Negotiating Better Business Outcomes With Nicole Davidson

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. Nicole, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks, Kwame. It is a delight to be on the podcast.

Yes, it is a delight to have you again, my friend. So how would you start us off? By telling us about yourself and what you do.

Yeah, so my name is Nicole Davidson. I'm a negotiation specialist. So what that means is I bring negotiation expertise to help clients get better outcomes from their negotiations and conflicts. And I do that by teaching them the skills that they need to negotiate better and manage conflict conversations. I advise and coach on specific negotiations and where things have all got really difficult, I'll come in as an independent mediator to facilitate negotiations between parties to resolve conflicts.

I love it. And listeners, if you want to hear some fun banter from me and Nicole, just listen to the end of this episode. We'll. We'll put the. The conversation we just had, because, you know, you look from the outside and you're like, wow, what an established podcast. It seems so professional. Well, fun fact, you know, we're just muddling through and surviving just like everybody else. And Nicole was on the podcast last month and, you know, you're resident negotiation host forgot to record the interview. So I really appreciate your grace coming back on and blessing goes with your presence, despite my struggle with competence at times.

Do you know what, Kwame? I'm just glad it was you that did it, not me recording one of my podcast episodes. So now when I do it, I'll feel much better about it.

Yes. Oh, listen, and before we get into the actual episode, let the listeners know about your show, too.

Yeah, so I record the negotiation In Real Life podcast. And the goal of that podcast is to bring on guests who've had, you know, interesting and challenging negotiations and get them to share what actually happened in those negotiations so people can learn from their experience.

Love it. Yes. Make sure you check that out. And we'll put links to Nicole's website and the podcast and LinkedIn too, in the description. Now, Nicole, one of the things that I really admire about what you're able to do is you have the mediation background, you're a lawyer too, and you have the business savvy as well. When you think about the diversity of expertise that you bring to negotiation and conflict resolution, what value do you think that adds to your skill set?

Look, I think it adds a lot. And I think it's a big differentiator for me, particularly in the mediation work, but also in the training and the consulting. So it's interesting. If you'd asked me about five or six years ago about my career, I would have said it was this really flaky, unstructured career path. Because I started out in corporate insolvency. I moved into law, I mean, into investment banking. I did a bit of recruitment. I went back into insolvency. Then I moved into training and development before eventually moving into a training role where I was deep diving into negotiation and focusing on that. And that's what led me down the path into negotiation advisory work. But the beauty of it is that it's given me this complete breadth of skills that a lot of mediators particularly don't necessarily have. A lot of mediators are people who've been career lawyers and have stepped into mediation. They've never been involved in the financial side of business. They don't have perhaps as much commercial expertise. And particularly because my focus is around business negotiations and business disputes, that sort of breadth of experience really helps me decide what are the right questions to be asking parties during the mediation to try and move them from being stuck into making progress in that dispute.

You know what's really fascinating about that answer is that it all came back to curiosity to ask better questions. Because you didn't say, hey, you know what, I'm going to come in here like a judge. I know more than everybody. I'm going to tell you what to do. No, you're wrong, you're wrong, that type of thing. No, you said it helps you to ask better questions. Why is that the thing that you focused on?

Look, I think that's the key to mediation. And, you know, I like people to be in control of their own decisions. Now, some of the questions that I might ask might lead them down a certain path based on my experience and my thinking. But ultimately I'm really focused on trying to get people to a place that they choose based on having done the right thought process. So I'm not an evaluative mediator. There are some mediators who will come in and they'll say, look, if this goes to court, this is what's going to happen. Therefore you should accept this settlement. I believe that people should be able to make those choices. And I work from the premise that I've focused on for a number of years now. I always say if I tell you something, there's a fairly high chance that you will disagree with me. Right. I tell you because we all have an innate desire for autonomy. We like to make our own choices. We don't like being told things generally. But if I ask you questions that get you to that same conclusion and you tell yourself because of the questions that you've been asked, then you're likely to come to that conclusion and be satisfied with it and not push back against it. So that's sort of the underlying concept to a lot of the work that I do is actually bringing people to their resolutions through actually thinking for themselves of what the answer is, not providing that answer to them. I may have an idea of where it's likely to go and it doesn't always go where I think it's going to go. So I have to be open to that as well. But it's allowing them to get there for themselves.

I love this. It's great. And I like that you talked about really focusing on helping them to be in control of their own decision making process. When they feel that autonomy, that agency, then they're going to stick to the agreement. They're more likely to stick to the agreement. It makes it a bit more self enforcing in that regard. But you also talked about the process. So when you think about negotiation, negotiation is, you can describe it a lot of different ways, but one is a process that helps us to arrive at a decision. But what I want to get like really focus on is the fact that you said a thought process. You want to make sure that in this process of negotiation, as we're guiding people to a decision, we recognize that part of the negotiation process includes the thought process of where they are and where we want them to be. So I want to go a little bit deeper onto that line of thinking, focusing on the thought process. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yeah, look I think one of the things that comes up as you work through some of these challenges, whether it's a front end negotiation or a dispute, is that a lot of what we do is actually done at a subconscious level. We're not actually thinking, thinking about why we're making certain decisions. And so what I'm trying to bring out for people is to actually dig into, you know, they might come up with a statement or a proposal, but they might not be sort of consciously aware of why that's come up for them. You know, what is it about that that gives them satisfaction? So I actually want them to come back to start thinking about, well, why have they got there? Because, you know, it's that classic sort of process. You know, I keep coming back to getting to yes, as one of the sort of foundations we need to understand the underlying interests. And they will actually come up and, you know, they'll often tell you what they want, but they haven't really explored why that's important to them. And we need to dig down and get that understanding a little bit more so that we've got some flexibility so that if they can't get the outcome that they want, they can get something that still meets those underlying needs.

Absolutely. And I think it's really important for us to focus on the subconscious for a bit too, because, I mean, especially for us as recovering lawyers, we can be so focused on rationale, on logic, on data, on evidence and making A to B connections that I feel like a lot of us people who really pride ourselves in like the quality of our cognition. We often overlook the fact that there is a lot happening beneath the surface that is steering the decision making of both ourselves and the other side. 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, 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, learn more and we will be right back after this. And so if we're going to really take it to the next level when it comes to our negotiation skills, we have to be able to be persuasive and speak to the conscious and the subconscious.

I think what that raises for me is there's two levels at which we're playing there as well. Because at one level we've got, you know, thinking about the rational decision. You know, here's all the concrete reasons why this should be an acceptable outcome. But then we've got the sort of more emotional that needs to be dealt with. And, you know, I could probably be quite rich if I got paid every time a lawyer said to me, let's just focus on the facts here. Let's not worry about emotion. You know, emotion absolutely is one of the key interests in a negotiation. But I think the other thing that plays in is the sort of cognitive biases that come in. So even if we're just dealing in fact, fact, because we are looking at things from one side of a picture, we are picking up the facts that help us, you know, and, you know, you can talk about confirmation bias, for example, where, yes, we're going to pick up on this fact because it supports what we want, but this little fact over here, that goes against it. Oh, well, no, that doesn't. That's not relevant because. And we'll justify that away. Now, that's not something we do knowingly or intentionally. It's a subconscious process. And what's really interesting, and I think this is the value of a third person coming into a negotiation, is even when you tell people that they've got these subconscious biases, they can't stop these biases acting upon their thought processes. And yet, when I come in as an independent person, whether it's as a neutral or acting for one person, my job is to spot where these biases may be operating and help bring that awareness to them so that we can actually work in a bigger picture.

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's humbling to recognize the fact that, hey, listen, we are humans and we are going to have limits when it comes to our ability to process and think. And even if we are aware of those limits, they will still be limits on the way that we process and think. And so that's, again, why it's so valuable to have the third party. And so in our negotiations, if we have the. The privilege of being able to use a mediator. Use a mediator, it helps. But then also when we say, all right, well, this isn't the type of negotiation where I have the luxury of a mediator, what do I do? We can start to bounce ideas off of people who are more impartial and when you think about the knowledge of biases, it helps us to understand, yes, why a mediator can be so valuable. But then also it helps us as mediators to recognize that we might not be biased in the exact same way that the parties are, but we still will be biased. And so that's why semantically, where we can't say that we are unbiased, because that is a psychological impossibility, but we can be impartial by being aware of our biases and actively working against it as we mediate these disputes.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's fascinating because I was talking to someone just the other day. There was a mediation that they put me forward for, but ended up choosing someone who spoke Chinese because both the parties were Chinese, and they ended up getting an older Chinese mediator. And it was a dispute between a mother and a son. And it was interesting that the person I was talking to, who represented one of the parties, that the mediator was highly biased towards the sun based on traditional cultural values of what the outcome should be in this mediation. And it was quite fascinating to me that, you know, someone would come in with a clear. She said it was. It was just so clear that this mediator had a view of what the outcome should be because of certain family traditions and certain ways that parents were expected to look after children and totally disrespected the mother in this case. So, you know, mediators do bring their own biases. And, you know, it's a constant challenge, I think, when we are working with clients to try and make sure that we are taking our own belief system around some of those concepts out of the equation.

Absolutely. And when you think about the value that mediation brings, but also recognizing the limited applicability when. So what I mean by that is, if I'm having a dispute with my wife that does not get to the legal level, it would be unlikely for me to bring in a mediator to talk about, like, divvying responsibilities within the household. So my question is, how can we take this mentality and some of the benefits that come with mediation and bring it to our everyday negotiations?

The best strategy that I can think of for viewers is when you get into those dispute situations, you almost have to. You almost have to take yourself out of the picture and look at it as if this was someone else. You know, if this was a group of friends that were not me and my spouse, but a friend of mine and their spouse came to me for advice, what would I be looking for? What would I be telling them? And putting yourself into that sort of third party viewer, or, I guess, taking yourself out and going, if I was my friend, what advice would I be giving me and my spouse? You know, I remember doing a coaching course, and they talked about putting yourself on Mount Sinai. You're out of the picture. You're looking down from the top to get a different perspective.

This is great. It's funny that you said that, because I drew this image, which you could obviously tell is a balcony.

Yes, yes, of course. William Urie and the balcony, Mount Sinai. It's all the same, isn't it? Step off the dance floor. Isn't that the metaphor? Yeah.

And it's so helpful, but also so humbling. I often don't like what I see from the balcony, Nicole, if I'm being completely honest. So I'll give an example. And this kind of speaks to the subconscious as well. So Whitney and I were watching a TV show, and it, like, it touched on a thing. It was a comedy, it was funny. But then it touched on a theme that reminded me of an argument that I had with Whitney six years ago. And so she noticed that my affect started to go down. Like, kwame, the energy levels going down. Kwame, what's wrong? Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Because in my mind, I'm like, kwame, this is dumb. Can you stop doing this? And then we get into the bedroom to brush our teeth, get ready for bed and everything. And then I realized we both have two pillows. And she moved my pillow. And I got so mad, Nicole. I got so mad, I started talking about the pillow. How do you think I feel about you moving my pillow? Everybody's like, kwame, I don't understand what's happening. I don't know why you're so mad about this. And the things that you're saying, it doesn't. They don't connect. And so I sat there and I was quiet for a little bit. And I was tracking, because I was trying to track the emotions that I was feeling to what I was saying. And I realized I do not care at all about this pillow. And I was like, all right, Whitney. So this is what really happened. This was a proxy war that was not fair to you. And this is what was bothering me. But I think it's important for us to be able to have that ability to pull ourselves out and look objectively. And a lot of times we'll find out that we're being an. And we are actually the problem.

Yeah, look, I think that's absolutely right. And, you know, passive aggression is really easy to step into when you don't want to confront a problem. It's like, I'll create a new problem so that you can get angry at me because I didn't actually deal with the thing that was going on. So. Yes. And look, this is why I'm so passionate about giving people skills to have these difficult conversations. You know, there was a reason why you didn't confront Whitney about the original problem. And, you know, I think what's fascinating is even when you get people like ourselves, who work in this space all the time, have a lot of expertise in the space, it doesn't make those conversations easier. When it's your own conversation, it's always difficult, but it is being able to pull it back, I think, and go, I can see what I'm doing here. I'm just avoiding something. Okay, how will I approach it?

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that's really interesting about difficult conversations in general. You can't expect yourself to perform perfectly. There's no such thing as a perfect performance. It's about being able to recognize in a lot of situations when you're making a mistake and course correcting. And I think one of the many things that differentiate like expert and novice negotiators is the humility to recognize when you are off, when you're not seeing things clearly, when you're approaching things the wrong way, catching yourself apologizing in order to rebuild the relationship in the way that you just damaged it and then get back on the right track.

Yeah, completely agree with that. And I think even if you don't manage that in a particular situation, it's the reflection later so that you do things a little bit better the next time. You know, I always say to people, there's two things you need to say if you want to improve your negotiation skills. There's two questions you need to ask after every negotiation. What's one thing that I did really well there that I should do again? And what's one thing that I could have done better and what would have worked more effectively? And I think if you ask yourself those two questions after each negotiation, your skills will just continue, continually develop.

This is so cool. This is validating it because that's one of the things that I said in my first book, said you could win every negotiation if you do those two things. And I said it in the exact same order. So look at us vibing from across the world. I love it. This is great. And now listen, one of the things I like to do is I like to advocate on behalf of the listeners. Sometimes I hear them in the back of my head saying, kwame, ask them this question. And so this is the question question that they've been asking me to ask. Remind them again about the name of your podcast and how they can get in touch with you if they want to work with you.

So the podcast is called Negotiation. In real life, you can access it via Spotify, Google Play, Apple podcasts, all of those usual things, or you can find it via my website, which is nicoledavidsonnegociation.com and you can get in touch with me via the website or via LinkedIn.

This is great, Nicole. Thank you for coming on the podcast again. Really appreciate it.

Fantastic. Thanks, Kwame. Always nice to chat.

Likewise. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to. To automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later. Yeah, I'm a massive tennis fan. It was my favorite sport for a long time.

There you go. You'll have to come out here one year for the Open.

Nicole, if only you knew. You want to hear a funny story? So. So a few years ago, I was like, I'm going to make it. I've always wanted to go to the Australian Open. And the interesting thing about the podcast is that, not surprisingly, the majority of our listeners are here in the States. But consistently, number two was always Australia for us, Always. And so I was like, listen, I'm going to meet my peeps in Australia. This is going to be great. And so I said, this is what we're going to do. We're going to host a workshop, a public workshop. We sold seats and everything like that. And we're going to schedule it for the second week of the Australian Open, bought tickets for the quarterfinals. And now let's fast forward to the day. Things are great. Seats are sold and tickets are bought, and I go to the. I go to the. To the airport. And they're like, okay, so did you get your visa? I was like, visa? It's Australia. Why'd you let me buy the tickets if I needed a visa? And so they're like, hey, don't worry. It's Australia. We're friends. So all you need to do is go to this website, fill out this application. You'll automatically get a visa. So Whitney goes. She fills out her application. Welcome. You got your visa. You can go. I fill out my application. Denied, denied, denied. And so I'm like, what's happening? Can I do it again? And they're like, no. There's this process, so I'm trying to call. And, you know, the time zone is. Is completely different, and it's Saturday there and everything like that. And so I had to. I had to refund people's tickets. Like, I refunded everybody's tickets, refunded flights. Like, people were flying in from, like, different parts. Like, people were coming from Sydney, from Tasmania, all these places. It was horrible. Very embarrassing. Turns out that in my haste to fill it out, I checked where it said criminal record. I checked yes instead of no. Oh, my God. It was so embarrassing, dude. So I've never been.

What an expensive mistake.

Yep. And then I was like, it's okay. I'll come back next year. And then Covid happened. Are you serious?

Well, I think 2024 has got to be the year, Kwame.

I know it has to, but I'm going to be honest. Like, the trauma, I don't want. Like, if I mess it up twice, you know what? I'm just going to retire.

Just get someone else to fill out the visa application next time.

You're absolutely right. I've had to realize I had to come to terms with. I have some strengths, and I have some serious deficiencies, and, like, when it comes to admin, just completely inept. And so I will have no part in scheduling any part of it. I just want people to tell me, kwame, show up at the airport at this time. Arrive and speak at this time. That's what a team is for. So, yeah. Yeah. At that time, it was pretty much just me. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Well, I have to say, if you're interested in doing something in Melbourne, maybe there's something we could do together. Yeah, I love that. It'd be great to sort of work, you know, I don't know what it might look like, but there'd have to be something that we could do that actually worked for both of us.

Yes. That would be cool. That would be amazing. That would be really cool.

Yeah. Because teaching negotiation is. Is a big part of my Thing and you know, I think it's great to get different people and different perspectives and. Yeah, there'd have to be something we could work on.

100%. 100%. I will at some point in the near future be in Australia, I guarantee you that. And I think doing well.

The only downside of January is a lot of people are taking leave over that period. So in terms of running programs and things, it's possibly a bit early in the year, but you've obviously filled a build something, so. And maybe that's good because people aren't so busy with the day to day work. They've got a bit more time to spend. But often there is. It's funny in, in Australia, certainly Melbourne and Sydney, they sort of shut down from Christmas Eve through till about Australia day, which is the 26th of January. And then everybody's back on board and things are back to normal.

That's right. When it's Australia 26th, this, that, I mean, that puts us right back into. That's the second week of the Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that works. Because then maybe like first week of February. Yeah, okay. Okay, that's good. We'll. We'll review the tape which is conveniently being recorded.

I saw the little red dot.

Yes. I had a, I had like one. I had a checklist. I created a checklist and it said be smart and that was it. So it's like managed to competently record the brilliance of Nicole Davidson. Can you do that, Kwame? That's, that's my goal. Just capture this moment. That's funny. Well, cool. Well, you know the drill.

I do.

You had a rehearsal.

It's great.

Exactly. This is cool. Well, you know, I keep saying if it happens, if it happens. And you know, I was, I made a post the other day where I'm like, when it comes to doing fun things, you kind of just have to call your shot and do it. It's never going to be convenient. Going to Australia is never going to be convenient for me. I just kind of have to pull the. Okay.

All right, so it's. When it happens.

When it happens.

Small words, big differences.

2024. Barring another global pandemic, I will.

Surely we've got a while to wait before the next one of those.

Yes. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Why not? I mean, why not?

Yeah.

Doing this, doing this. All right. We're making this happen.

Done.

Done.