Reverse Interview - Kwame Christian with Dr. Matthew Goodman. How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race

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 AI, 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. Foreign.

So I have the great pleasure of being here today with Kwame Christian. Kwame, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Matthew, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

So you wrote a really wonderful book, how to have Difficult Conversations about Race. Honestly, I thought the book was well written. I thought it was authentic. I think that you're very fair and compassionate in the book and really show how to look at both sides of a conversation, which should come as no surprise given your, your job and your title and your background. But I just wanted to shout that out first and I'm going to hold it up here for, for folks. So how to have Difficult Conversations about Race. What are the biggest barriers that you've noticed about having these conversations in the workplace for folks?

Oh, there's so many. So where do I start? I think what's interesting is that the biggest barrier is similar to the barrier for difficult conversations in general, is that the fear holds us back from having the conversation at all. I think that's the biggest thing. Sometimes the biggest challenge is the fact that the conversation simply does not occur when it should, if at all. That's number one. And then that fear, let's say you can't avoid it. It's an unavoidable conflict and it's an unavoidable, difficult conversation. The fear still holds us back from engaging authentically and being vulnerable and open with each other. And so I think those are the things that really come to mind when I think about the. The biggest barriers in these conversations.

Can you elaborate on some of those fears a little bit? I Know, as I think about it and in reading your book, some fears that come up for people, and I can speak for myself personally too, are like fear about, you know, how I will be perceived by someone else. We don't want to be misperceived or in some way as overstepping or being labeled a certain way or hurting someone's feelings. Are those common things that you observe in those situations?

Yes. And Matthew, every, I'm seeing this everywhere. I think that's the cool thing. That's, I mean, it's cool for me because I study this and I like to be helpful, but it's not cool for the people who are experiencing the fear. But it's pretty universal no matter where I am in the country or in the world talking about this. The, the fears are very similar. So you nailed a lot of them. Misunderstood. Fear of being rejected for what it is that you believe. Ostracized, for example, is something that happens. Like I'm going to be an outcast if I say this and people don't agree. Fear of being canceled, like I'll be misunderstood and then I won't have an opportunity to come back. Fear of offending people, those type of things. And I think a lot of times there is some learned helplessness that people need to work through because they might say, well, I've had this conversation, I've tried to have this conversation multiple times and it's never gone well. So why would this be any different? I'm just going to stop trying. And so there are a lot of different fears that people have. But we have to recognize that I think those fears are, they're legitimate and they're real. So we have to address them. And when it comes to difficult conversations, a lot of times we focus so much on the external conversation with the other side that we don't take the time to really even consider the self work that it takes to have a high level conversation. And so in both of my books I explored the internal side as well because I can, I said in the first book, it doesn't make sense to give recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen because it doesn't speak to the underlying challenge of the emotions.

So I, I currently and have been working in a university setting. Not so much now, but you know, as you can imagine, there is really an effort to have these conversations in that setting and in other settings, especially settings that might be a little bit more progressive. But what I also notice, I mean to your point, is that there, there are people and Again, I can, you know, fully take responsibility for this on my side too, that feel afraid to talk and to speak up and share their opinion. And one of the things that you do so well in your writing and in your speaking is encouraging people really to listen and understand and show empathy. Even for people that don't agree with us, for people that we might perceive as being, you know, their ideology being like offensive or at odds with ours. You really, really encourage people to show up and listen. Why is that important? To create a container for listening and understanding. Like, even if someone like offends you, and even if you're like, this person's like clearly a racist person, why is it important not to shut down that conversation and to have empathy? That can seem a little counterintuitive to people.

I love this question for a number of reasons. I'm going to give you the simplest answer. It's effective. That's re. That's the reason. Like, that is the reason. And I think a lot of times when we talk about listening, when we talk about empathy, we approach it from a moralistic or like ethical type of perspective where we're like, this is something that we should do. If you're a good person, you listen to people you respect. Well, sometimes I don't want to be a good person. You know, sometimes when you're very emotional, sometimes you don't want to be a good person. We've met, we've had these days, right? We don't want to be a good person sometimes. And I think it's really important to focus on the fact that we have goals in these conversations. We have goals. That's really it. And when you, if you were to synthesize like every self help book down to like one simple principle, it would be prioritizing long term thinking over short term thinking. And when we're focused on our emotions, we are prioritizing short term thinking. And that would lead us to counter people when they're talking, interrupting, not listening, because we're just waiting them to stop talking so we can start talking. But it is ineffective. If we are able to slow down and think about what our ultimate goals are in these difficult conversations, we would realize that there is really no way to accomplish those goals unless we have so much leverage in this interaction that it doesn't matter what the other person thinks. And if that's the case, you probably wouldn't be having the conversation. Right? You need to get there through listening. And so I think that's really the key. And I think when it comes to Empathy. This is a counterintuitive point that I think the less you agree and the less you understand, the more you need to empathize. Because in my book, I draw the distinction between what I call intentional empathy and automatic empathy. And so we were just talking about football earlier. Right? So you're a Spartan, I'm, I'm a Buckeye. Right. So if we're playing each other and somebody on my team gets hurt, let's say they hurt their knee, you, I'm, I am going to wince, I'm going to reach down and like grab my knee as if it was my own, because I can see that person as part of my team. And so my mirror neurons will act as if I'm hurt if they're hurt. So empathy is easy. It's automatic. It's psychological empathy. It's. But when it comes to somebody who's not, not on my team, if somebody gets hurt on Michigan, on Michigan State's team, there's not going to be that automatic empathy. I'm going to need to force it. I'm going to say, listen, no, this is what we do. We kneel down when somebody's hurt. We don't applaud. Calm down people. That's not how we respond. Right. I'm going to. That is, that is the. My higher level thinking, working with intentionality and effort in order to override the automatic psychological processes. So, long story short, when it comes to empathy, like, we need to give more of it and work harder at it, the less we agree. And empathy just means understanding. It doesn't mean condoning, it doesn't mean that we agree. But empathy is just trying your best to understand how they see, think and feel about the situation. And you're not going to be able to persuade unless you have a clear understanding of where they are. 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 we will be right back after this.

Yeah, thank you so much for that. I absolutely. I love that answer. The, the simple answer, because it's effective, because it works. And I want to get to like why and how we're not thinking that way. Kind of from a macro perspective, we're not thinking pragmatically. But I wanted to actually read a quote that I think sort of fits that. This is, this is from your, your book here. My approach is not based on helping you win or persuade per se, although persuasion is often a natural byproduct of this approach. It's focused on understanding because people are, are usually unwilling to change their hearts and minds if they don't believe that you understand where they're coming from. So this really underscores. You talk about like level one communication and level two communication. The level one communication is just developing that human connection with someone, that level of understand, if not for any other reason, because your persuasion is simply going to be ineffective without that level one conversation. So I don't even know if I have a question around that, but any. Do you have a response?

No. This is great. And I'll tell you one thing, it's so funny hearing people reading the book. It's heartwarming too, because you stay in this little cave for a long time, just typing away in solitude and it's just nice to see that it's well received. So I appreciate that. But I like the simplicity of thinking about it in terms terms of level one versus level two communication because it makes it clear what the goal is. Because there's going to be that little voice, that competitive voice in the back of our head that says, ah, contend that, argue that they're wrong, Let them know. And so what I've, really, what I've realized is that in a lot of these interactions, it's not about being right or wrong or creating change. It's about dominance. It's about, it is about us approaching this with a level of righteous indignation and arrogance to the point where our goal in the conversation is to get the person to relent. So I am intellectually superior, I'm morally superior, and my goal is to let you know. And if you're wrong, I'm not giving you any grace. I'm letting you know where you're wrong. But I don't want to take the time to accept where you are. Right. Because then that runs counter to my narrative of superiority. Right. I don't even want to take the time to understand you because that is almost like an insult to my intelligence to even understand where you're coming from. And so I think what it helps you to do when you realize, no, my only goal right now in level one is just understanding, then you recognize what is not understanding, right? If you, if you say something, if you, if you want to say something and you just ask yourself, does this help me to understand them better? Then you realize just how much of the things that we say aren't meant to be productive or be effective, but are usually just meant to lift ourselves up while at the same time putting other people down. And so I like to just keep it as simple as possible because I, like you said in that quote, a lot of times the persuasion is, it happens organically because as you give somebody an opportunity to speak, they start to understand themselves on a deeper level too. You might be asking them questions that they've never explored for themselves. And I had a great guest on the show named Michael Ashford. And one of the things that he said is like when you just ask questions and you can listen, it's like a superpower. Because the, what ends up happening is as they're explaining, they're revealing in many times, in many instances, their own contradictions to themselves, like the innate hypocrisy of their positions. And I don't mean this in like a me versus them type of way. I think most of our human beliefs, a lot of them, more than we would like to admit, are built on some level of hypocrisy. Right? But then when it's a serious issue and you, you're explaining it to yourself and then you realize, wait, that, and that what I said five minutes ago doesn't, it doesn't comport with what I'm saying right now. Then what ends up happening is that incidental persuasion when they say to themselves, oh, wait, I see this, okay. And so then it doesn't feel like, hey, Matthew forced me to change my way or Kwame persuaded me. I was just chatting with Matthew and then I happened to change my mind. That's when persuasion is at its best.

Oh yes. So, so well said. If someone is, you know, like you were saying, if someone is lucky enough to have someone there listening to them and holding space as they explore these things in sort of a non judgmental way, they're much more likely to come to a new insight and actually decide to make some sort of behavior change on their own versus the resistance and defensiveness that comes up when someone across from me is trying to me to believe whatever they believe in.

Exactly.

So I just want to, you know, kind of hear Your take on like how this is playing out on a more macro perspective, obviously, like there are individual examples of this happening all over the place, but also like this is happening as a collective, like, you know, through social media and through different movements. And I think that people are starting to feel more isolated, more siloed because of that pressure and the attempt to persuade and that is creating more polarization. At least that's just the way that I see it. But I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on sort of a collective scale.

Yeah, you're thinking about it the right way, Matthew. It's, it's challenging. It's challenging. And I think when it comes to like the macro level issues, it is, it's challenging to come to a solution on the macro level because especially when you think about like social media and the challenges that we, we have with social media, it's like the best and worst thing that has ever happened to humanity. And you can't really unring that bell. You can't pull that back. You can't pull back somebody's First Amendment rights. Right. And so I, I'm not sure what the solution is there, but as it relates to our individual conversations that operate with the reality of that macro level situation, now, I have some solutions for that because one of the keys that we have to bring to the table is the ability to depoliticize these types of issues as much as possible. It's not Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative. It is about you and me in this interaction, or you and me as colleagues in the workplace trying to figure out what's best for us. So forget what is happening on the outside. We know that it'll have an impact. We cannot literally forget it. But I want to make it clear in this conversation, I'm not putting on a Democrat or Republican Jersey, liberal or conservative Jersey, nothing like that. It's just you and me, colleagues trying to work together to solve a problem. And this really comes down to framing the conversation effectively. And so for me, whenever I see a conversation tipping toward the political side, that's when I pause. I'm not going to continue because I think about the frame, the storyline for the conversation that is like the subtle meta negotiation that is happening beneath the surface at all times. And if you are not winning the, the framing game, then you're going to lose the ultimate conversation. And so this is one of those rare times where I actually do mean win or lose, because for me, I'm not trying to frame this in a way that gives me an unfair type of manipulative. Advantage. I'm always framing it using two elements. I'm framing it positively and collaboratively. That's it. I'm reframing it always positively and collaboratively. Right. And so, for example, if somebody wants to work, and, you know, our core is negotiation and conflict resolution, but we are doing a little bit of the diversity, equity, inclusion work through this frame of skills of how to connect with people. And so sometimes people will say, yeah, I don't want this to get political. And I'd say, yeah, me neither. I don't want that. And it shouldn't be like treating people the right way shouldn't be a political issue. We need to figure out what the right answer is for us, then create a strategy from there. And so every time it starts to veer like, oh, I'm afraid of politics. Good, you should be. Don't. We don't need to talk about that. Let's keep it focused. So I think that's one way to make sure that the, those potentially destructive elements from the outside don't weave them their way into these conversations because they could take us way off track.

Are you willing to say a little bit about how you do that, how you help to deconstruct the political context around things and, like, some strategies people can use? I don't mean to get too much into the secret sauce here, but.

Oh, no, let's get all up in the secret sauce. Okay, this is, this is your podcast. That's what we're supposed, supposed to do. And, and so I, I think, I think back to my time in law school when I was learning about negotiation really for the first time. And one of the traps that younger attorneys get into when it comes to negotiating on behalf of your client, let's say it's a business deal, but there are legal elements. So now we're here in litigation. And so if we're trying to find a negotiated agreement, what we need to do is recognize that, like, the law itself isn't going to, like, follow this deal. You know, we don't want to have to be reverting, like, referring to the law all the time in order for us to have a good relationship. Ultimately, it's about figuring out what works for the parties going forward. But a lot of times in these negotiations, the. The lawyers want to flex their. Their legal muscles, and they want to say no. The law says this. The law says that we have, we have a lot of the precedent on our side, those type of things. And as lawyers, we're trained to be able to argue Anything. And so now we're just going to have a silly conversation about, about your opinion versus mine, and I'm going to show off for my client, you're going to show off for yours, and now we're going to not accomplish anything other than you and me getting paid our hourly rates. That's not what I'm here for. Right. So I was taught to avoid those conversations by addressing it and treating it lightly, but then refocusing with a question. So, for example, if somebody says, well, as you know, According to Smith vs. Smith, this case says this and this is on our side, I was like, you have a really good point. And I think that we also have some legal arguments that work for us. But right now, my goal is to try to figure out what we can do outside of the law to find a solution for this, because there's no judge or jury here. But we do have some time to try to work together to figure this out, considering that, what do you think about this issue? Right. And refocus it. Because if you completely ignore what somebody says, they're like, seemed like Kwame ignored me. I'm going to bring that up. I'm going to keep bringing it back up. So you cannot ignore their concerns, but you need to validate it, treat it like an emotion. Right. So when I think about the compassionate curiosity framework we have, acknowledge and validate emotions, get curious with compassion and joint problem solving, I'm going to treat that essentially like an emotion. And so somebody brings up politics. Well, you know, the Republicans say this or the Democrats say this, and it's like, listen, I think you bring up a good point. I think those things are really important. And the problem is, for this conversation, we're focusing on X, Y, Z, considering that, what do you think about X? So it's like, I'm going to address that, but I'm going to very smoothly shift it to something that's a little bit more productive.

That is so helpful. And again, I just noticed my mind here kind of wandering into the macro perspective because. Which is really one of the emphases of this podcast. But I mean, the way that you explain this, it's really all about pragmatism. Like, it's, we can be so attached to ideology and to identity, and it's constantly posing this question, coming back to this question about, like, okay, how can we collaborate collaboratively, achieve our goals here? What is the goal? And how can we work on that together in a pragmatic way? So I, I just, I, I love that. I feel like that's so important on so many different levels.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And, and I think let's, we can talk about policy because I think the same types of strategies can be implemented when it comes to policy. We just need to be very narrow and focused on what it is that we're talking about. Right. So if we're, if we're talking about some political issue, I'm not going to just like name one randomly. Right. But like if we're talking about a political issue, we understand that the Democrats are going to have talking points. We understand the liberal, the, the conservatives are going to have talking points. Right. Everybody has their team talking points. And you can swap out the players and you might have different accents, different heights, but it's the exact same thing over and over again. And so I think really what I would do at the beginning of that conversation is say, hey, listen, I know that we might be on opposing sides of the aisle, but my hope in this conversation is that you and me can work together as colleagues to figure out what the best solution is here. Right. And then just keep like, have that as a, almost like a mantra during the conversation because the, we have to understand that people will, especially when they are lacking in confidence or lacking in information or afraid they will divert, they will revert back to identity based decision making, which really comes down to what does a person like me say or do under these circumstances? And so they'll just lean back on their Democratic or Republican talking points because it's like, I don't want to be the, the sheep that went away from the fold. That's scary. I'm going to go back to my identity. Right. And so what I have to do is try to them feel safe in that interaction and trust so they're open to being vulnerable and sharing and then working together, but always really sticking to that frame.

I'm really happy that you exist.

Compliment of the day, man. I appreciate that.

So I was, you know, I was reading the book and you gave an example here. You were doing a workshop and working with someone, I think maybe like a CEO, who was describing a situation where someone came to him and was basically saying that like, you know, they were worried about a certain situation, that race was playing a role in a situation. The CEO felt like, well, I didn't really see race in that situation, not from my perspective. And he expressed that he felt that like even bringing up race or pinning something on race can make the situation worse. And I have to like, you know, admit here that like I've for sure Been in those shoes before where I've thought, like, yeah, I. I don't really see, like, you know, how race necessarily played a role in that situation. But you go on to describe how, like, even if it doesn't seem that way from someone's perspective, or even if it didn't play any role at all, it does matter because it matters to the person bringing it up. That was really cool to read, but I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about that.

Yeah, it's a really fascinating type of thing, and I think one of the things that we can do to simplify this is just realize that. And let me say this very carefully. Race is important, right. But there is nothing innately special about it. And here's what I mean. So if you. There's a simple equation to know whether or not there will be a conflict between people. And it's. You take two or more people and you have them interact and they will eventually be a conflict. That's it. Because that's. That's what we do. It's going to happen. And so when we think about that, yes, conflict will arise just naturally between humans of any kind. Signed. Right. And I'll think about times where you had a close friend, you work closely with them, a teammate, a colleague, a significant other. They're going to be times where you inadvertently offend somebody when you are trying your absolute best. And just because they see things completely differently, they're going to feel as though there was something that was done incorrectly. You might have been on the other side, too, where something is very obvious to you where you're saying, hey, this is a problem. And the other person's like, I don't get it. I didn't. I don't see how that's a problem. Problem. Right. The pro. The thing that makes those issues about race so much more challenging is because there's an increased level of emotionality because of two main things. It's identity and morality. Because like I said, when we. Before, when we talk about identity, it's what does a person like me say or do in the. In these situations? But then also morality. What does it mean to be a good or a bad person? So then when it comes down to a misunderstanding or a situation of offense as it relates to race, it might be a microaggression or feeling of inequity, those type of things. It hurts a lot more. And that's what makes it so challenging, you know? So I think when you. When you dissect it and understand the Psychology of it. We understand that these type of misunderstandings, these types of conflicts, they're going to happen just in general between people. But when it comes to race, gender, politics, religion, like those types of sensitive issues, it's going to be the same thing, but amplified significantly because of the higher level of emotionality. That's what makes it so tough.

And because of that high level of emotionality in that situation, almost regardless of what happened, I would guess that you would say, like, it is important to acknowledge and validate the emotion there, like to make some space for that and for that to be heard because it's someone. That's how someone is experiencing it.

Bingo. Exactly. We have to understand that we don't get a say per se in like somebody's emotions. Like, they don't. People's emotions don't play by our rules. I can't say, Matthew, you don't deserve to feel angry about that. And you're like, yo, you know what, Kwame, you're right. I feel great now. Thank you. That's not how, that's not how emotions work. We have to realize that emotions. Again, let's not over complicate this, right? There's nothing innately special about emotions. What are emotions? Emotions are biological reactions that happen essentially automatically based on our perceptions. Okay, that's not necessarily a threat to me, but it could be a barrier to me accomplishing my goals in this. And if we go back to what we talked about at the beginning of the conversation, my goal is to be effective. And so I am not the kind of person who typically enjoys having these super emotional conversations, But I'm a person who likes to be effective. And sometimes I need to help somebody manage their own emotions in order to reach my ultimate goals. And so you're right. We, we don't necessarily need to agree, but we do need to respect the person enough to help them to process that so we can get to a level of emotionality and mental stability to where we can have a higher level conversation about these issues that matter.

It sort of reminds me of like, you know, when you're in a, in a partnership with someone, or it doesn't have to be a partnership, it can be, you know, a friendship or family member type of relationship. But I mean, the thing that you're trying to serve there, the ultimate goal, like, is the relationship between you two. And the best way to do that, of course, is to be able to listen and validate and understand the other person, even if you don't see it that way. Like, if you're going to argue and tell someone else that their experience of, you know, that fight or their experience of what they're complaining about like, doesn't exist. It's just not going to be effective and it's going to cause a whole host of problems.

Yeah. For a long period of time. And I think, I think that's one of the things we have to recognize is that collaboration builds commitment. We want people to be involved in this process, whatever it is, whatever difficult conversation it happens to be. Because the more involved in the process they are, the more committed they are to the solution. Right. So even if you have all the leverage in the world and you can force somebody or you are just like a domineering personality and you can get somebody to relent in that moment and give you what you want, it's probably not going to be for the long term. And if it is, there's going to be some underlying resentment for an extended period of time because that hurts when you feel invalidated. And so again, like, I, I made sure to really push this point home in the book, in both of the books. But the second one especially is that, that I'm operating under the assumption that the person that you're talking to is a person that you want to have a long term relationship with. Like you will have to have some type of relationship with. And you know, you don't necessarily need to like everybody and not everybody's going to like you, but there should be mutual respect. And so you need to make sure that you are positioning yourself well within the relationship so you can still have a functional relationship during and after the difficult conversation. And I feel like that's something that people miss sometimes times.

Thank you for that. So you also talk about kind of different psychological, you know, barriers to having these, these conversations and psychological factors at play. One of the things that comes up for people is attribution bias, which is kind of attributing someone else's behavior to like internal factors to their internal motivations or personality versus external factors. People might be familiar with this term, but you kind of walk us through an example of, I think there was a, maybe a family who was having a conversation with the police officer and the police officer had, or the family thought that the police officer's behavior was motivated by race. And so I imagine that you kind of work in these types of situations a lot. I'm just curious how you work with people in those situations and maybe this specific situation. How do you sort of help arbitrate these difference of opinions? Yeah, just Leave it with you there.

Yeah, no, this was, this was a very eye opening mediation here because I just treated it like a regular mediation in that I said, okay, I like to use shuttle diplomacy where I'm talking to one party solo and then another party solo. Because if you have them talking in front of each other at the very beginning, a lot of times it's just posturing and they're like, like abusive to the other side and things like that. So I don't want that. I just want to have really intimate conversations with each side. And then when they convince me that they are stable enough to interact, then I bring them in. And so doing it that way allows people to feel a lot more comfortable being vulnerable with you. They'll share information that they wouldn't share in front of other people. And so I could empathize with the family and empathize with their perspective and see where they were coming from. They had, they had a legitimate beef. And based on their, their history and what they've seen from other people as they've been treated negatively from the police, they're sensitive to those types of situations. And I don't mean sensitive in a trivial like, oh, you're being sensitive like an insult. I'm talking about the like sentences, sensitization that comes from a psychological perspective where if you've experienced trauma or witnessed trauma, you are going to be hyper aware of instances of that type of behavior in the future. Right? It's kind of like post traumatic stress disorder. So for, for you and me, if a balloon pops, a balloon pops. If somebody just came back from war, a balloon pops, that's a, that's an explosion. They're going to respond differently. Right? And so we can't be surprised about that. And so as a protective measure, a lot of times people of color who have been mistreated in the past, they're hypersensitive to instances of mistreatment as a defense mechanism, as a protective measure. And so that's where they were coming from with this interaction with the police. And so then talking to the chief of, he was saying, yeah, we did everything right. We didn't do anything wrong. Everything was fine. And legally speaking, by the books, he, he was correct. And so what I said is like, this is not the, the issue isn't right or wrong. In the case of this black letter of the law. The issue is the perception. And I know you want to have good community relations. You need to work through the relationship here and the perception. And so you can't do that while Denying their experience. They had an instant, like an interaction with a cop. The cop was a jerk. That's the conclusion that they came to, right? So contending the facts here is really just going to make things worse. And when you contend the facts too aggressively and the person doesn't feel heard or appreciated, you run into something called psychological entrenchment, where your persuasive efforts just make things worse. They just get stuck and they are more immovable. And so what we had to do was we. We honored that experience. We. We said, we apologize. It's this that occurred. And I think there are some things that we could do to make sure that things are better. And so we focused on the future, focused on how they could work together to make sure that other people don't feel that same way in similar circumstances. And it turned out to be a really great mediation. But it took time. Took, you know, like, actually it took multiple days, but they got there and they. And people felt satisfied with the outcome. But I think it was a learning experience for everybody involved because the. The cop was focused on the. The police chief was focused on the letter of the law and realized that there was something deeper there and then was able to empathize because I told him, I said, hey, listen, let's imagine you get pulled over and the cop is a jerk. What are you going to think? And he said, I'm going to think the cop is a jerk. It's like, okay, now let's say that same cop does that to a black family. What are they going to think? They're like, oh, I have the privilege of being able to think, yeah, this was not about me. This person's just a jerk. But if you've lived a life of, like, racial trauma and mistreatment, then you're going to legitimately jump to that conclusion, because that's the conclusion that keeps you the safest. So it's. It was a challenging one, but we got there and it took a lot of time and effort. But, you know, the. The ultimate result was positive.

You know, as you're talking about this, I. I'm just noticing, like, almost like a feeling of, like, catharsis coming up. Just listening. And I think, you know, really the. The takeaway here for me in. In having this conversation and, you know, reading your book and everything is like the. The experience really matter. Like, the relationship really matters. And, and acknowledging people's experience, like validating people's experience, that really, really matters, that seems to be a. Just a really important missing piece in all of these Conversations, it's so often focused on who's right, like, the details of what happened. But I think what you're saying and what you're pointing to is, like, how important it is to really acknowledge, like, people's experience and to build trust on. On that level.

Absolutely. And when you think about trust, I think trust is one of the most powerful but also misunderstood concepts. Because if you ask somebody, hey, why should I try to get somebody's trust? It's like, hey, I mean, essentially, it is a. It's a relationship accelerant. It makes everything better. I can. You're. I'm going to listen to you. You're going to listen to me. You're going to listen to me with less skepticism. You're going to believe what I say more readily. It's going to be a much easier conversation. People are going to be willing to be vulnerable in that instance. And then when I ask people, hey, if I were to flash the face of somebody on the screen, how long would it tell? How long would it take you to tell me whether or not you trust them? They're like, oh, in an instant. Right. So it doesn't require logical thought, which means there's an automatic process that is largely subconscious. It's a preference also known as a bias. Trust is a positive bias, and it's an example of how you can use essentially a psychological strategy without any additional skills per se, to make these conversations a lot easier. Because if you can get somebody to trust you, then it makes you more persuasive. You could be saying the exact same thing that you would have otherwise said. But if you say it with somebody's trust versus without it, it's more persuasive. Right. And so if you take the time to invest in level one communication and you never switch to level two, you will just be more persuasive simply because of the fact that the person trusts you a whole lot more. So we want to make sure that we can stack up these positive biases in our favor to make these conversations easier.

Awesome. I want to, you know, see if we can leave people with some practical tools here for having these conversations. You mentioned a little bit earlier the compassionate curiosity approach framework. Can you say a little bit more about what that is, what that looks like?

Yes. That is my. That's my baby. That is my baby. So I came up with the concept for my TED Talk, Finding Confidence in Conflict, then developed it with the book, the second book, Finding Confidence in Conflict. And it just continues to grow. And so it is a simple framework, but it took me years to get it to this point of simplicity. And so I think about Da Vinci when one of the things he said is that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And I want to make sure that we're giving people a tool that they'll actually use and remember that. I think that's one of the things that's really tough about academics right now and like, like thought leaders a lot of times is that it's too convoluted and complex. It might make sense, but it's not practical because people won't be able to use it under duress. So that was my whole mentality about compassionate curiosity capacity. So it is a tool that helps you to not only handle the external conversation, the external negotiation, but also the internal negotiation. Same exact way, flipped internally. So step one is acknowledge and validate emotions. Step two is get curious with compassion. And step three is joint problem solving. And it helps you to say, to know what to say and when to say it with maximum impact. So if you see somebody displaying an emotion, then you acknowledge and validate the emotion. If you work your way through that emotional issue, you get curious with compassion, asking open ended questions with a compassionate tone in order to gather information, make them feel safe. Then once you have enough information, you can transition to step three, which is joint problem solving. Working with them to figure out what the relationship looks like going forward or how we solve the problem going forward. But internally it's the exact same thing. Acknowledge and validate our emotions, beliefs and potentially biases and then get curious with self directed compassion. So we're going to ask ourselves these questions, why do I feel this way? What led me to this conclusion? How do I know this is true? Those type of things. And then with the last step, joint problem solving, when we're reconciling the differences between our heart and our mind. So what would satisfy me emotionally in this circumstance? And then what should I actually do in this situation? And so it helps you to manage your emotions and think a lot more clearly and work through biases. When it's flipped internally, I love the.

Fact that it can be turned inwards as well. That's so cool. Is there somewhere people can, could like find this online, you know, just to be able to go through those steps. I know they can obviously play back what you just said, but so like.

A resource online, there are, if you go to our website, americannegotiationinstitute.com you can get access to some free guides, free resources, all blogs, things like that, that is the ultimate resource there. And I. We just got a new website and I'm not as familiar with it, so I'm like, I know it's there there. I just don't have like the, the precise URL. We also have an online course coming out too next year, but yeah, that, that website would have a lot more resources.

I will link to the website and see if I can. Can find it in there as well. Say, say a little bit more about the. The course that you guys have coming out.

Yes. This is exciting. This is exciting. It's exciting for a number of reasons. I will start with the more comical. I'm on the plane all the time, Matthew. I. I'm like, like every week. And so it's fun for me to travel. I like going out and meeting new people. It's not fun for my family to be gone all the time, you know, so I have a young family, want to be able to spend more time, so scaling is going to be important. And one of the things that's tough is like, I love doing these presentations, but I never feel like I have enough time, you know, even if it's a full day training, I'm like, these six hours flew by. Can I have 12? 12. Right. And so with the online course, it allows us to go really deep into our content library. And I had a lot of value at a price that is. Is reasonable for people too. And so it's going to be. We haven't settled on a name yet, but let's just call it the Negotiate Anything masterclass. That sounds pretty cool.

I like it already.

It'll just be our all of our best content. And we're. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you'll actually be able to. To put input, have input on what it is that we're doing because we're doing on using the LinkedIn poll functionality, a tournament of topics. So the topics that get the most votes are the topics that are going to be in the course. So we're making sure that this is just not Kwame feeling really cool about really cool things that he only likes. We're making sure that we're making it super practical, super tangible so that people can actually know what to do. So very excited about that.

That's very cool. I love how you're involving people and having them already engaged in the process of kind of creating the course that they want to have.

Exactly. Otherwise we'd be spending time like studying Machiavelli. I'm like, this is really cool. You want to hear what you know, Marcus Aurelius has to say stoicism and negotiation. It's like, no, Kwame, no, we don't. So this keeps me really, really focused to make sure I'm only giving you, you what you all want. Awesome.

I love it. This has been such a great conversation. Kwame, is there anything else that we haven't covered yet that you wanted to say or anything else you wanted to share with the audience?

Yeah, just connect with me. LinkedIn is the place to find me. I post every single day. That's the goal. So always connect with me on LinkedIn. Check out the podcast Negotiate Anything. We have three podcasts, actually. Negotiate Anything. Negotiate Real Change, which is all about. About creating positive change in your workforce, but using negotiation skills to get there. And then a Spanish podcast called Negociacion Desero. That is a great show hosted by Simone Perez on our team. But yeah, just continue to reach out. Check out the website if you're interested in learning more about the course or bringing us in for a training. And then regardless, follow me on LinkedIn. That's the best way.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the great work that you and your team do. And yeah, I'll look forward to continuing to follow you guys and hopefully we'll get my hands on that course as well.

Yes. And we are excited to have you on the show, my friend. So, yes, we'll be returning the favor. I can't wait.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to it as well.

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 members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you. And I will say, see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.