Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Negotiation with Chuck Scott

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Chuck, welcome back to the show, my friend.

My pleasure. Glad to be here, Kwame. You and I, we always vibe. I love vibing on this public forum and letting other people hear what I feel like are some of the best conversations we've ever had. And typically they happen on the back porch or we're sitting on the stoop or whatever. Or sometimes a 15 minute conversation becomes two hours with us.

I know can't wait to do this. So we have to make sure that we're respecting their time because we could just go on for days.

Indeed.

Especially on this topic. Man. So before we get into it, let the listeners know about you, what you do, and then we'll set the stage.

Yeah. So. Hi, Chuck Scott. I am owner and operator of Scott Q Consulting. We are an IT shop where we specialize in project and program delivery. What that means is we bring in contractor resources to your organization for for strategic initiatives in the IT space. We will come in, help you strategize on solutions, and then we will actually work on the implementation of that solution. They could be anything from custom development and software to hardware deployments, integrations with vendors, vendor management, or just running your internal teams towards a new custom solution or even bringing in our own resources to do said custom solutions. So that's what my practice brings. We specialize particularly in servicing the C suite. So C, CIOs, CEOs, COOs, CMOs, any C suite on large cross functional programs. The goal is always with the mindset of what's best for the corporation and the intended ROI on any strategic initiative. I also. Sorry, forgot to mention, I also have a podcast, Project Manager in Real Life, hashtag pmirl. And that's where I take project management principles. Apply them to everyday life as a stress reliever so that you can prioritize work in your life and task and also competing priorities with family, life, work, balance, rest, you name it.

Oh, this is great. This is great. And I think that might have been one of like the smoothest intros we've ever had. This is great. And so, listeners, this episode is all about how we can leverage the power of artificial intelligence in our negotiations. But before we get into the X's and O's of how to do that, Chuck, I want you to set the stage, because not everybody listening is a project manager. So they might not even understand the negotiations that you all are having. And they're really complex.

Yes. So let me start with first by saying I'm a huge fan of the Terminator series. The movies. Right. And I am a proponent of AI. I don't think it's going to kill us. Not yet at least, and not in the ways that you think it might from the movies. I do think right now is the sweet spot where not just technology professionals, but literally anyone can probably be leveraging AI in a way that revolutionizes their daily lives. And I've been talking a lot about this on PM in Real Life podcast as well, and I really want to talk about it here, specific to a negotiating standpoint, because I think there's true value in negotiating and leveraging AI in this way. So super excited to kick this off with you. Talk about it from specific to negotiations and how it can be leveraged in everyday negotiations.

Absolutely. And so for you and your team, because you have a team of project managers too, when you all are going in and you're thinking about the different negotiations that you have, what do those look like?

Yeah. So let me paint the picture a little bit. So the scale of programs that we do, and I'm going to use a basic principle that most people understand. In retail, we all go shop at the grocery store, and grocery stores have loyalty programs. Meaning like you know, it's tied to you from your fuel perks to your, you know, purchasing the grocery store rewards programs, things of that nature. My company has implemented four loyalty programs over the years for restaurants, grocery stores, fashion retailers, et cetera. So I know this pretty intimately and most people can relate to it. So in a loyalty program you think of it as like maybe a marketing initiative. You've got the CRM, the data and insights that corporations gathering from you based on your shopping habits. But the reality of an implementation is in this space is there are financial, there are heavy financial related things to be considered from a corporation's return on investment of now we've implemented this loyalty program, we're giving away certain things for free. In the rewards program are the data and insights equaling more customer spending specific to our corporation? So there's that there's the operational function of can our associates at the store level and our customer service people support you as the customer and be able to implement the solution and execute it on a day to day basis. There's the digital experience of how does that now translate to our web experience? Our point of sales that are mobile, our point of sales that are fixed, our point of sales that are happening from self checkout. How do we create this whole end digital solution that also marries up to this digital, this loyalty experience that we're creating. So there are multiple players negotiating and jockeying in every meeting that my team conducts in this strategizing of the solution, the implementation of the solution and delivery of that solution day to day. And each one is really thinking about their own silo within the corporation. So marketing is thinking about like well we just want more customers as part of the program. And finance is thinking about well we want to make sure that strategically it makes sense and we're going to make money here. Technology is thinking about like hey, I don't want to take on a bunch of extra work to manage day to day, right? Like everyone has a different agenda at the table. And my company, again we're hired consultants, we're agnostic to all that, but we're an audit function within all of them and we serve the corporation as a whole. But the corporation doesn't have a voice at the the table. What they have are multiple C suites all jockeying for their teams.

This is fascinating. And listeners, if you want to kind of really get a, an appreciation for how well Chuck knows the different personality types within an organization, just go back about 45 seconds and listen to him give the impression of each person like the Marketing is a little bit whimsical. Finance is like, forget all of that. It's about the money. I love that. But putting that aside, I think it's. It's really fascinating to see this because everybody has their own interests. They all have their own thing that they want to accomplish for their own reasons. And so you and your team, like the consultants that you hire for your company, they come in as the project managers, and they have to not just kind of go with the whims of the emotional desires of the people at the table. They need to say what's best for the company. Okay. And then what does each individual person want? How can I reconcile these different interests? To put together a project that works for the company.

Correct. And so in the practice of project management, there's something called a project charter that typically kicks off a project. And it's really our North Star or the goal of this initiative. It's to, you know, I'm gonna go back to our loyalty example. The goal might be to increase our customer database by 500% in the next 12 months and increase our sales by 20% as a result of a implementing a Rewards program by Q2. Right. Like that might be a charter, and it's a very high level, but it becomes the North Star for every conversation. And so if we go to three months into this initiative, we're strategizing about it, and let's say that, you know, marketing says, well, I don't care if returns go skyrocket and we lose money on returns. I just want to make sure that our, our customer data hub goes up by 500% so that we have more information about our customer. And, you know, obviously that doesn't serve the corporation because any corporation wants to make money, right? And finance is going to raise their hand, stomp their fist on the table, and have something to say about that. Right. So it's playing that facilitator. And, you know, facilitation is part of negotiation, but it's facilitating on behalf of the whole, of all of them. When they have their jobs next year. If the corporation is not making money, they all lose. So it's getting them to negotiate and understand that marketing, you're going to give a little bit so that we make sure that we don't skyrocket returns. Right. Like we're going to make the right decision from a financial decision in regards to returns. Operations may also have the same concern of, from a staffing standpoint, we can't handle all those returns. You know, we'll be Sitting on inventory that's in the back of our stores. It can't ever get to the front of the house to sell again because we just don't have the right staffing complement to Support now increase 500% of returns as a result of a loyalty program implementation. So these are all considerations that happen as part of a negotiation to do a technology strategic initiative. And these are things that are often, when people think of technology, they don't go to this level of operations and finance and marketing synergies that exist within one whole, the entity that is the corporation that's trying to implement these incredible.

And so listeners, now you can see the complexity of all of this. And now, before I know it's, for me, it's super tempting to like, dig into how do we do the negotiation? That's the fun part. But before we get to that point, we need to understand how to prepare. And this is where artificial intelligence comes into play. So, Chuck, how would you set the stage for how people can begin to even conceptualize how utilizing AI in this negotiation process could work?

Yeah, so this is the coolest thing about AI right now that I think people haven't thought of the different use cases of how can I use AI in my everyday life? Right. And you know, your podcast has been great over the years of exposing the fact that negotiation is a fabric of everything that we do in life. It's, you know, we negotiate with our children, negotiate with our spouses, we negotiate with our employers, we negotiate with family members, we negotiate on the roads when we drive cars. Like, you know, non verbally. We negotiate all day, every day. Right. You know, I've tried to expose the same thing in project management being kind of a function of life. Life. Right. Like, you're constantly prioritizing things in your life. You're constantly looking at, you know, what is my scope? Should I be really caring about the fact that, you know, Kwame wore a suit today and maybe I'm wearing a shirt, you know, should I care? But, like, is that even in my realm of scope? No, it's not. That should not be on my to do list today. Right. It doesn't matter. So project management truly is a function of life. And so going back to your question of how do we leverage AI, you can create scenarios proactively before you get into the negotiating room of, okay, I want to implement a loyalty program. And that could be a part of your prompt. Right. In the AI world, I went to implement a loyalty program. What are some of the concerns that finance would have? And you prompt that into, you know, a chat, GPT or similar product and it's going to list out based on aggregated data across, you know, all the different companies in the world, they've ever done this, concerns from a financial standpoint. And you can go down your list proactively and say, okay, well we considered 75% of these, but these other 25%, most, quite frankly become our agenda for this next conversation. And you put down the table and you let the, you facilitate the negotiation across these entities. Right? Like, and you can do that for each of those different silos that I just mentioned. What's marketing's concern going to be? What are pitfalls? You know, these all become like, have we considered them? Do we have solutions in place? You know, what does that mean specific to our business? Right? And literally you've laid out not only a very good agenda as a facilitator, but you've also laid out like, considerations that are probably going to be thrown out there from each of the different entities. And proactively start thinking about how will I address those. Have we even considered those? Do I have to write players in the room to even have this conversation? Right? Like, are there more players that should be involved or less players? These are all considerations when running large scale programs for, you know, large corporations.

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 arts with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. I love this. I love this. And now let me channel some, let me channel some skepticism. I might be hearing from the audience. So let's say somebody's saying, listen, I've been in the business for a long time. I've been doing this for a long time. I don't need any computer to tell me what other people in what department thinks. I understand what the concerns are. So when somebody comes with that level of assuredness in their own knowledge database, what would you say to them when it comes to using artificial intelligence to prepare?

So I, I'm a technologist, so my first place to always Go to is, do you have data and insights to back up what you're saying or is it just a gut response? I feel like gut responses worked in negotiations for years to your point. Years and years and years of industry or relevant experience means I can trust one's individual gut. We haven't been there for the better part of 20 plus years at this point. There are too many data points, there are too many analytics, there are too many ways to validate what our gut says in the reality of the world, and particularly in business. I love that validation because, you know, people have been in their business all day long and they might even be successful and they're sure of what they think they know. Right. And because of success, that's their only validation point. But the reality is maybe if they tweak their approach based on data and insights, they might take it in a totally different direction with less effort and be able to have exponentially more growth. Right. Or hit. Hit certain strategic goals. So, you know, I challenge anytime someone comes to the table with a gut instinct without validated data to support that.

Absolutely. And here's the thing, their gut instinct might be right, but then you could still validate it with AI in about 60 seconds. That's the thing. Because at the end of the day, we might have an incredible repository of experiences and that is very legitimate. And we can at the same time recognize that our experiences are not as robust as the expansive Data set that ChatGPT and these other generative AI programs are trained on. And so what I realize is that we just need to recognize that humility that we are not going to be able to know as much as this thing can. So for me, I think about it as a supportive thing. There's some people who use it as like, hey, I'm just not going to think anymore, hope for the best. No, you need to be able to have that knowledge base in order to guide the AI effectively. So if you put the AI plus your years of experience together, focused on this specific issue now, you increase your level of preparation and confidence exponentially.

Yeah. So let's tease this out a little bit further. And I love the points that you made there. So validations on top of my gut and experiences. Right. You know, other data points, other entities. But also think of it this way, your gut inherently is based on past experiences. Right. Past all the way up to present. AI is in the now. So even what's happening today, if it exists in the wide world of web. Right. Like the World Wide Web, it's going to Grab those data points in real time, trending things. Right. And it's aggregating that in real time. So it has a perspective of the here and now versus inherently, we are looking at the past all the way up to yesterday. Right. And I think that's where the combination of, to your point, experience plus current trends and future, you know, thoughts and outputs equals the whole view. And I think that's where, you know, AI, again, is this powerful tool that we have today. It's not, you know, it's not all machine learning. It's not learning per se. It's just aggregating a lot of thoughts that are posted somewhere out there that quite frankly, would take us too long to aggregate our own.

Absolutely. And so you gave a great example of how we can start to use this, where we're saying, all right, these are the stakeholders who are going to be involved. What are some potential concerns they might have? What are some potential goals they might have? What are some arguments they might make that helps us to prepare? What are some other things that we can do to use AI to prepare?

Yeah, so I'm going to take it broader than just being a project manager. You know, as anyone working in any organization, you can use it to facilitate meeting notes. And the prompts are as simple as, I'm hosting a meeting about X, I need to, you know, formulate an agenda and these types of roles are going to be in the room. Or I need to formulate an agenda with these goals. And boom, like, seconds later, there's your agenda. And then you say to yourself, okay, I would like to have meeting notes as a result of this meeting. And there are free tools out there that will generate meeting notes on your behalf so that you can facilitate the meeting hands free and kind of be present in the moment with the people that you're facilitating and negotiating with in real time. And then, boom, there's action items and meeting notes that come. They're truly taking the words and the sentiments that are said during the meeting and translating them into a very consumable, good meeting notes. Again, this is time savings everywhere. Like, and this may seem seem minimal, but let's say those two tasks saved you 20 to 30 minutes in your day, as we all know, is, you know, working par or working individuals that might beat traffic, which gains you another 20 minutes that you would have been stuck in rush hour. Like, these are things that matter over the course of a day, a week at time. Like, if you can gain back an hour a day, that's seven hours a week, that you can pour into building some other skill. As you know and as I know as entrepreneurs building a skill, seven hours a week equals 28 hours a month equals, you know, very quickly, a hundred hours in about a quarter of a year, a hundred hours, you can turn that into a tangible good that equals a big return on investment for the remainder of your life. Right. Like that's a certification that you can leverage towards more dollars for the remainder of your life. Maybe that certification equals 10k a year. But again, if you're a 25 year old individual, that's 35 years of 10ks. Do the math. This adds up.

Absolutely. And on the other side, on the, like the other side of the spectrum too, you could just take that hour and meditate or chill or just relax too, because we're all stressed out and burnt out. Because let's use an example, because as you were talking about the artificial intelligence, like note takers, I heard two sets of digital hands clapping because we both have our AI note takers in here. So what I often do is I just take the transcript of the meeting and tell me, hey, what are the high points? What are the summaries? Okay, great. What should my next steps be? How do I build a strategy off of that? And sometimes people are intimidated because it is like the highest level of scientific technology that we have right now. And they say, I don't know how to use it. Good, say that to it. Just say it, Say, I don't know how to use you. I have this challenge. How can you help me? And it'll tell you how to use it.

Right.

A lot of times we just overthink it, but you just talk to it like a person and it does what you need it to do. So sometimes you can prompt it to say, be my negotiation coach. It does that. Be my administrative assistant, help me stay organized for this meeting. It does that. And when you think about just the fluidity of your day and you pay attention to those times where you're allocating a lot of cognitive effort to preparation, this is what helps you to elevate because you can prepare for a shorter period of time and get more done. Because I remember pre AI, I would be sitting there for hours preparing for a negotiation. Hours, days, weeks, taking all these notes, writing it down. And now what I do is I just tell the AI how I want to prepare, what questions I have, and it's just my support throughout it. And I still need to come to the negotiation table and communicate as a human and utilize the negotiation skills. But I'm allocating energy in a much more efficient way, and I'm much more prepared, which elevates my negotiation when it comes time.

Yeah, you brought a great point to the surface here, and I just want to piggyback on that for just a second. People are intimidated on how to use AI in their everyday life, and you nailed it. Like. Like the same way that we all kind of got comfortable with hey Google. Hey, Siri. And asking that virtually anything. Like, we all watched our children just ask it, random children questions, treat AI chat, GPT and all the different, you know, tools out there the exact same way. I don't know how to do this. Teach me how to do it, and it's literally going to spit out information seconds later on how to do it, and then iterate on that. Okay, I understand bullet points 1, 2, and 3, but I don't understand 4 and 5. Give me more details there. It will continue to iterate with you until you get down to the level that you of detail that you want to do. It will also tell you when it's unable to compute and you just have to rethink how they ask the same question.

Absolutely. Oh, man, this is good. This is really good. One of the things that I've. I've utilized it for just in general when it comes to life, but also especially with negotiation. And this might surprise you, but I have emotions too. When we get emotional, we have blind spots. And so for me, a lot of times somebody might come with an offer that I think is absolutely ridiculous. They might have a position that I think is ridiculous. And then I come and I bring the energy to the table. Like, hey, that's ridiculous, of course. Listen, I know I listen to the Negotiate Anything podcast. I will not approach the negotiation in that way. It doesn't change the fact that it's in my soul, but what ends up happening is in my preparation. I'll just say, hey, this is how I'm seeing it. This is how I'm feeling. What am I missing? What perspective might they have that I am not seeing? And every single time, Chuck, every single time, even when I've spent inordinate amount of time thinking and ruminating about this, it always brings a fresh perspective because we're always going to be rooted in our own bias and in our own experience, and we're going to miss things because we're human.

Yeah, this is amazing because one of the practices that I specialize in in my consultancy is call centers. And for years, well before ChatGPT, call centers had technology called sentiment. Extraction for just that reason. Sentiment extraction can listen in on a verbal conversation and pull out the fact that a customer is upset. And basically what it does is it triggers a notification to a call center manager to basically jump in on the call. And this is where you see an escalation point happen where the agent will essentially, like, say, hey, hold for a second, I'm bringing my manager. The manager, who's a little bit more experienced, will help either find a resolution for you from a negotiating standpoint. Right. Like, they'll figure out I need to appease this customer in some way so they're not upset and. Or help resolve your issue because, again, they bring a level of experience. But yet that analysis has been there in the background for probably five plus years at this point, maybe even longer.

Incredible. Yeah. And when you consider that in conjunction with everything that we've talked about, it's going to be really exciting to see how things develop, because it's just developing at an exponentially fast rate, faster than any other technology we've ever seen. So. So I just suggest everybody stay on top of it just for the sake of developing the skill of being aware of how to use it. Because if everything that we've talked about thus far hasn't motivated you to at least experiment or consider it, just remember this. The person on the other side of the table might have listened to this podcast and they might be using it to prepare in that negotiation against you.

So be ready. Yeah, be ready. And, you know, just another call to action. If you're listening to this podcast right now and you've said to yourself anywhere in the last six months, I wish I had another hour in the day. I wish I had more time in the day. AI is for you. It is generating that speed of tasks that you did yesterday can be automated. And quite frankly, they're tasks that don't take your own thoughts or your own sparks. They're not unique to you. They're just common tasks that everyone has the same problems. Hence why the information is out there for AI to aggregate into a very consumable good on your behalf. So leverage it. You know, think of those things that are just common problems. Someone else has this problem. Let me just ask ChatGPT how to solve that problem or produce that tangible good, and boom, you're off to the races.

Absolutely, man. Chuck, every time we chat, it's always good. Before you go, I really want to make sure that you get an opportunity to let folks know about your podcast and how they can work with you and your team.

Yeah. So hashtag PMIRL Project Manager in real life. Be sure to like subscribe. Follow I have a LinkedIn page specific to the podcast where we talk from a corporation and business standpoint about different project management tools, lots of entrepreneur journeys, career development and growth. So that's the point of the podcast, but realistically it's to take project management principles, apply them to your everyday life from a stress relief standpoint and being just more quick and agile in everyday execution. So that's the first one. The other one is my company, Scott Q Consulting. So Scott, the Letter Q Consulting again, if your corporation has poorly run projects where contractors come in and maybe don't have the right answers all the time about their work streams, if you're looking for a more seasoned, experienced individual to come and run those at the execution level, give me a call. You can reach me via my website, Scott Q. Consulting and we have lots of client hindsights out there. Feedback from previous corporations talking about from the executive standpoint, exactly what their experience was dealing with our corporation. I had one client recently tell me that we're like a big four consulting firm, but it's a small mom and pop shop and that's exactly what we are and coming in at considerably less rate than the millions and millions of dollars that those big fours when they charge corporations. So as a result we're able to be a little bit more nimble and right size for a lot of small to mid sized businesses, startups all the way up to large billion dollar corporations and more. So that's where you can find me and of course you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I love talking these things. Getting ready to start a series on AI. Specifically on the PM IRL podcast you can find our first episode. It's already posted to our YouTube channel and it's also that episode will be coming out from an Apple podcast and other podcast standpoint later this week. We're currently recording on January 10, 2024. So look for that next week. We're starting literally from level zero. So exactly like we talked about today. Kwame, if you don't know how to do it, ask it that like we're kind of teaching people how to start from the very beginning and build the framework of a prompt, getting down from a high level all the way down to the weeds of the details that you initially sought out to do in a very concise way. So that is me. I love talking shop. As you can tell here, I'm very passionate about AI and the ability to apply that to our everyday lives. I'm also super passionate about how the organizations deliver projects. Work, work, and do it in a succinct and fashionable way. Well communicated and where project team members feel supported and able to perform the task that's been put upon them by leadership.

Love it, Chuck. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks again for coming on the show.

My pleasure. Thanks 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 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 have you and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.