REMI SMOLINSKI: What Does It Mean To Negotiate Well?

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 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 special 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. Remy, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for your invitation. Great to be here.

Yeah, it's our pleasure, my friend. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure, with pleasure. Thank you, Kwame. I'm a negotiation professor, cherishing this passion for many, many years. I run a negotiation research institute at HHL Graduate School of Management in Leipzig, Germany, and organize negotiation competitions for students and professionals. Also advise clients on negotiation and innovation.

I love this. And listeners, we started this conversation about 20 minutes ago, and the conversation has just been flowing and I had to stop the conversation abruptly. I'm like, remy, we need to save some of this magic for the podcast. This is happening frequently now, where I just start chatting and I'm like, why am I not recording this? So I'm so pumped for this episode. And so, listeners, if you're relatively new, I'll start off briefly with my origin story. Remy, I told you about this too, because I got on the path of negotiation from law school when I stumbled into a negotiation class, took the class, did well in these negotiation competitions that I didn't know existed. Until I took the class and I fell in love. And I don't think I would be where I am today with the American Negotiation Institute had it not been for these negotiation competitions. So I'm pumped to talk about this. So, Remy, can you just set the stage for us? Because I know a lot of people are listening and they are saying, what is a negotiation competition? So let's just start there.

That's a great question. To start off, we very often, as negotiation professors, trainers, coaches, very often define negotiation as a skill, which means an ability to perform a particular action. In the case of negotiation, that's an ability to align preferences, decision preferences between. Between two parties. At least two parties. Right. And that definition has profound consequences. Like any other skill that we can. That we can possibly look at, such as, I don't know, languages, music, sports. Right. You name it. We have worked out an ability to measure them and compare them in a competitive context. But I think by this time, there is a consensus. There's a wide consensus, which basically says that it is indeed a skill, and that has consequences. I mentioned the consequences that sort of led us, or have led us to. Had led us to organizing the competition, the competition itself, when we thought. When we said, well, if it's a skill, then let's measure it, then let's compare it, then let's work out a set of objective criteria how we could recognize good negotiators from those who are excellent and. And create a controlled setting in which we could indeed compare the results, be it substantive or relational or any other procedural. Procedural. With each other. And that was the origin of the competition.

This is so fascinating to me. This is great. And as you were going through all of this, I realized that you have a very unique perspective on negotiation skills because the majority of people who are listening to this podcast have been negotiating. Right. And the whole ethos behind the podcast is making negotiation feel more approachable and recognizing that you're negotiating all the time. And so the. The definition that we use, it's very, very simplistic. Obviously, we do believe negotiation is a skill. We consider every conversation where somebody wants something a negotiation, just so we can get people to think more intentionally about the way that we interact. And so we can find ourselves in a lot of negotiations. And we may have the opportunity to observe some negotiations from time to time. But even if we are observing negotiations, it's probably not many negotiations, and we're probably not observing it with the intent of analyzing and critiquing the negotiator's performance. So you are one of the few people in the entire world who has looked at negotiation through this lens. So given all of the various negotiation simulations that you've observed and the people that you've coached, what would you say are the top three skills associated with being a great negotiator?

Wow, that's a great question. Thank you. Thank you so much for asking it. Let me think a while. I think one of the. One of the observations that we've made a few years ago is something that I call the panda bear effect. The panda bear effect. It's a working name for something that we still want to research. A little bit closer look at, a little bit closer in a more systematic way. But we've noticed that the best negotiators appear somewhat like panda bears appear when we observe them. A little bit clumsy, a little bit defenseless, cute, kind, but they come across as no threat. They come across friendly. They come across as those who don't pose any danger, any risk. We typically, I mean, I'd say 90 some percent of the population like panda bears, right? So when we observe them, we don't think about running away or attacking them. We think about, oh, how cute are they? Oh, how nice. We want to spend time, we want to interact with them to the extent, obviously it's possible. They typically, they typically live in zoos and breeding centers. Right? But, but the panda bear effect is typically displayed by negotiators who come across exactly like that. Kind, approachable, friendly. Right. But they have a hard plan, analytical plan in the back of our mind. They know very well what to. What to achieve, what to what to get in a particular negotiation. But they do have this sort of a kind clumsiness in terms of their appearance. So I define great negotiators as those who combine a hardcore analytical hardware with the panda bear type of a front end. It's so important. It's so important because. Because perceiving someone as too intellectual, too strong, rhetorically might lead to one of the two intuitive reactions which we typically displayed in the presence of a threat that is either an attack, fight or flight, or to defend or escape. And none of these responses are particularly useful in terms of achieving great negotiation results. The clue lies in the right combination of the front end, the panda bear type of a front end, which comes across as universally likable, maybe a little bit clumsy, but definitely no threat. With a hardcore negotiation analytical mind, which precisely knows what are the issues, how important those issues are to us, and what are the priorities that I want to set in any particular stage of a negotiation. So if I were to answer your question as shortly as I possibly could, that's the panda bear effect. Typically, great negotiators are able to combine these two characteristics.

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 art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. Oh, that is so cool because. And I love panda bears. Everybody does. Little aside, I'm. I love tennis. Tennis is my favorite sport. I was president of the tennis club team at Ohio State mainly because I wasn't good enough to be on the varsity team. But my. You have the vibration dampener that you can put on your strings. And mine was a panda bear that I had on mine. So this is, this is, this resonates really well. And you're absolutely right because as you were saying that, I was thinking about the people who I consider to be the best negotiators. And they certainly are not threatening, right? And they're, they're not intimidating in that type of way, but they're so sharp. They always go in there with some kind of strategy plan. They're analytical and they can think on their feet. And I love that you said this because the description that you gave of what a great negotiator is flies in the face of what Hollywood will make us believe. A great negotiator is somebody who always knows exactly what to say, who's incredibly articulate, who can come up with these moving monologues out of nowhere and can be kind of mean and aggressive when necessary. And they just wow people with their intellect and assertiveness and the people just submit. I feel like I'm a decent negotiator. I've never wowed somebody like that, you know, and I think it's important for us to realize, like, hey, this is not real. People are operating off of scripts. Nobody talks like that. And even if people did, it would be very off putting because there should be a mutual exchange of conversation and information during a negotiation. And so it's really interesting that this is the key, because again, people feel like they have to be somebody else a lot of times when it comes to their negotiations. But no, I think the, I think, think the, this effect that you described, the panda bear effect, makes becoming a great negotiator feel a lot more achievable.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You're absolutely right. Yes. It's a panda bear. Panda bears combined with negotiation intelligence, something which we called in one of our papers, negotiation intelligence, meaning exactly. Which means exactly, you know, having. Having. Knowing the tools, having the repertoire, a broad spectrum of. Of negotiation tool tactics and methods and knowing which one of those use in which context. Right. Because negotiation is highly situational. Right. So what works in distributive context where we are close to or when we intend to claim value, does not necessarily work in other contexts when we, for example, can create, Theoretically can create value. So this negotiation intelligence combined with the Pandemar effect, that's exactly. And that's exactly what makes, in my opinion, great negotiators.

This is great. This is great. So now let's talk about the negotiation intelligence that you've observed, because I'm assuming if you are in one of these competitions, especially as you get into the later rounds, it probably becomes more and more difficult to differentiate between the good and the great. And so when you think about, in terms of like, negotiation intelligence, what are those key things that separate the person who's first place from second place?

Yes, you're absolutely right. Yes. In some cases, the differences are really tiny, really tiny, both in terms of the substantive outcome as well as relational outcome, which very much indicate that people who register for our negotiation competitions are passionate negotiators themselves. Which means, in terms of, for example, student competitions, many of them start the preparations with beginning of the winter semester, which is sometime around September, October, and the competition does not take place until March or April. So they. They undergo extended preparation process where. Which leads us to assume that they probably do know their. Their craftsmanship's tools. Right, Negotiation craftsmanship. Yeah. So that's not so much, so much about knowledge, but the ability to pull out the right tool. Right. If I see a. If I see a nail, I need a hammer, and that's some other tool. Right. So the combination, the combination of negotiation setup. So are we talking about distributive type of a negotiation? Are we talking a distributive negotiation with relational components? Or are we. Are we going to be discussing something where we can, which we need to. To solve together, that can create more or less value, depending on how well, we do it right. And negotiation intelligence is not only the knowledge of those tools, of tools that work in those particular settings, but also the intuition, the ability to pull out the hammer when there are nails. Right. And not any. And this is kind of. Now we're getting to the art of negotiation. This comes only with repetitions and experience. Yes, only with repetition and experience, we can recognize the type of a negotiation partner quicker. With negotiation, with repetitions and experience, we can recognize the characteristics of particular situations quicker. Mike Wheeler, Harvard professor, who I had a chance to meet during my stay in Boston many years ago, he recently started referring to, to negotiation as sort of a jazz gem session. And I love this comparison a lot because it tells us exactly about the gist of it. Right. So it's not enough to know how to play particular tones according to the notes, but it's also important to react spontaneously to the reaction of our fellow band members. Right. And this is, this is, this is the intuitive part, which is paradoxically, maybe also learnable. So nobody is born a perfect improvised jazz improvise as a perfect jazz improviser. Right. It's something that we, that we come to once we've, you know, figured out the notes started. Started hitting the right, the right strings or the right, I don't know, drums at the right times. And only with experience, with repetition and experience, we get to, we get to the point where we can sort of flexibly react or flexibly optimize the outcome based on our intuitive reactions, which we've produced through hours or days or years of training.

This is so good. And I, I know we can just keep on talking about this, and I want to. But we're coming up on time here and I want to give you an opportunity again to let the listeners know about your university, the competitions, and also the consulting firm and how they can get in touch with you.

Yes, thank you, Kwame, for your generosity. It's been a great conversation so far. Maybe we should continue it at some point. So, yes, a call out, a shout out to the audience. If you guys are passionate negotiators. There is a competition coming up for practitioners and non students, let me put it like this, which is coming up this fall. Registration deadline is October 7th. And all details you can find on www.professionals.thenegotiationchallengewrittentogether.org and I'd be delighted to meet some of your listeners during our competitions.

Yes, that is great. And listeners, there will be links to all of that in the description of this episode. Remy, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Kwame, thank you for having me. It's been a great, great discussion. Great talk. Thank you.

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