The 3 Principles of Persuasive Communication With Nancy Medoff

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at A&I we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate, 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. Nancy, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. I am super excited to be here.

And we are excited to have you, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Sure. My name is Nancy Madoff. I am an author, a keynote speaker and a trainer. And a little bit of coaching. Basically. After about 25 years or close to three decades as a sales VP and leading multiple global sales team, I decided to leave corporate America. Follow my passion, which is to help women speak up and advocate for themselves when the stakes are high. So that could be a salary negotiation. It could be the unicorn job. It could be as simple as trying to not be interrupted when you're speaking. Regardless, the women who work with me gain the confidence and need to truly thrive at work. So that's what brings me here today.

I love it. There is so much to explore here. And listen, guys, before, if you don't, don't tune out here, okay? Because even though Nancy's approach is focused on women, the tools that we're going to talk about will be applicable to you as well. And also it could help you to realize sometimes where gender bias might be creeping in for you. So this is good self awareness as well. So this is an important episode for everyone. And so the three things we're going to cover today, first we're going to talk about how to overcome conversation gender bias. The one we're going to focus on is being interrupted at work. Then we're going to talk about how women are hardwired to be better negotiators And I love how you put in parentheses. I realize this will be controversial, and I love controversy. So let's talk about it. This is going to be great. And then lastly, the three principles of persuasive communication and listeners. You're in for a treat because it's been a while, but we are going to do a sparring session. So make sure you check out the episode where Nancy shows off her skills against me in a completely unscripted negotiation where I get to be as ridiculous as I always want to be but never get to be. So I'm excited, Nancy, I hope you are, too.

I'm very excited for this portion.

This is great. Well, so let's go into this a little bit. I just want you to kind of set the stage, because, again, firstly, I kind of want to throw you a few softballs so you can shout out your book and your podcast, because I don't think you did a good enough job shouting those things out. But I really want to hone in on why it is that you believe that this focus for your work is so important in the professional world today.

I love it. So thank you. Actually, this is my origin story, and it's why I wrote the book. I was sitting in a boardroom probably six or seven years ago. There were probably about 14 people around the boardroom table. This happened to be in Boston. We were overlooking the beautiful Boston waterfront, and the room was mostly men, a few women, and there were a few people on speakerphones. So I don't know if you remember those big, giant Polycom speakerphones that they had in the middle of the table. So this was before Zoom. And we were in this big meeting, and I was leading a sales team, and the person who was running the meeting asked a question about my team and my colleague. We'll call him Ethan. My colleague Ethan answered the question, and I remember thinking to myself how that's interesting. I thought that was directed at me, but okay. I mean, Ethan obviously felt that he needed to speak. That's okay. So we went on through the meeting a little more, and a second time, I was asked a question about my team, my direct reports that worked with me, and Ethan answered the question. So then I got mad, and I'm a little bit. I'm a little bit of an extrovert. I grew up the youngest of four children. In my house, if you didn't speak up, you were not heard. So the third time this happened, I looked around the room, and I jokingly threw up my hands and said, oh, my Gosh, I'm so sorry. Am I on mute? And this was again before zoom, before anything like that. And everybody looked at me. The meeting stopped. Everyone looked at me. And the man who was leading the meeting looked around and said, you know what, guys? She's right. We gotta let her speak. And I remember driving. So I made my point as the subject matter expert that was being asked the question in the first place. And I remember driving home that day and thinking to myself, wow, that was really bad. And I am not afraid to speak up. So think about the millions of women out there, millions who are introverts, who are afraid to speak up, who won't raise their hand, and who will let the Ethans of the world steamroll over them. And it was on that day, that was my aha moment, that I said, you know what? I got to do something about this. I have to be a part of the solution. And here's what's interesting. So I left my job. A few months later, I started my company. I wrote the book. Remember I told you about the person that was leading the meeting and said, you know what, guys? We really need to let her speak. Years later, his daughter called me for a coaching session, and I was speaking with her, and she said, tell me, who's Ethan? Who's Ethan in the book? And I said, I'm not going to tell you who Ethan is. And I said, but ask your dad, because your dad was in the meeting. So she went home and she talked to her father, and her father said, I remember that meeting. And I remember that exact moment. And I remember thinking to myself, wow, this is not okay. So it was years later, and he still remembered. And that's how I, you know, this is how I knew and know that I'm on the right track. If I can help a handful of women and men speak up to be heard, then my work here is done.

This is really, really helpful. And for the listeners, again, if there was a podcast that addressed this specifically, do you have any recommendations?

I do, Kwame. Thank you. It's called Unmute Yourself, the Podcast. So my editor and I just launched a podcast today which covers a lot of topics in the books, a lot of topics not in the book. And it's really about women at work. Women and worth. You know, it is not. Men can benefit from it as well. As you mentioned, it's geared for women, but not exclusive to women. And it's really about how to speak up and stand out and be heard.

I love it. Yeah, make sure you check that out. And listeners, we will for sure have links in the description below for the book and the podcast, so check that out. And now let's dig deeply into being interrupted at work. I think we all, from time to time, could empathize with this and relate to this situation. Frustrating. But one of the things that I want to do before we get into the solutions is I really want to dissect the problem because we can always say, hey, I hate being interrupted, and other people say, yeah, I hate being interrupted, too. Right, okay, we get that. But I'm going to start off with a question that might seem a little bit too basic, but just stick with me here. When you think about being interrupted at work, what does that really mean?

It means being silenced by someone else. That's what it means to me. Someone else is trying to silence me at work.

There you go. Okay. Right. And so this. That approach, that angle that you took, I think was different from what most people would think because they would say, I am speaking, and then somebody else speaks while I am speaking. That is an interruption. But you've gone a step further, which I think is fascinating, because it's. No, I am being silenced because that has an impact not just in the very moment where I was making a statement and that was interrupted, but being silenced, that indicates that this prolongs into the future, Right?

Correct. And there's a lot to unpack here. So what I've realized is usually the interrupter, they may or may not be doing it on purpose. They may or may not have a bigger ego. They may or may not want to shut you down. Nine times out of 10 or most of the time, I have found that they're just excited and they have something to say. So if you go back to the case of Ethan, who interrupted me, Ethan had to make sure that he was the smartest person in the room. He was insecure. He was climbing the corporate ladder. There were a lot of very important people in the room, and he was so focused on making sure everybody thought he was smart that he tried to trample over everybody else. So it wasn't about me. And that's actually one of the tactics that I know we're going to get into in a few minutes. It's not about the person that can't speak. It's about the person who's interrupting. And the way this really became clear to me is honestly, when I started talking to my husband about interrupting me. So this is not just at home. This is not just at work. It's at home, too. So my Husband interrupts me all the time. And he is the nicest, kindest, sweetest, most generous, best husband in the world. I love him to pieces, but he interrupts me all the time. And he's doing it because he's excited, because he wants to add to the conversation, because whatever we're talking about, he's excited and he wants to add something. So realizing that really helped me take a step back at work and say, okay, this isn't about me. Most of the time, it's not about me. It's about them. And the minute you can do that, you kind of take it down a few notches. And you can become less angry and less defensive and less adversarial and more gracious, if you will, about the situation, which for women is very helpful.

Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly, and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more. And now back to the show. Yeah, definitely. And it comes down to not taking it personally and giving people the benefit of the doubt. In my book that's coming out on difficult conversations about race, I talk about helpful fictions, so lies that we tell ourselves for our own benefit. In these difficult conversations, I always assume best intent. And sometimes I will actually go out of my way to make an excuse for somebody, something that has no bearing in reality. I remember mediating sometimes if somebody is just snapping at me like, hey, I'm trying to solve your problem. Why are you coming at me? So I assume, oh, maybe their dog died yesterday. It's not about me. They're just sad because of something else, right? And I think when you depersonalize the behavior, then even if it was an intentional tactic, you defuse that. Because it's not just the behavior, but it's also the impact that the behavior has on you. And if you are thrown off emotionally now you're off your game and now you're performing worse. And difficult conversations are tough enough. But if we add that emotional element of Taking something personally, it makes it a lot worse.

And that is a perfect segue to one of the tactics, which is for how to overcome it. You have to depersonalize it, because if you don't, the focus will become on you and not your message. And I have a great example of that, if you'll indulge me for a second. So I'm sure a lot of your listeners watch the Vice president presidential debates with now Vice President Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, then Vice President Mike Pence. And I don't know if anybody else noticed, but this is. This is what I do. So of course I noticed. So the first time he interrupted her, she very graciously and very politely, with a big smile, she said, excuse me, I'm speaking. Very big smile, super polite. Excuse me, I'm speaking. Like, of course you didn't mean to do that. Right. And then he did it again. He did it again a few minutes later. And the second time he did it, she was a little more forceful, not overly strident, but a little more forceful. And she said, excuse me, I'm speaking. Still pleasant, but a little more forceful. And he did it again. So the third time he did it, she put her hand out and she said, excuse me, I'm speaking. And she shut him down. And he didn't do it again after that. So I'm not a political strategist. I guarantee you that they knew he was going to interrupt her and that she was well coached and well trained and practiced how not to get upset about it. Because had she been upset the first time, all anybody would have been talking about was how rude she was, how strident she was. She was a bully, you know, whatever words you want to use, that would have been what the conversation was. And instead, she deftly kept the conversation on track, shut him down when she had to. Everybody kept going, and no one was really talking about it. Perfect example.

Yeah. And one of the things I like about that example is the simplicity. Simplicity of that. Because, again, it was not some kind of elaborate oration on why this behavior was unacceptable. No, just say less. Right. She knew exactly what to say, and she delivered it confidently, and that was it. And I think, especially when we're dealing with a situation where there could be some emotionality involved in it, the simpler our approach, the better.

Totally agree. I mean, everybody was waiting for something to happen, and she didn't. She didn't rise. He was baiting her. He was baiting her. And she did not rise to the bait, which was. I mean, I was on my couch. Yeah. Cheering because she just textbook, textbook response.

Right. And I think this also demonstrates the fact that we need to be prepared for this. I think a lot of times people use hope based strategies where they simply hope that bad things won't happen, but that's really disempowering because we're putting our success in the hands of others. And so we have to in our strategy beforehand as we prepare. We have to think about what we do want to happen, but also what we will do when those things don't happen. And the longtime listeners of the podcast are going to say, oh boy, here it comes. Kwame is going to talk about his free guides again and of course I will. So make sure you download our free guides. Going to americannegotiationinstitute.com guide. You can get access to all of our free prep guides that will help you to prepare for your difficult conversations. And now you know, you need to prepare for how you will handle it if you are being interrupted and for the sake of time to make sure that we can get to the sparring session because I'm feeling spicy. Nancy, this is going to be a fun one. Let's talk about your second point, the one that you have dubbed as potentially controversial, how women are hardwired to be better negotiators. So tell us what we need to know.

So I do a lot of work with women in confidence and how women are raised differently than men or they used to be. It's getting much better, right? All you need to do is look at women in sports, look at women in business. My generation is raising stronger, more confident women. There's still a very long way to go. So I would argue that women have and are raised with a more collaborative mindset. So if you think about the traditional how you raise little girls, it's to get along, to be a part of the group, to be inclusive. And I'm not saying that men aren't raised this way, but women as they're growing up, a lot more emphasis is placed on bringing everybody else along in a collaborative mindset. So when you bring that, can't we all get along? And peacekeepers and peacemakers and the descriptions and the affect that is sometimes perceived as negative at work, if you can flip that and enter in a negotiation, a female is going to, to have that collaborative approach inherently, whereas a male who might have been raised differently or might have, you know, other, other ways that they approach the negotiation. I'll never forget, I was in a training session years ago, years ago When I was a very, very junior salesperson, the man that was training me, you know, he said something that he said, and then you go for the jugular. And I was like, what? Like, who. Who even does that? That. That's ridiculous. So the females enter the negotiation with the collaborative mindset and negotiating with the assumption that we're all going to get along. And that makes a difference. Statistically proven to make a difference.

Yeah. And this reminds me of the work by Linda Babcock and Sara Lashver in their series on women in negotiation, Women Don't Ask. That was their big. Their most popular book. But one of the things that they talked about was the studies that they found that when women are taught to negotiate and advocate for themselves because they've been socialized in the way that you described, they're more collaborative and can create more value. Whereas men typically, again, using the binary for simplification and then also talking about, just across the board, typical cultural norms here, boys are encouraged to be a lot more competitive growing up, and so they can be competitive to their own detriment. So going for the jugular when instead of creating a foe, you could try to create a friend and be more collaborative in this approach. What I'm hearing, too, is with the book Branded, as, you know, speak up and stand out. Right. And unmuting yourself with the podcast, all those types of things, there seems to be a reluctance oftentimes for women to do that in the professional space. And so can we talk about where that reluctance comes from and then how we can reconcile the fact that once they do negotiate, they can be really, really effective?

Yes. So the. The reluctance comes from a lack of confidence. And there are thousands of reasons why women typically lack the confidence, or rather, let the confidence stand in their way. So if you look at something like imposter syndrome, which I don't like talking about, because I don't believe it's a syndrome. It is a feeling. It is not a medical condition. Okay? You're not sick. You're having a feeling. And feelings aren't facts. And I say that a little tongue in cheek, because I know thousands of women who daily say, well, I have imposter syndrome. But here's the thing, Kwame. The men have it anyway. And I will ask you, and I see you nodding your head, the men have the same feelings, but the difference is they do it anyway. That's the difference. So I don't remember what the question was, because I went on a little bit of a. Oh, so the women won't raise their hand and speak up. The men, they're just as nervous, afraid, imposter syndrome, not confident. But they do it anyway. They take the risk. And that is where I ask the women, how are you showing up? How are you showing up? Because it's one thing to say, you know, I'm being spoken over. And, okay, so let's give you some tools to try to fix that, and let's role play and let's try and change that. But if you consistently tell me that you can't get your point across consistently, and I'm giving away our sparring portion a little bit, my question would be, well, how are you showing up? Are you taking the chances? Because the men are, and they're walking through the doors that we're not.

Yes. And so let me shout out another episode we have. You're more persuasive than you think or more influential than you think with Vanessa Bonds. She has a book by the same title, and. And she talks about how when people actually have the difficult conversations that they're avoiding, their success rate is much higher. And part of the reason why people lack confidence and have too much fear is because they underestimate their persuasive power. And then to your point about confidence, that's one of the things I realized, really, that from the podcast, when I surveyed the audience early on, I found that the two terms that came up the most in what people were concerned about or needed help with, number one was confidence, and number two was conflict. So that's why I named the TED Talk and the book Finding Confidence in Conflict, because it doesn't make sense to give recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen. Even if you know what to do, you're not going to do it if you're afraid. And you would probably like the book the Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. Have you read that one?

Oh, it's my bible. It was.

There you go.

It was a lot of my inspiration for doing what I do. Absolutely love them.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. So they go really deep into the psychology, the neurology and psychology that helps us to understand the gender differences between men and women when it comes to confidence in general. But of course, for us, we're focusing on difficult conversations. It made it really clear. But what we're finding is that when you actually take the shot, then you actually have a chance to win. And women are winning at a very high rate when they are having the conversations, because like you said, they are. They are effective, and they're More collaborative in their approaches too.

You know, it's interesting, a friend of mine sent me a text just last week and it was a statistic about VC venture capital funds and only like 1 1/2 or 2% of the VC money being awarded is going to women. And I sent her a note back. I said, this is interesting, but I don't want to look at it in a vacuum. I would want to know what percent of the VC applications are women. So you can't say, you know, only 6 or 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs are female when you know for a fact that women are self selecting themselves out of those roles in the first place because they don't have the confidence to go for it. So it's. That's why. Well, that's why it's somewhat controversial is, you know, yes, we've made progress, but we have to stop blaming the patriarchy because I've done the legwork and more times than not, women are getting in their own way.

It would be so interesting to have like a panel discussion on this because that was one of the things that was criticized with the work in women don't ask as well because it seemed like they were blaming the victim. But what it sounds like you're saying is the reality is we want to. The true empowerment comes from realizing that you have the power to help yourself to a certain extent.

Again, the men are just as afraid. They do it anyway.

Yeah. Oh, let me tell you something too. With imposter syndrome, the reason I was smiling so much when you said that is that just in the last month, I've come to a conclusion that the biggest joke about imposter syndrome, and again framing it like some kind of disease, is that this is just the normal way that people think. And what's been funny for me, Nancy, is that as I've become more successful, the imposter syndrome has gotten worse in many ways. And so for me, it's just this big cosmic joke where I think about it as like, I'm driving on this journey of life and there's just an annoying passenger that I can't get rid of. I will always hear it, but I have to train myself to ignore it and do it anyway. But it's great because it's always there. I get to throw my success in its face. You told me not to take that shot and I did it anyway. And the imposter syndrome says, that's cool. I'm not going anywhere. Right?

I'll be back. I'll be back. The Next time. The stakes are high. I mean, that's really. You know, I had a huge, huge speaking engagement a month ago, and I was a wreck. And this is. It was nothing different. I always do this keynote. It was the same thing I always do. The stakes were particularly high for me, and I was a wreck. And I had to say, okay, hang on a minute, hold on. This is what you do. You need to practice what you preach. And I had to talk myself to your point. I love the idea of thinking it as a passenger. And, you know, it's not going away. It's gonna be there. But you need to stay silent for now because I gotta go do my thing. It's perfect.

Perfect, Exactly. It can be a passenger, it will always have a seat, but its hand can never be on the wheel. That's the negotiation. Well, let's wrap this up with the three principles of persuasive communication. So tell us about that.

I would love to. So they're in the book. This is. It's either persuasive presentations or anytime you're trying to be persuasive, start with them. The rule of three. And so what? So start with them. And I've heard you talk about this quite a bit is, you know, you. You go in, especially as a salesperson, you want to talk about your product, your brand, yourself, really, you get it. You have to start with your audience or start with whoever you're negotiating with, what's important to them. So that's. Start with them. And then the rule of three is based on the adult learning principle that people remember things in threes. So any presentation, any persuasion should be framed in three points. So this is particularly particularly effective with interviews, job interviews. So as many questions as you keep being asked, think about what are the three things I want this interviewer to remember, remember about me. And when you answer the question, answer it into one of those three buckets that are the three areas you want them to remember. And then the last is so what? And this is my favorite. So anytime you have a slide or a point you're trying to make, you ask yourself, so what? And you continue to ask yourself that, because you can start with them, you can be persuasive, but at the end of the day, you have to tie it back to so what? What's the business result? What's the personal result? What's the so what for the person that you're talking to? And we used to have fun when I. When I led a sales team. Well, it was fun for me. I Don't know if it was as much fun for them, but we would. They would do their presentations and we would all shout, so what if they didn't make their presentation? If they didn't make their point in the presentation. So always think about the so what?

I love that. That's great. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I think especially having those three rules makes it so simple when it comes to the preparation process and how you're going to really master your message. Because a lot of times it can feel like there's a hurricane in your head. Just all of these ideas swirling around, swirling around, swirling around. And then if it's confused and jumbled for you, it's going to be so much worse for the person on the other side of the table. And so this is a great way to get your thoughts in line so you can communicate clearly and effectively.

Exactly.

This is great. And I'm excited to see how you handle that in our sparring session, which is coming up next. So, listeners, make sure you check out the next episode where Nancy comes back and there's going to be a sparring session. But Nancy, before you go, can you tell the listeners again about you, the podcast, the book, and how they can work with you?

You bet. So all you need to do is Google Nancy Medoff. It's M E D O F F. I have my website, nancymedoff.com the book is a great. It's about a 90 minute read. It's a great beach book for anybody that wants to be more persuasive in their communication. The podcast launched today. Also some tidbits every week that we're going to be dropping on how to be more persuasive and how to advocate for yourself. And then there's me. I also, I do one on one coaching when people are ready to level up and take themselves to the next level.

Love it. Nancy, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

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