Persistence and Problem Solving: The Key to Better Negotiations with Joshua Weiss

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for spending time with us today. It's listeners like you in 181 different countries that have made Negotiate Anything the most popular negotiation and conflict resolution podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, professor, and the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Before we get started, I have two quick questions for you. Is negotiation a critical part of what you do? Do need to resolve conflict and persuade at work? If you answered yes to both of those questions, visit our website to learn more about our negotiation workshops. We've traveled the country working with professionals just like you, and we'd love to have the opportunity to work with you, too. Check out the link in the description to learn more. Josh, thanks for joining us today.

Kwame, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

No, it's my pleasure. Well, how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Well, yeah, so I have been involved in the world of negotiation, dealing with conflict for quite a while, I guess about 25, 30 years or so, probably longer than I'd like to admit. And I wear a couple of different hats. I have my own consulting company, so I do a lot of training and getting involved in interesting conflicts and negotiations to kind of help people with that. I also am affiliated with a place called the Program on Negotiation, which is based at Harvard Law School. And I run a project there's called the Global Negotiation Initiative with William Ury, my colleague, and we work on a lot of international negotiations and other projects, which is, again, a lot of good fun and very interesting stuff. And then finally, I direct a master's degree program at a smaller school out in Western Massachusetts where I live called Baypath University, and it's a Ms. In Leadership and Negotiation and completely online. And so folks have been really engaged. We've been running that for about seven years, and the students really love it and I love doing it. So it's a lot of different hats, but a lot of fun and interesting work for me to do.

That's fantastic. And for this episode, we're going to focus on three things. The first thing we're going to do is start off by talking about the power of stories. And then we're going to bust some common myths about negotiation. And we're going to wrap up by talking about the combination of persistence and problem solving as the key to most of these cases. And the challenge to the audience, of course, is as you listen to this of course you are going to hear something that you say, aha, wow, that's definitely something I can use. That's really helpful. And what I'd ask is if you hear that, if you hear that one thing that's really beneficial, leave a 5 star review, let other people know that the content here is good. And if you've already done that, which I hope you have, then you can subscribe to the podcast. So whenever we come up with a new episode, you get notified. So that is our little negotiation with our audience there. So, yeah, Josh, let's go ahead and talk about the power of stories. Where should we start?

Well, you know, it's interesting because I think most people can relate to stories. You know, I think it's one of those things that we overlook. But as kids, you know, that's what we remember. I know as a kid growing up, there were two figures that I always found very memorable, curious George and Dr. Seuss. And in many ways, I kind of still live my life by some of the lessons within there about being curious. And in fact, I reference in the book the story of the two Zachs who end up coming together and neither one wants to lose. And I use that as a way of explaining that a lot of negotiations and people who negotiate and see negotiation in a win lose endeavor end up like those two Zachs because they don't move and they won't move. And there are a lot of negotiations that are like that. And people, when people enter negotiation with that mindset, they often think they're negotiating, but once they get stuck, they're kind of done. And so they don't really think, what else can I do here? I had somebody say to me the other day, well, I tried to negotiate and they said, what'd you do? And they said, well, I made an offer and they rejected it and we were too far apart and that was it. I said, you didn't negotiate. You didn't really go very far at all. But I think what's really important about stories is they come to mind easily and the lessons come to mind easily. And in particular, not only are stories valuable for learning, but I also find that stories are really valuable when you're in the heat of the moment in a negotiation to recall a lesson or to recall a way that you might shift the conversation by saying, let me share an example of how these folks did this that I think might help us to sort of take a different path or a different avenue. And there's a one of the stories that I love from the book is an example of, and I think one that most listeners will really resonate with, which is basically an example of a company that was confronted with a sole supplier negotiation situation, which, generally speaking, is one of the hardest ones that exist. So the story briefly is that there's a company that was working in China and they had to use a particular piece of equipment, and the equipment was many, many millions of dollars, and they had had been using it for about 15 years, but realized that to do their work well, they needed to get a newer machine. And it turned out that because they were working in China, they couldn't import the machine. And there was only one company in all of China that made this machinery. So my colleague shared this story with me. They brought him in and they said to him, look, we have approached the other company and they want to charge us an exorbitant amount, much more than is reasonable for this, because they know they have us sort of over a barrel. And so we need your help. Like, what is it that we're going to do? And he talked to them for a while and then he said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to imagine that that company has gone out of business. And they said, okay. And he said, and you have three days to figure out what you're going to do, and I'm going to come back and you're going to tell me how you're still going to meet your interest here. And they kind of looked at him like, you're crazy. Like, this is, how could we possibly do that? We already have a bad enough situation and you want to make it worse. Right? And part of that conversation was also around Batna. And Batna, for those of you who don't know, is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. And the whole idea is, if you can't reach agreement somewhere, what's your batna? And in this case, they didn't have one, right, because it was a sole supplier deal. So my friend left and the procurement team got together and started talking and they started to brainstorm and they started to think, what are we going to do here? I mean, this guy's crazy, but we've got to come up with a plan. And they started to think, could we refurbish the machinery that didn't work. Could we somehow, someway find another solution? And during the brainstorm, one of the procurement team folks said, I wonder if anybody has purchased this machinery in the last, say, four or five years and maybe isn't using it anymore. And they said, well, let's start researching and seeing what we can find. And it turned out that they found a company in Mongolia who had purchased this equipment. So they approached them and they said, look, we're. Here's the situation. We're interested in buying it. It turned out that that company had stopped doing what they were doing before, and they had this machinery and they wanted to sell it. So now they had a bat, right? They could buy this used equipment that would work. But more to the point, they could use it as leverage to go back to this company in China and say, look, we want to do business with you. We want to buy new equipment, we want to have a service contract, all of those things. And yet you're just, you know, your price is unrealistic. And, you know, if you're not going to agree to that, then we've got an alternative. You know, our preference is to work with you. And that's ultimately what happened. And it turned out that they were able to negotiate much more effectively. The company in China who sold the equipment did their own investigation to make sure that, you know, the folks weren't lying to them. But when they found out that there was that reality, the company came back down to something much more reasonable. So when you look at something like that, and that story, I think, is really powerful because when people are confronted with a significant power asymmetry, they usually just throw up their hands and say, I hope they'll just give me something. Right? And in this case, with some creative thinking, with some challenging of assumptions, you get a very different outcome and a very different story. Right.

See, this is so fascinating. I love this example. And the timing is perfect because this morning I was presenting to the Army's Defense Acquisition University. And so it's really interesting because of course, they're in procurement just like everybody else, but the things that they're procuring are, they call them weapons of lethality. So everything for the army that they need in order to defend us. And one of the things we were talking about was creativity. So what is it that we can do to be creative, to make decisions? These deals work because the more paths to victory you have, the more likely you are to achieve victory. But sometimes when you see a threat, just psychologically speaking, when we see a threat, we develop a little bit of tunnel vision. And to the point of your story, the company that was trying to negotiate and they recognized, hey, I'm dealing with a single supplier who's trying to gouge us, they recognize that's a threat, and they see that as the only potential path to victory. And so what your colleague was able to do was introduce a hypothetical situation. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, there was no other option. What would we do? And so sometimes hypotheticals are the best way to get people to think creatively in these negotiations. Asking great questions to people on your team who are developing a little bit of tunnel vision can do it. And then even with your counterparts. Sometimes I like to use hypothetical situations, whether it's negotiation with opposing counsel or for me, as a mediator with the other side. It helps people to feel a little bit more, I guess, less defensive when it comes to entertaining alternate possibilities because it's less threatening. Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly, and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more. And now back to the show. This is great. And one other thing too, for the listeners. I always tell them about the free guides that we have, and if they go to americannegotiationinstitute.com guide, they can get access to all of our guides, General Negotiation Guides, Car Negotiation, Introverts, Guide to negotiation. It's like 15 plus, but we did one about three years ago that I don't talk about as much. And it's a guide to telling great stories. And so it walks people through how they can tell an effective story. And I love bringing this up, Josh, because in your example, what you can recognize is that storytelling is a persuasive technique. If you come to the table armed with a good story and you can use it at the right time, you can persuade people because their defenses might be up and in place when it comes to the facts that you're trying to provide them with and the different points that you're trying to make. But I think about stories almost like they're like a Trojan horse for persuasion. Everybody gets excited when you say, oh, I'm going to tell you a story. Well, great, let me get my popcorn, I'll listen. They absorb the message with less critical thought and it makes them more willing to move.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it really actually does change the dynamic. Just saying, let me tell you a story. And then from there on, it's almost as if you can see people's demeanor change. I think not only is it a story to learn, but it's this tactic actually in many ways in negotiation to help change the dynamic between people.

Absolutely. Great. Well, let's move on to the second one. Busting common myths about negotiation. Oh, this is great. So tell us more about that.

Well, there's a lot of common myths and I'm sure you've come across them. I mean, my, you know, one of my favorites is really that I feel like compromise. A lot of people think compromise is synonymous with negotiation. And for me, I think that's incredibly limiting thinking. I was talking to somebody about a month ago and I was sharing a little bit about the book and they said, well, you know, to me the best negotiation is when everybody leaves unhappy, little bit unhappy. I said, why would you think that? Like, that's really limiting. And I didn't want to be condescending at all, but I just said, you know, if you go in with that, like what, you know, what is it that you. I can tell you what you're going to come out with, which is that sort of outcome. So for me and I, and what I often will say to folks is, you know, sometimes compromise is necessary, but it really should be the last stop on the train, not the first one. You know, the first should be creativity. It should be thinking differently. It should be problem solving. I mean, and I think that when people change their mindset and they see the other person and they realize they have to see the other negotiator as a problem solving partner, they realize that, you know, compromise may not really help you and it certainly doesn't help you over the long term.

Absolutely. And there's another concept. I forget exactly what it was called. You know, it's similar to this. Maybe it was your colleague who made this up too. I forget which book it was, but exploring what happened to the deal if you did not get the deal. And so just saying, listen, I'm not coming here to try to renegotiate anything. I know you already passed on the deal, but out of curiosity, what was the main thing that prevented you from coming to an agreement? Or what was something that I personally could have done differently that would have made you feel more comfortable? And then they share those hidden interests again. They say, well, the deal's done, no longer a threat. And then they say, well, I really needed this and that and the other thing. And maybe they were whole, holding that close to their chest. And then you say, oh, that's really what it was. I didn't know that. Now that I know that, if you're interested, I can do XYZ if you're able to do abc. Really. All right, now they're back to the table. And I think it's really interesting to recognize just how much work can be done and how much more value can be created once people kind of let their guard down and they think that it's done. Either we got a deal or there wasn't a deal. But once they get that relaxed feeling of safety that comes with the feeling of being done, people open back up. Well, great. Let's transition into that third point. The combination of persistence and problem solving. So tell us more about that one.

Well, let me. I'm going to tell you a story.

I love it.

So this story is, I think, a really great example of persistence and resilience. And so this story actually is from a hostage negotiation scenario. It's actually as a crisis negotiation, because it wasn't. The person didn't have a hostage. And actually the title of this particular case study in the book is called Listening Them Down From a Tree. And what happened was basically that there was this story happened in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And what happened was there was a husband, Arthur, and his wife Mary, who were native Canadians, and they were in their mid to late 30s, and they were also meth addicts. And Arthur and Mary had what they considered a nice life together. But Mary finally got to a point where she just couldn't do it anymore. Like she felt like they were gonna run their life into the ground. And Arthur wasn't there. And Mary really pleaded with him to check himself into rehab with her so that they could get clean and live, you know, a better life, a different life. And Arthur just wasn't having it. And so Mary said, look, I'm going with or without you. I love you, but, you know, this is. I can't do this anymore. So she left and went to Checked herself into a rehab clinic on the outskirts of Calgary. And Arthur was angry because he felt like they had a beautiful life together. And he wanted to teach Mary a lesson. It was still messed up a bit as he was making this decision. So he went to his garage and he found a rope and he put it in his car, and he decided he was going to drive. He was going to drive to the outskirts of this rehab clinic, and he was going to hang himself from a tree to show Mary how she had ruined their lives, okay? And he had decided, and he knew that there was this big tree outside her window because she had called him two or three times that day, trying to encourage him to come because she really wanted him to come. So he gets there and he's, you know, determined to do this, determined to teach Mary a lesson. And as he's. As the sun is setting and he's trying to climb up the tree, etc. Somebody walks by and says, hey, what are you doing, buddy? And the guy's like, none of your business. And but this young guy knew something was wrong, so he called. He called the police, and the police in turn called their crisis negotiator, this guy Gary, and they basically filled Gary in on the story. So Gary rushed to the scene, and when he got there, this was in late October. So in Calgary, it's starting to get pretty cold that time of year, etc. And when he got there, he said to Arthur, you know, what's going on, friend? Tell me what the deal is. Like, how can I, you know, get you to not do this? And Arthur on numerous occasions, said, the only way I'm coming out of this tree is in a body bag. So Gary had confronted that before, right? He tried a number of different avenues. This is where that persistence comes in, of thinking there's got to be a way. And in the back of his mind, he kept. Gary kept thinking, I'm pretty sure Arthur doesn't want to kill himself because he would have done it already if he had. So at one point, Gary says, listen, friend, there's got to be some way to get you out of this tree. What is it? And he said, I'll tell you. Arthur says to Gary, I'll tell you what, if you can guess my native Canadian name, I'll come down. So Gary, of course, takes a step back and thinks, how in the world am I going to do that? And he says, tell me what, give me five to 10 minutes to try to think a little bit about what it might be. So Arthur says, fine, you got 10 minutes. Gary walks back to his car. He calls the dispatcher, and he said, I want you to call Mary. Don't tell her what you're doing, but you need to find out what Arthur's native Canadian name is. So the dispatcher calls the rehab center. They get Mary on the line. She says, his name is Running buffalo, calls Gary back. Gary goes to the bottom of the tree and says, okay, friend, I think your name is Running Buffalo. The second that Gary told that to Arthur, he scurried down the tree as fast as he could and collapsed into Gary's arms. So, as I said, it was getting cold. We're now past midnight. Gary takes him to the ambulance and he says, so, Arthur, I gotta understand what was with the question around me asking your native Canadian name, Like, why? And he said, because basically, if I came out of the tree, in my mind, I would have lost. And I was not prepared to lose. And by getting you to guess my native Canadian name, it put me and you on square footing. It enabled me to save face. And what's really interesting, as I talked to Gary Moore after he shared the story with me, he said, you know, that for a lot of people, when it comes to hostage negotiations or crisis negotiations, a lot of people, they get themselves into a situation and they don't know. They don't want to be there, but they don't have a way out, and they need a way out. And he said, one of the things that happens is that, you know, the mythology around hostage negotiation is that, you know, the hostage taker thinks that they're going to get Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Gary told me, but they end up getting Mr. Rogers, because what the whole goal of finding a solution in these kinds of situations is building rapport is gaining enough trust with that person that they won't be harmed if they come out, and that they can come out in that way. They don't use the term surrender anymore, but that they can come out safely and they can come out with some way of saving face. Like, it turns out that saving face becomes a really critical component to all of this. Now, if Gary had just rushed there and said, get out of that tree right now, you know, who knows what would have happened? But through that sort of persistence and sort of a resiliency mindset, and this notion of knowing that rapport is going to speak to him and give him a way to come down, he was able to craft an agreement that saved his life. And, you know, and as I understand it, you know, went on to also get cleaned up as well.

Wow. Wow, that is a fantastic story. Really creative, too. But again, it showed the power of persistence. Like you mentioned here, that solution didn't come quickly.

Right.

It takes some time. And I think when it comes to being an effective negotiator, there's a little bit of cognitive and emotional stamina that it requires that people often underestimate, I think.

So And I think, you know, it's interesting because I've often found, and I've often felt like Negotiation would be such a great show on TV because it has all of those things. It's got conflict, it's got suspense, it's got. And yet very few people realize that, right? Most people think it's sort of just this process that is done in just sales or procurement or whatever. But the reality is we're doing it everywhere, all the time. And it's fascinating when you notice the dynamics and when you see what happens. And this is why, for me, I connect this back to the whole idea of story, because negotiations follow a story arc that basically you get started, you hit some kind of an apex where maybe a solution looks like it's going to happen, maybe it doesn't. Can you pull it back from the brink, et cetera. And then there's some culmination that leaves a very valuable lesson. And I think that's why I was so interested in writing this book, because I've just seen when you share these stories, light bulbs go off for people and they stay with them.

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 episode 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.