Reverse Interview: From People Pleaser to Negotiator with Kwame Christian and Michael Reddington

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you love to listen. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.

I'm Michael Reddington and today it is my pleasure to welcome back our next guest, Kwame Christian. It might be quicker to go through the things he doesn't do than what he does do. Kwame is the founder of the American Negotiation Institute. He is the host of the Negotiate Anything podcast, the largest negotiation podcast. He is a two time author, he is a keynote speaker, he is an attorney, he is a professor, he is a father, a husband. The list goes on. He's very smart, has great experience, super nice guy, very generous with his time and I'm really excited to share another conversation with you all today. And Kwame and I are going to go through any number of topics. We're going to let this conversation flow where it goes, but we're going to start by talking about how he learned to develop confidence during conflict. He's going to do a great job explaining what he believes the difference between skills and talents are and how we can improve our outcomes if we adjust our perspective the same way. He's going to share his three step framework for negotiations, give several examples for the danger of and how to overcome attribution bias and and he's going to explain what he believes it means to take on conversational leadership. And that's just the beginning. So much more. Another great conversation with Kwame. I feel like we could have talked all day and I'm really excited to share it with you now. So thank you very much for taking the time to join us. Of course. Before we get into the conversation, let's take a quick second to thank our sponsors. First we have Humantel. If you haven't already, please head over to humantel.com and enter the code INQUASIVE25 for 25% off of their best in class online self paced training to begin to learn what people are likely thinking and feeling by recognizing emotional shifts through changing facial expressions and nonverbal communication. It's a skill that once you learn, it's very hard to unlearn and you can start using it in order to maximize your relationships and conversational outcomes. I highly recommend it. I've done all the training myself. That's over@humantel.com if you're a professional interviewer, please head over to certifiedinterviewer.com that's where you can learn all you need to know about the International association of Interviewers. That's where you can learn about their online training, their in person training and events, their investigator resources, their networking opportunities, and so much more. Check that all out there. It's where you can also learn about the Certified Forensic Interviewer designation. What does it take to qualify? How do you earn the designation, how do you maintain it, and what can it mean for your career moving forward? All those questions and more answered@certifiedinterviewer.com and while you're online, please check out incasive.com that's where you can learn more about the customized engagements our clients ask us to facilitate for their senior leadership team, their sales teams and their HR teams. To teach them the strategic observation and persuasion skills necessary to encourage people to share more sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences across the spectrum of their high value conversations. You can learn all that and more@inquasitive.com Again, thank you so much for being here. Another great conversation with Kwame. I know you're going to love it. Get your pen and paper ready. So without further ado, Kwame Christian Kwame, it is great to see you again man. Thank you so much for coming back here. How are you?

It is my pleasure. I'm great. I'm better now that we're hanging out.

Me too man. It's always a pleasure. I know you're busy taking over the world one show at a time, one contract at a time, one deal at a time. So I appreciate you carving out the time for us. And in transparency, we've been hanging out for the last half hour before we hit record, so we should probably start talking about what we came here to talk about today. So the last time we had you on, we talked about your most recent book, how to have Difficult Conversations About Race, which is an amazing book. And I say this with all respect and we've said it before, it really could have been titled how to have difficult conversations about anything. You just framed it about conversations about race. So today what I would love to do is touch on a wider range of negotiation related topics. So your first book, if I recall correctly. If I jack this up, you can beat me up as you see fit. But it was all about finding confidence in conflict, right?

That's right.

So let's start there. I think when your average reader, student, participant, whatever, looks at somebody who's in front of the room teaching these things, they just assume that that person loves having these conversations, enjoys having these conversations, never feels nervous, or never has confidence issues with these types of conversations. What I think the answer is probably more likely the person in front of the room still, in a fair amount of conversations, has the anxiety, the anticipation, the nerves that might be related to the topic, the outcome, the person or whatever, but is had the reps to be able to focus on the structure to get through the conversation. So I'm guessing you don't wake up every day going, I wonder how many difficult conversations I can have today. That sounds like fun, but you've got structures in place for them. So that might have been the world's longest setup to this first question. What have you done in your life and your career to develop a sense of confidence during these conflicting or difficult conversations?

I put in the work. And it's funny too, because like you said, a lot of times when people look at you, they say, all right, cool, confident negotiator, you always had it. But the reason I have it now is because I didn't always have it. And so for me, I was a people pleaser for a long time. And it wasn't until I found negotiation in law school that I realized this was a skill, not a talent. We could actually get better. And then when I started to think about it, I said, wait a second, if I was having this challenge, if I was having this problem of having difficult conversations, standing up for myself and overcoming this fear, I bet some other people are having the exact same problem. And that's when I realized when it comes to difficult conversations, a lot of times in the industry we have been giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen. It's not an issue of not knowing what to do. It's an issue of not being able to overcome our internal mental and emotional barriers to doing what we have to do. And so with that first book, I wanted to start from the inside out, helping people to understand what it is that could be holding them back, how they can overcome it. And Then giving them one really simple tool, compassionate curiosity, that can help them through those tough conversations.

Love that. So now you're giving me the challenge of taking all these notes. You're giving me. Wow, listening and getting ready to ask you the next question. I got two I'm going to go with, because a couple seconds ago, you said something that I think is very powerful, and I want to go back to. Please break down skill versus talent.

Oh, this is big. When we're talking about skill versus talent. Talent. It's the assumption that somebody was born with this. This. They are great because they were born great skills. On the other hand, we're saying skills are developed. Nobody's born with skills. Right. But it takes time to build and practice. Now, this is not to say that there are not some people who, because of their natural psychological makeup or whatever, they tend to be better naturally at this or other things. We're definitely not going to deny that. But we also have to recognize the fact that with practice, we can improve. And when it comes to the skills associated with negotiation and conflict resolution, the core skills, you will be improving these skills in perpetuity forever, for your whole lifetime. I'm still getting better with every time I have conversations with great folks like you on the podcast, and every time I have these conversations myself because I analyze what I did well and what I did poorly and figure out how I can just keep on getting incrementally better every single time.

Yeah. And that incrementally better. One word, one question, one pause, one perspective makes all the difference in the world. I'm gonna circle back to that in just a second. But before I forget, you mentioned compassionate curiosity. Can you unpack that a little bit for us and really let us know what you mean by that?

Yes. Okay. This is a fun realization, Mike. So we've had over 1300 episodes of negotiate Anything at this point. So I'm talking to the brightest minds.

Exactly.

We've been in this game for a while. It's been fun to answer this one question just for me. I'm thinking, what is it that all of these great negotiators, no matter what industry, no matter what part of the world, what is it that they're all saying but saying differently? And so we've discovered these three things. So, number one, the best negotiators adapt and flow. And this is one. Actually, I quote you directly, Mike, all the time. Great negotiators embrace surprise. We don't know exactly what's going to happen, but we are exceptionally good listeners and we Ask great questions and we adjust. So that's the first thing. Then the second thing is you only need three things in order to be a great negotiator. Just three things you need to. Number one, become a better listener. Some might say become a disciplined listener. Number two, you need to ask better questions. And number three, you need to manage emotions, both yours and the other side. So after starting to see these patterns, I wanted to create a framework, a mental model that people can use in all of their difficult conversations, whether they're at work or at home. And that's compassionate curiosity. So it helps you to flow and adapt and make reads in the moment without having to overthink what I need to say or what I need to do. So first step of compassionate curiosity is acknowledge and validate emotions. We're going to assume there's some emotional challenge in the room. We want to lower the emotional temperature so we can advance, so people can think clearly. Number two, we're going to get curious with compassion. We're going to ask open ended questions with a compassionate tone, create psychological safety, trust, empathy and move forward gathering information. Because at the end of the day, negotiation is an information game. And then number three, we are going to use joint problem solving. So it's not me versus you, it's you and me versus the problem and we're going to work together to find a solution and so you can flow through the conversation using that framework. Emotions acknowledge and validate. No emotions. Cool. Gather information. You have all the information you need and people are emotionally stable enough to continue. Just join problem solving and you flow based on what you see.

I love it. I love it. And one of the little things I think you said in there that I want to make sure we go back and highlight is the importance of asking questions with a curious tone. Questions can be perceived as invitations or attacks. And you just said it's not me versus you, it's you and I versus the problem. But that's not how a lot of people enter into the conversation. They bring their own fears, they bring their own expectations, they bring their own concerns in. And now whether they realize it or not, they're looking for affirmations of those fears, concerns and negative expectations. So if I ask a question in any tone that comes off as accusatory, aggressive, disrespectful, even if I don't mean it, my phone goes off in my pocket and I know that that is my kid's baseball coach reminding me that I'm supposed to coach tonight. And my emotional reaction to that Leaks out in how I ask the question. The guy I'm talking to doesn't know that. So having that curious tone goes a long way to encourage people to open up and share more information. Cause it doesn't sound judgmental. It doesn't sound accusatory. It might feel like it's a little detail, but it's a really, really, really important detail.

It's vitally important because again, think about how we come in with our assumptions, like you just said, the other side does as well. And most likely, just because of the statistics of this, most people are not well schooled in this. And when I do trainings, I ask people, how many of you have had a negotiation course or training before? And maybe five to 10 people raise their hand, right? And these are deal makers, these are leaders of organizations, and they're just untrained in having difficult conversations. And then I say to those 5 to 10% of people, how many of you have had more than one? And all of the hands go down. So you coach your son's baseball team, you do jiu jitsu. How good can you be at either of those things if you've just done one practice? Right? It doesn't work. And so we have to recognize that if we are letting this emotional leakage occur, the other side is perceiving this too. And so let's introduce the term attribution bias. So attribution bias is really just the reality that everybody is asking themselves, why is this happening? Why did Mike do that? Why did Mike say that? And so a lot of times, like you said, we are not going with true curiosity in order to figure out what it is. We are going with biased curiosity to confirm our own conclusions. So if they are fearful in this conversation and then they hear some attitude from you, they are going to assume and attribute that negative attitude to them and this situation. And they're going to say, mike doesn't like me. Mike's disrespecting me. He doesn't think I'm not taking this seriously. Whatever the conclusion, it is probably going to be incorrect, and it's probably going to be very detrimental to you and the conversation. So we have to manage that tone to make sure we don't create that cascade of negative assumptions.

Love all of that, and especially that point at the end, there is a significant percentage of time the behavior we observe and get upset, frustrated, angry with, is a direct result of how they perceived we communicated with them. So if we are more strategic, if we are more intentional, if we are more aware of how we're communicating to others, we can reduce that from happening. And then we can say to ourselves, oh yeah, I did kind of sound accusatory with that question. That probably pissed me off too. I'm going to let that slide and I'm going to refocus. That's a huge, huge point. You said another word in there that I feel like falls under that attribution bias and might be the most detrimental of all. I hear this all the time from people I work with, teaching, consulting, even just talking with. He disrespected me. Really? Really. Number one, are we eighth graders at recess? Is that what this is about? Or Worse, are we 21 year olds at the bar? Like, did you just. But did he really disrespect you? Or do you feel disrespected based on how your self image and expectations are currently in conflict with what you just witnessed in this situation? And there are so many times that people take this feeling of disrespect which can be directly related to that attribution bias. They misread it maybe entirely, if not largely. And now we're going down the wrong road. I was telling this story in a class I taught this week years ago. I had to interrogate a professional interrogator and he would said and done some things to a female colleague that I think most of us is upstanding. Men who care about their moms and their wives and their daughters would be pretty upset with. And everything that I had heard about this gentleman was expect. And I say this metaphorically in air quotes if you're only listening a fight like not an actual like stand up, let's go. But it's going to be an argument. There's going to be. Conflict is going to be. So I built my plan around that. I'd rather be lucky than good ends. Well written confession, escort the guy out. I'll tell you the funny story about how that went when we're not recording. And then I take the video back to my office and I sit down with Dave Zalowski, the guy who co wrote the Method that I used. And I felt great, right? Everything went well. It worked out the way we wanted. He watched about two and a half minutes tops of the start of the video, paused it. He's like, dude, what are you doing? What do you mean what am I doing? What are you doing? What do you mean what am I doing? I'm starting the interview. This is gonna end very well. You should probably watch how this goes. Plays it a little more, stops. He's like, why are you doing this? Doing what? To short circuit the whole story for time here. Because I was so convinced this guy was going to pick a metaphorical fight. What do you think I did?

You came in hot.

I did. Absolutely. So I started it. So when he gave it to me, I'm like, there it is. I knew it was coming, but there's a reasonable likelihood that it might not have happened at all. Certainly wouldn't have happened that soon and might not have happened to that degree if I didn't come in feeling like, all right, if this is what he wants, I'm ready. And if Dave didn't sit me down and walk me through that, I likely never would have saw it, never would have realized it, would have felt good about how everything went when in reality, yes, it was successful. But when you separate the process from the results, there was a way to be much more successful. And had I repeated the same process, I likely wouldn't have repeated the same success. So I think that feeling of disrespect that you just mentioned is like an aside, is actually a really important thread that way too many people fall victim to.

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 time 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. Agreed. And one of the things that I love about this story, Mike, is that it shows the power of self fulfilling prophecies. So you go in assuming things are going to be a certain way, it's going to be a fight, and then you approach it in a way subconsciously that turns it into a fight, therefore just confirming the bias that you came in with. And I think it takes a lot of self awareness to stop and recognize, hey, the thoughts that I have there are thoughts, they're not necessarily truths. So we have to come in with a little bit of humility and recognize. All right, cool. This is how I think it might go. It might not. So let me try to fight my own biases, fight my own demons within my head and make sure that I Don't create that outcome that I fear the most.

Yeah, super important. And honestly, in transparency, I might not have realized it if Dave didn't walk me through it. Those conversations were so important to my development as a human being, let alone professional. But I equate it to, like, thinking you played a great game and then sitting down to watch the game tape with Bill Belichick. Like, it doesn't matter how well you think you did, you're going to be sweeping up pieces of your ego at the end of this conversation. But it was critical you and I were talking a little bit before, long before I ever thought about sharing that story, about how important it is to recognize, learn from mistakes that we make and apply that to everything that we do. Because we talked about before, I'd love to flip that question back to you. How has learning from mistakes you've made helped catapult you and your career to where you are now?

It's been huge for me because when you think about the books that you read, the podcast that you listen to, and of course, not to devalue books or podcasts, okay, actually, your books and your podcast, when you realize it, those are general books applied to general situations. They are not studying you. The only person in the majority of cases that is going to study your own performance and behavior is yourself. And so when I think about negotiation, I think about the fact that we can win every single time with the right mentality. And you're winning if you, number one, use the right techniques to put yourself in the best position for success. That doesn't speak to the actual outcome, but it means that you are doing what is it within your control to put yourself in the best position to succeed. And number two, you're winning if you take every conversation as a practice opportunity and you're going to be your own coach. You're going to replay the tape, you're going to ask yourself, what did you do well, try to replicate that. What did you do poorly? And you say, my goal is to not make the same mistake twice. That's it. And as long as you keep on doing that, you're going to improve. Now, again, a lot of people don't take the time to do it, but it's just doing that and improving incrementally. That's what gets you forward. So I really suggest that we start to look at ourselves as our own little experiments. So, okay, in this conversation, what I'm going to do is, last time I talked too much. So this time I'm going to try to Keep the ball in their side of the court as much as possible, focus on them, see if I can flex that conversational muscle. And if you start almost gamifying it in that type of way, you decrease the pressure that you're putting on yourself because you're not trying to force an outcome, you're just trying to improve a process.

I absolutely love that you mentioned this earlier. It's where my brain went. But it's like you and I were talking about training jiu jitsu earlier. I don't have to get a submission, but if I can just pass your guard today, that feels like a win. Like if I can go five minutes without actually being submitted, that feels like a win. So, like putting these building blocks in place and taking that not just our bias, but even our self image, like, I'm a work in progress, there's going to be things I do well, there's going to be things that I don't, and maybe there's going to be situations I do more or less well in. If I acknowledge that I'm always a work in progress, then I can accept those opportunities because I don't have to look myself in the mirror and say, you suck, you fail. I can look myself in the mirror and say, well, that wasn't how I thought about it in my head, but here's what I learned and here's how we can move forward.

Absolutely. And this helps to fight off performance anxiety because again, like I said, a lot of times it's not a like a skills or strategy issue when it comes to our failures in these difficult conversations. It's a mindset issue. And the more emotional duress you're under, the more of a negative impact will have on your performance. But if you have this playful, a constant improvement mentality that you're bringing into it now, you can still have the exact same conversation with the exact same stakes, with much, much less pressure. And when we stop putting that pressure on ourselves, we recognize how much of this is just self imposed stress and emotionality that doesn't benefit us, it just holds us back.

I'm gonna keep just saying I love all of it because eventually I'll find something to disagree with you on. But hammer meat, nail on head. Time and time and time again, you talked about skills, you talked about strategies, you talked about your framework that you use. You're very public about all of this. You have an enormous podcast with an enormous following. You've written two books that have sold tons and tons of copies. You're constantly out on the road Teaching groups. You're also negotiating deals for your own organization and for your clients as well. So for me, one of the things that I had to overcome was I really enjoy sneaking up on people. I really enjoy being underestimated. I really enjoy when people have no idea what's coming, and all of a sudden, oh, what happened? It's over. Hey, Mike got what he wanted, and I get to walk away. But when you become a known quantity, you don't have that opportunity anymore. And so for me, in certain situations, I've had to learn to change my perspective, change my game plan, change my approach, learn to find different advantages, accept different weaknesses or opportunities for you being a much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much greater known quantity than I'll ever be. How have you adapted your negotiation approach to still apply your techniques, even though to some degree, people likely feel like right or wrong, they know what's coming?

Oh, yeah, this is a great question, because it does happen. A lot of times. People make a joke about it. They're like, oh, Kwame, the negotiators here. We better get my guard up, right? And so for me, what I've recognized is that it's my responsibility to lower their defenses and help them to feel safe. It's like a trained fighter versus somebody who is just deciding to fight today. In a lot of situations, there's a different level of responsibility that I feel like I carry in these conversations. And so I developed a concept a couple years ago called conversational leadership, where in the conversation, I'm leading the conversation in terms of, number one, steering the conversation in a productive direction, but at the same time, leading by example, showing people how to negotiate as I negotiate. And so at the beginning, it will seem very unimpressive. And that's the goal, Mike, because I don't want them to feel like something is happening to them. We're just friends, chit chatting. And in all of my years negotiating, in every single negotiation leading up to it and after it, there's one word I've never used, and that is the word negotiation, because there is a stigma attached to that word, because most people think about it as a combative type of endeavor. And so I say, hey, we're having a conversation. I'm looking forward to chatting with you. Yeah, this is an awesome conversation. Right? And so we demystify the process. And so I make it really clear at the beginning that we are just two people trying to share our versions of the truth and work toward progress and better, whatever that happens to be. And so our Job in this conversation is to see how we can help each other to improve. And if something good comes from it, that's great, let's move forward. If not, no harm, no foul. And so for me, I get to use the exact same negotiation techniques, but I focus really heavily at the beginning to let them know this isn't going to be a duel, it's not going to be a fight. We're just going to have a conversation and we can see what happens.

I love it. Taking their guard down, being self effacing probably isn't the right term. Trying to put everybody at ease right out of the gate, I think is very important. Whether they know who you are and think they know what's coming or not, that's a great technique. I had a mentor very, very early. Really my first true boss in the world of investigations. I brought an investigation to an HR director at the time. And before I explained anything that I had found in my investigation, I just walked in and said, I just need to make sure I have your permission. I need to go interrogate so and so. And her eyes lit up and she pushes her chair back from her desk and she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And now I'm showing her a very clear investigation that says, you know, we need to talk to this person. And I'm getting resistance the whole way. And my boss at the end kind of smiles. He's like, hey, Mike was kind of direct. He's. He's still learning. This is how the process typically works. At the end, she's like, okay, you can talk to him. When we walked out, he put his arm around me. He's like, you got a lot to learn. But one of the things that I did from that day forward was it's always the word you used. It, it's conversation. It's never interrogation. It's never interview. It's conversation. I need to have a conversation with this person. Thank you for having a conversation with me. I appreciate you volunteering or taking the time to be a part of this conversation. And just those word choices can help mitigate those emotions that you were talking about earlier that plays such a big role. The English language is maddening and complicated, but it gives us many words with similar meaning that we can place at different pieces of the conversation to still accomplish what we need to and build the bonds we need to establish without getting guards all the way up as part of that conversation.

Absolutely. I think that goes back to flexibility. Like the great negotiators adapt and flow and so the way I talk to one person won't be the way I talk to another person. Right. So for instance, if somebody's coming in and they want to program for their leaders who are having trouble with difficult conversations, or there's a lack of trust, I'll have a bit more of a compassionate type of tone. And I have a compassionate tone regardless. But it's a bit of a softer approach because they're less familiar and comfortable with this topic in general. But if I'm negotiating with true deal makers, hey, we want you to come in and teach our procurement team, our deal team, our sales team, whatever it happens to be in those conversations. I recognize that part of their due diligence is testing me a little bit, which they should. You know, they want to make sure that the brand that they see outside matches the skillset that I'll bring inside their organization. And so I'll have to be a little bit more assertive, but then also diffusing at the same time. Right? So it's like, hey, yeah, I'm going to stand my ground. I'm not going to allow you to take advantage of me, and I'm not going to be a jerk while doing it. And we're still going to have a lot of fun during this conversation as you test me and I handle it and you're impressed, and then we can close the deal. Right. And so it's about knowing your audience, recognizing what they need. Because sometimes you can go too overboard with the compassionate side, and then people don't take you seriously. Sometimes you do need to flex a little bit. But again, it's the ability to make that appropriate. Read and adjust based on who's in front of you.

Yes. Play the game the way they need to play.

Exactly.

When we talk about the assertiveness versus the compassion, I mean, there's any number of rows to go down there. But one of the things that kind of led my mind back to is myths and misconceptions about negotiation. You've got to be tough. You've got to be really nice. You've got to make the first offer. Don't ever make the first offer. You know, all of these things. What do you feel like? Are some of the most prevalent or painful misconceptions around negotiation that really short circuit what people can achieve.

Timing of this is funny because I just got myself these hats, Nike hats that say dealmaker on it. I'm going to at some point dabble into merch. Dealmaker is a cool term. I like it. It's Cool. And what I'm going to do is be very hypocritical in 3, 2, 1. So here it is. Mike. I think that one of the biggest myths is that negotiation is the art of deal making. It's not. I think negotiation is the art of deal discovery. Because if I think about this in terms of deal making, then I feel unnecessary and unrealistic pressure to make a deal in a circumstance where a deal should not be made right. I need to be able to adjust to the circumstances and recognize that sometimes the worst outcome that could happen is a deal that should have never been made. Right.

So.

But if I think about this as the art of deal discovery, it takes that pressure off of me. And all I'm doing is coming to this conversation, sharing space, sharing information, learning and growing together to see whether or not we can work together to solve this problem. If we can, that's great. Let's move forward. If we can't, no harm, no foul, we can move on. And I think that that myth of negotiation as a deal making endeavor sometimes puts unnecessary pressure and creates that deal making bias that can push us to make deals that never should have happened.

It's a great example. We go where our mind's eye takes us. So if I tell myself I'm here to make a deal, even if I'm getting a bunch of warning signs, that's the direction I'm going to track. Especially with all of the programs that you teach, are there examples that people typically bring up? Maybe something that they learned? They've got a boss that cut his or her teeth in the 70s or in a different industry or something like that. And they're like, well, I've always been told that you need to do do this or you need to do that, or there are things that I don't want to say. Regularly come up in your seminars, but come up enough where you're like, can we please get past this and look at it another way?

Yes. Big one is when to make the first offer. Because you and I can both name people in the industry, some say always make the first offer. Some say all never make the first offer. And typically, when somebody is presenting you with absolutes in a situation that is so dynamic and complex as conversations, they are incorrect.

Thank you.

That's it. And so this is the read that I like to make, and I base it on the psychology of anchoring. So with anchoring, anchoring is a bias in our mind that sets the reference point for the conversation. As a result, as it relates to negotiation, anchoring is starting the negotiation off with the most aggressive request that we can reasonably justify, because we know that the initial offer has a disproportionate level of persuasive power as it relates to the rest of the negotiation. So here's the thing. Anchoring is so powerful that whenever I have an opportunity to anchor, I will anchor whenever I have that opportunity. But when do I have that opportunity? This is where the analysis comes in. So if I have as much information or more information than the other side, then I can make a competent first offer. Then I will be the person leading the dance, making the anchor. Now, if there's any reason for me to believe that the other side has more information than me, then I sit back and wait for them to make the first offer to me. Because every offer comes with information. You provide me that information to substantiate the request that you're making, and now I can competently counter you. I recognize that I don't have the power to anchor, but I can maybe re anchor or just break down the confidence you have in your anchor and be a little bit more of a counterpuncher conversationally in that negotiation. But the whole black and white, always make the first offer and never make the first offer. That is one thing that irks me to no end, Mike, because it is so wrong.

Yeah, anytime we hear somebody say always or never, change the channel. And that's not how it works. But I love what you just said about every offer comes with information. And I'm pretty sure I once heard a wise man say that negotiation is an information game.

That's right.

So now if I am basing whether or not I make the first offer off of, I'm assuming the relationship between the information I have, the goal I'm looking to achieve, and the people I'm looking to achieve this goal with. Now, I can either lead the dance or let them lead the dance. But it's based on the systematic evaluation, not on a line I read in a book somewhere that says.

Exactly. And remember too, Mike, there are different types of offers and different types of scenarios. There are going to be some situations where, like, a real concrete, hard anchor would be really detrimental to the vibes in the negotiation. Right. Like that it would come at such an expense to the quality of the conversation and the relationship that I wouldn't drop a concrete, hard, solid anchor. A lot of my anchors are soft anchors. They're just suggestions. Right. So I'll just say, hey, coming into this, based on our calculation, we think that this number Makes sense to us. But what do I want to do in this conversation is have a conversation with you. Figure out what you're seeing so we can work through this. Right. So that's a soft anchor. I'm not saying I'm stuck on that. I'm saying this is where my mind is. It still has a psychological impact, but it's not as robust. And it doesn't come with that negative consequence of being seeming too aggressive too soon.

Yeah, you can use words like typically or currently or as of now or like you said, based on our current calculations, those are all great ways to frame it. So it gives you that room where you're not giving in, you're not losing face, and you don't push them into a corner sometimes, too. If somebody really pushes me early in the conversation, well, what's this going to cost? What's the speed going to be? What is your client really want? I'll just simply say we'll figure it out, and then I'll keep talking. Yep, we'll figure it out. And now's not the time for me to start messing with that. We'll figure it out. Let's just keep right on going.

That's such a great response. I like that one a lot. See, this is why I love talking to you, because this is a perfect example of just like that little line, it's so simple to say, but it takes a lot of trial and error to come to that because you want to deflect at that time. You want to make sure that the relationship still stays strong. But at the same time, you don't want the person to feel like you're being disrespectful by completely pushing them aside. So you're going to acknowledge it and say, yeah, great question. We will figure that out. And in order to figure that out, I have a question for you. And then you just flow. That's so good, Mike. That's really good.

I try to step up my game anytime I'm talking to you. You know what I mean?

I appreciate it. Oh, this is good. This is really good.

Hey, I'm keeping an eye on the time. How are you doing? Because I can get sucked into this conversation and keep going, man.

I was thinking the exact same thing. But I know the contractor is going to be here in a few minutes, so I've got to run. But that just means we have to do this again, Mike. We just have to do it again.

We will. And again and again and again. I appreciate you coming back on my show. We're going to do another episode of your show coming up, too. I don't know what the record is for how many times somebody has been on your show, but I want to go on record saying I want it to be my record. So we're going to have to figure that out.

You are very close right now. It's probably between you and Brian Ahern. Brian Ahern has been on the show four times. I think you've been three times. This is cool. This is cool.

Back and check. I might have four. I'm going to go back and check. Brian, much respect, man. I'm coming for that number. Hey, I know you got a lot going on. You were telling me some things that you're working on. I don't know what's for public and what's not for public yet, but brag. Where can people find you? Working people learn from you. What can they get from you and your team? Before we go out of here, let everybody know.

Appreciate it. Well, one program that we're starting now is Negotiate Anything Premium. So it's a subscription model for the Negotiate Anything podcast. So we have episodes coming out every single day, but they're not organized or categorized. And so this joining premium, it's. I think it's 10 bucks a month and you can get a free trial. We'll put a link in the description of the episode, too, but it allows you to get the episodes categorized by theme. So whether you're a deal maker or a leader, somebody who wants salary negotiation or compensation advice, those type of things, you can go to that specific channel and get the episodes that are focused for you.

And.

And then also it has an Ask Me Anything section. So if you have questions or situations, you can ask me. And then I would answer it in a private feed that people who are premium members could. Could get access to. So that's been a lot of fun. And then just everywhere you can find podcasts, you will find Negotiate Anything and then also LinkedIn. Follow me on LinkedIn and reach out if you need help with a training or keynote, too.

Awesome. And I highly recommend doing all of that if you haven't already. Man, it's great to see you. Thank you for taking the time this morning. I really appreciate it. I know we'll talk again very soon. Hopefully I find myself back in Columbus so we can get some more of that bread together that you turned me off the last time. But, man, take care of yourself. Stay safe, enjoy the fall with your sons, and I'm really excited to see you again soon.

Appreciate you Brother. Thank you.

Kwame, thank you for another amazing conversation. I know you fit this into your schedule today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I can't wait to continue our conversations on your show, on mine and offline. You do so much great work. I truly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. I hope you all took as many notes as I did. I feel like I was writing the entire time he was talking. And we've talked about some of these topics before. So many new great ideas that he shared. I really love the line that he said that negotiation is an information game. How we're gathering information, how we're using information, communicating information, making decisions based on the information so important. And I love how he continued to say later on, every offer comes with information. If we don't, just look at the offers we receive as an opportunity to accept encounter, but if we look at these offers as a learning opportunity, what information did we just learn? How does that change our perspective? How can we reroute this conversation? I love that negotiations are information games and every offer comes with information. Also love the comment that conversations are an opportunity to practice. Literally every single time we have a conversation with somebody is the opportunity to practice, learn, try something new, reflect after continue to refine our techniques and tactics. Another great perspective, which leads to how we talked about the importance of studying ourselves. What are we successful with? What do we need to work on? What do we do? Well, not so well. Continuously going back, reflecting, and studying ourselves can really lead to breakthrough, incremental improvements. Kwame, thank you so much for all that you shared today. I truly appreciate it.

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