any other people out there who are having these more adversarial type of negotiations, or they might be in the transactional business world, one of the things you said was you want to let them know that you see their needs as legitimate. Sometimes people are afraid of legitimizing somebody's position because they feel as though it gives them too much, maybe positive momentum in the conversation. How do you legitimize what it is that they're asking for and demonstrate that empathy without losing your position? In the negotiation.

Well, I think that that's, you know, that's got to be part of the conversation that you have. I understand, I understand your position. I understand your pain. You have to also communicate to them, this is how your position impacts me. Okay. This is why it's important to me and why our difference in our positions is our differences. Why my position is important too. And, but I'm willing to try to bridge that gap. Okay? And this, I have some ideas to try to bridge that gap. And if all of you, you know, and sometimes you get people that the nervous could have shoot down your idea and shoot down your idea, and then what I would do is reverse it back over to them and say, well, okay, my solutions aren't working. What's yours? You know, maybe you have a better one than I do. Again, you know that thing about, you know, let's play against their ego a little bit. If, if all they want to do is find problems. There are people out there, there's especially lawyers out there that aren't, that aren't problem solvers, they're problem finders. Okay? There's a lot of them that, that's what they're very good at. So you ask them then to come up with a solution and put it back on then. So I'm happy to offer one. I'm happy to, you know, listen to theirs. I'm happy to them if they've got something, If I can, if I can take that and run with it and modify it a little bit, then we'll do that as well.

This is great. I love it. Again, you're demonstrating the willingness to be flexible. And also you're not going head to head against somebody who is being positional or adversarial. You're not fighting fire with fire. It's more like negotiation, jiu jitsu. So their momentum is moving in one day in one direction. Okay, we'll go with that. And then I'm gonna put it back on you. You're saying no to everything else, Mr. Smart Guy. Let's see what you got. Fantastic. Well, Mike, this has been amazing. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. But before you go, let the listeners know again the work that you do at Carlyle, Patchen and Murphy and how they can get in touch.

So again, I'm with Carlisle, Patchen Murphy. We are a law firm, mid sized business law firm here in Columbus, Ohio. Our address is 950 Goodale Boulevard in Grandview. We've just moved there a little over a year ago and Kwame is with us and we're very happy to have him and what he do. I said I'm in our business practice group. That's not all we do. We also do real estate and tax and litigation and family wealth planning, estate planning. You know, all those, all those kind of areas. But I'm in the business area. So that's what, that's what I was. That's what I'm talking about. And happy to help anyone that is interested in that.

So fantastic. Mike, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And everybody, we're going to put Mike's details in the description below as well.

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