The Power of Internal Negotiations with Giuseppe Conti

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.

Welcome back, my friend.

Hello, Kwame. Delighted to reconnect with you again for another podcast together.

Yes, likewise.

Like I was saying before, your last episode was exceptional and everybody loved it. So we have to bring you back and keep on giving them the hits that they want.

Thank you.

Yeah, so how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah.

Okay.

So my name is Giuseppe. As you probably quickly spot from the accent, I am Italian. Indeed.

And I am.

I'm a professor in negotiation and influencing. But a bit of a strange professor because I have been working in a corporate environment for over 25 years. And then I've been doing a portfolio career where I was teaching and working at the same time. And since 2018, fully focusing on teaching negotiation and influencing, consulting on negotiation and influencing at business schools and for corporate customer. I'm probably the only one who has.

Been teaching at all the top 10.

Business schools in Europe. So in Sead, London, business schools, Cambridge, Oxford, whatever. Yeah, that's the kind of things that I do. And then on the private life, I am the father of three lovely daughters, but they are quite grown up, you know, 24, 21, and 18.

Very nice, very nice. We appreciate this. And listeners, you see just the breadth of knowledge and experience that Giuseppe brings to the podcast and to his teachings too. And I'm excited to dig into this new topic of how do we influence internal stakeholders? And I know you've coached a lot of these teams too. You've probably heard this. Sometimes the internal negotiation is the hardest negotiation that they have to do. So can you kind of set the stage and tell people what we're talking about? Talking about with the internal negotiations?

Yeah, I think I confirm your finding, Kwame.

When I do run Worship for company and I ask, do you find more difficult internal external negotiation? The feedback is, yes, internal negotiation are more difficult. And there are probably a number of reasons for this. With the internal stakeholder, for instance, there are multiple interfaces.

Not that you're only doing the negotiation.

Because you ended up interacting at different level inside the organization.

Maybe not for the internal negotiation, we.

Do not prepare for it.

You know, we just look at it.

As one meeting, like one meeting, like the other one. Maybe we don't formalize the discussion in the same way. You know, we don't write a meeting report. We don't say what we agreed.

I will say also another factor that has an impact is that within negotiation.

We also carry our own brand or our functional brand. You know, for instance, you know, you see, I know that a number of your listener work in procurement and traditionally procurement didn't have a great brand inside the company. Right. You know, if I look at the way Procurement was seen 30 years ago, okay, if you cannot do manufacturing, then you ended up doing procurement because, you know, that's the easy stuff or whatever. So certainly there is, there is, you know, also the branding that has an impact.

I will also say that in.

External.

Negotiation, a buyer wants to buy, a seller wants to sell. In internal negotiation, you know, be so straightforward.

Maybe they don't. They want to just continue to do the things the way they've done it without your intervention. And, and guess what, you have a weak button. Because if you are dealing with external supply, you may say, okay, you know what, I'm going to work with somebody else.

But if you need your engineering colleagues.

Your R and D colleague or your marketing colleagues to do something, you know, it's not going to be so easy to replace them. Okay, you can escalate to more senior management, but it has the kind of things that you want to use with moderation. You could outsource it in a few extreme cases. But let's say most, most of the time with internal negotiation, you really need to aim for win win. Because you cannot play hard balls the way you may play some time externally.

You, in such a short period of.

Time have given so much value to Seppi. This is incredible.

You've outlined some of the key challenges with negotiating internally because you're right, we don't prepare for it typically as much as we would for an external negotiation. It's so clear to see, okay, I'm negotiating with a supplier, I'm negotiating with a seller, I'm negotiating with a buyer. I know what I'm here to do. It is a transactional interaction. This is a negotiation. But we don't readily identify those internal conversations as negotiations. So we don't prepare, so we can't perform. And then when you think about the dynamic as well, it's not as clear, the interests are not as clear. It might be emotion, it might be ego, it might just be.

I cannot be bothered by having to.

Think about this, whatever it happens to be, be. It's a more complex thing because the incentives aren't as clear. I really like that. And then I think a lot of people could identify with the reality of that almost powerless type of feeling that you have sometimes where you throw up your hands and you say, I didn't expect this to be the hardest part of this negotiation. I haven't even talked to the opposing party yet. But you don't have any alternatives.

Exactly.

And in fact, how well you negotiate internally will then have a big impact.

On how well you're going to be able to negotiate externally. Right.

Because if you go into the external negotiation, but this, you cannot do it.

This is not possible. This is, you have to get approval. Then of course, your ability to negotiate.

A good deal, maybe to negotiate a.

Creative deal will be limited because you didn't negotiate internally. The power to be doing those kinds of things with the external supplier. So the intricacy of internal, external negotiation are quite complicated.

Yes. Okay, no, this makes sense. And I think this is a really strong start. And so for the people who are listening and they're saying, wow, okay, you are absolutely right. These internal negotiations are really tough for me. Where would you suggest they start?

I think, you know, I will start.

With probably with a different attitude.

I will say that the, you know.

I don't know if you're familiar with.

This idea of push and pull type of energy. You know, the push type of energy.

Is more about persuading, asserting, you know.

The kind of things that many negotiator.

Feel more comfortable with, says, okay, you know, I'm gonna go push very hard, I'm gonna make it happen, etc.

Well, when you're dealing with internal negotiation.

Then the pull type of energy is going to be more effective.

And then the pull of energy is what is where it starts with question.

It starts with active.

Listen, before we go into persuasion techniques.

Influencing approaches, etcetera, you know, the right mindset is to be more say okay, first, let me build a relationship. Let me try to understand the other party. Let me put into their shoes. And maybe if we are working together.

If we have to work on the long term, maybe work on the vision.

The values, what we want to achieve as a team, and only later go into the toughest part of agreeing the terms and see how we are going to move forward. So a number of negotiators that are good in external negotiation, because they are tough, because they use a lot of push energy, may struggle with internal negotiation for this very same skill that plays against them in internal negotiations.

That's incredible. You're absolutely right. And it goes back to what you were talking about at the beginning with the internal branding. And so if you have a reputation as a deal maker, let's say you're in procurement and you go and you do really great deals, you might take that same energy into these internal negotiations. And the same thing that makes you a great deal maker externally is the thing that gets you labeled as a bully internally, and then that leads you to have more resistance with your internal stakeholders.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And tell me what you think about this, because it seems as though, because we don't take the time to prepare, it's almost like we don't have the same level of respect or appreciate the gravity of those internal negotiations. And so they kind of sneak up on us. And so we find ourselves with a very short timeline saying, oh, man, I was supposed to talk to Giuseppe about this months ago, but I need to.

Get him to change his mind today, Immediately.

Right now.

Well, I guess, you know, it starts.

With the electronic calendars.

You know, you have your agenda and, you know, people see a free spot.

In your agenda, they send you an.

Invite, and then, you know, you start.

Your day that you have one meeting after the other, one meeting after the other, and guess what? Then the time for preparation, for reflection, for strategic thinking goes as you ended up, you know, filling your day with one meeting after the other. And so when you do have an.

External one, do you say, oh, well.

Actually we are going to discuss money, so I should be putting some time to prepare. But when you just have eight meetings, one after the other, you may struggle.

To reflect that this is an important.

One and this is going to have an impact on whether your project gets approved or not, how much freedom you're going to have in negotiating a deal or other kind of important decision that may happen in corporate life.

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Right back after this.

Oh yeah, that makes so much sense, so much sense. And I know that you have an approach, a 5Pmodel that'll help you with these internal negotiations. So can you tell us about that?

Well, this is a framework that I teach at business schools and yeah, I call it the 5Pmodel is the niche essential of the the five ideas.

And the first one is profile the stakeholders.

It's really understanding the kind of people that you will be dealing with. You know, you should be doing a bit of research. If you don't know the people you're dealing with, you should be doing a bit of research in the same way that you do it externally, of course you do it internally. So maybe check their LinkedIn profiles, understand how long they've been around in the company, what level of seniority, maybe do a stakeholder mapping. You have a better idea about how they fit inside the organization, maybe through a connection. Find out about the robby, about their communication styles. So those kind of things that can help you to have an idea about who is the person that you're dealing with. The second element is preparation. So not a surprise what we were talking before. So do take in the time to reflect about what you want to get from this meeting. Try to anticipate your interest and their interest. Maybe you know, if it's a, a.

Multi party type of discussion. You know, often in internal negotiation, especially if we are talking about influencing as a medium to long term project.

Right. You know, sometimes, you know, is a one off kind of things. You want to get the buy in from the plan manager to change the, the supplier for packaging. But sometimes, you know, it's more like.

A mid to long term initiative and in those kind of situation there are.

Multiple stakeholders, there are a number of people that you know, you have to get an agreement with the finance director, the marketing director, the supply chain director, et cetera. So understanding, you know, the interest and priority of the different people around the table is the kind of things that we should be doing, you know, as part of the preparation.

The third idea in my model is.

What I call practice adult to adult relationships.

What do I mean is that very.

Often the people that are in commercial.

Roles, they may ended up having to.

Interact with people that are more senior than them. You know, sometimes two levels higher or three levels higher, maybe not. Let me share a personal story that explains the story of the adult to adult relationship.

It was 2005. 2005.

I had recently joined a multinational company as a procurement director for Europe. My boss gave me the task, really, you should get this business unit to start working with procurement.

Because there was a big business unit.

That was not collaborating with procurement. Right.

You know, it was 2005.

Procurement was not seen very positively.

And if people could do their own.

Kitchen and make their own decision, without procurement, they were happier.

Right.

So I went to meet the head.

Of the business unit to establish the.

Basis for a collaboration with procurement. I had recently joined. He had been around for 15, 20 years. I was a director, he was a senior vice president. You know, all this extremely elegant, you know, very well known and appreciated inside the company. His name was Michel.

As I went to meet Michel, I wanted to give a positive image about procurement.

I wanted to give a proactive image of, of our function.

So as we were discussing says, well, you know, okay, Michelle, let me check. I can do this research. Let me get the data. Maybe we can explore this man. You know, we had our meeting. All the action warm me at the end of the meeting, all the action were me and Michelle didn't really make.

Any commitment on something that he will be doing. And whenever I was doing something, you.

Know, it would ra ask more things.

And this was a way, you know, to delay anything that nothing really concrete was happening in terms of, you know, really starting a serious collaboration between this business unit and in procurement.

So, you know, as I reflected on.

This failure and as I continue to manage senior stakeholders, you know, for another 13 years of corporate life, then.

I take some lesson.

You know, there are a few things that I learned.

You know, for instance, one of the typical mistakes that we may make, especially in certain culture.

Now we know that, you know, the culture, some culture are more egalitarian, other are more hierarchical.

But if you go and meet a senior stakeholder and you already start using apologetic language, oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that you could find a moment to meet me, et cetera, you're already position yourself as the underdog.

And the other guy as the top dog. Right. Maybe another things that I do is.

At the first meeting with the senior stakeholder, never bring a presentation, never bring somebody else.

Right.

You know, the first meeting should be about establishing the human connection. So you're not there staring at the screen and looking at PowerPoint slides.

You want to make sure that you talk with a human being.

And something that certainly helps is taking.

The time for a personal introduction. So not only mention, hello, I'm Giuseppe, I'm the new procurement director. But say, okay, I worked in those company, I did those studies, I have three daughters, I, I have, I was.

A tennis player, etc. Etc. And as you do more of this.

Sharing, is more likely that you are going to identify the commonality that you're gonna find a way where you will find something that will make the communication go smoother because you're supporting the same team or because you both have three daughters or something like this. Another advice that I will give to.

Our listener is make sure that from the first meeting there are action for both parties. The action for both parties, even if the action that you give, that you.

Allocate to the senior stakeholder is a.

Small one, maybe it is about.

I.

Don'T know, sending you the strategy or checking with one of their direct report whether something is possible or not.

This action taken by both sides, you know, from one side is a way to evaluate.

Right. You know, usually you give a positive judgment. Oh, well, thank you, Michelle, I appreciate this.

But he also gives the opportunity for incremental action.

So, you know, as you start to.

Do something, that's okay, let's do the next, let's do the next. Let's say it's likely that you go.

To a senior stakeholder and you say, I want you to this, this, this, this, this, this, Right. You know, probably it's not gonna work.

Well, but as you start in the path of collaboration, then doing the first.

Action created the basis for doing the next one. Okay, maybe I'm talking too much on this. Maybe one last one. One last one. Common.

This one as much as possible, when you're meeting senior stakeholders, meet them in.

A neutral place, go for lunch together.

Have a coffee at the cafeteria. You see, if you go to their.

Office, I remember me going to the office of Michelle. The secretary was there to screen whether, you know, keeps you waiting.

Then you go in, he's sitting at the big desk and the big chair.

You are sitting on, the small chair.

On the other side is already creates.

This balance of power.

If instead you're Meeting at the coffee.

Place that's much more easy to create this adult to adult relationship that I was referring to.

Giuseppe, this is a masterclass.

So good.

I want to spend some time here talking about practicing the adult to adult relationships. I think that's really strong because. Because you're right. There are so many times where we unintentionally give away our power and leverage interpersonally in these interactions, because we're setting up a scenario where we're creating a power dynamic that just constantly reinforces the essentially higher status of them versus you, which makes it more likely for you to be deferential and then makes it more likely for them to get what they want. And it doesn't get them to respect you as an equal partner in this process. And the ways that it happens can be so subtle. So you talked about setting yourself up to be the underdog, being overly deferential in the introduction. Oh, thank you so much. I know you're so busy.

You're busy too. You have an important job function too. So we need to level the playing field there and then.

I love the idea of making sure that you're not having a PowerPoint in that first meeting where you're just practicing connecting as a human, person to person. This is who I am. This is who you are. Tell me about yourself as an individual. And, Giuseppe, after we're done with this podcast, we need to talk tennis. I didn't know you like tennis too. So that's great.

So now we're connecting.

And then again, such an important thing. Action for both parties, because you. If you are the only person leaving the meeting with action items, essentially they are treating you as their employee. Yeah, Giuseppe, go. Go get me those documents. Fetch me those documents and bring it back. No. Okay. You have some homework too.

You need to do something. We're equals.

I'm not working for you in this situation. And then lastly, meeting at a neutral place. I think this is something that people often forget because we just often default to whoever makes the first decision. Yeah, just swing by my office. That. That's the easiest thing for them to say, but then we don't think about the. The consequences of doing that. Now you are at the gatekeeper. They have to det Whether or not you are worthy to see the royalty. Then you go up, they're sitting on their throne, and you're sitting at the.

Kids table, and it just makes everything look bad. So this is really, really important because.

These are the subtleties that people miss that have a significant impact on the negotiation.

Yeah.

Thank you, Kwame.

Let me quickly finish the 5Pmodel and.

Then, you know, we go there.

I think, you know, step number five is persuade them.

And I think, you know, I'm not going to get started on the persuade them at this stage because of their. Well, of course, you know, there are plenty of way that you can do to persuade other people and, you know, you know, from thinking about what's in it for them, talking about their language, make them feel good, you know, recognize their needs and expectation, you know, tell them something that they don't know. You know, there may be a number of utilities that you can do to persuade, but probably this will take another podcast, you know, just to talk about.

The podcast in, maybe let me go with the last one, which is preserve the relationship. Typical mistake we make is when we need somebody, then we go and talk to them, and then, you know, we.

Move to something else. We disappear from their life for two.

Years, then we go back, say, hello, Peter, my friend, you know, can we.

Do this project together? And guess what?

You know, let's face it, you know, the two of us, we did our last podcast two years ago, but in the meantime, we continue to stay in touch, you know, because, you know, we appreciate each other.

And then, you know, we exchange, we.

Reflect, we do a LinkedIn life.

We. We exchange ideas on a book and.

Things, and that's something that keeps the relationship alive.

So if you want to continue to have good relationship with your internal stakeholder.

Ever keep in touch strategy, you know.

From time to time, go for lunch.

Go for a coffee, maybe, you know, you just heard a great podcast from, from Kwame. You share it with your stakeholder and.

Say, listen, you may enjoy this podcast.

And you share it with them. And especially, of course, you know, the.

Biggest way to keep preserving the relationship is be available when they need help. When there is a crisis, when there is something that doesn't quite work, of course you want to be able that you are available for the people that they may be contributing to your success. So I guess I wanted to give you the overview. Now we can go more in depth into one topic or the other, as you prefer.

I love this, Giuseppe. And I think without a doubt, my favorite piece of advice that you gave is sending episodes of the Negotiate Anything podcast.

I like that listeners pay attention to that one. So that's good. But when it comes to preserving the.

Relationship, the thing that's really, really great about is two things. First of all, it's the intentionality of it. So you're not just going to leave it up to chance. You're going to be intentional about saying, okay, I care about this person, I care about the relationship. I'm going to actually make time to get this done. And I think a lot of times we're hesitant to do that because it seems, it doesn't seem natural where we're saying, oh, shouldn't it just be organic? Shouldn't human relationships be organic? Well, let me tell you, last a couple of weeks, months ago, Whitney called me out for not taking her on as many dates as she wants to go on. And so now we have a schedule where I take her out on dates. That doesn't cheapen the relationship. It shows that I care enough to be intentional about making sure that we keep in touch. So having an actual strategy for the relationship management, that's important. And then at the end of the day, we're just being helpful, being available.

And being good business colleagues.

Right. It's, it's a true friendship. At the bottom of it, we understand that we're brought together from, for business purposes and we're not going to lose sight of that. But if we're able to, to actually see each other human to human, just by helping each other out and spending time together when there isn't something at issue, that just helps the relationship go forward and makes the difficult conversations easier in the future.

Exactly.

Let me say a very simple one which become, by the way, becoming more difficult now that many people are working from home.

You know, as you increase the amount.

Of time to work from home and there is less opportunities to connect in the office, at the cafeteria, at the water fountain, et cetera, maybe you want to.

The days that you go to the.

Cafeteria, don't go for lunch always with Kwame. You know, Kwame is a great person.

And maybe you enjoy to go with.

Kwame, but do rotate people, you know. Okay, yes, I love to connect with Kwame, but I'm also going to go.

For lunch with Bill. I'm also going to go for lunch with Margaret. I'm also going to go for lunch with Marie with Mohammed.

Because, you know, those are the people that I'm working. And this gives me the opportunity not.

To have a chat on non business related items as well as maybe business related items.

And that's a simple one that we.

Can put in place that can help us to preserve the relationship with the key people.

I love that. Oh, it's so good. Because again, this isn't something complicated or hard to understand.

It's just making sure that we do these things.

And then again, somebody might be there rolling their eyes, saying what the advice.

Is to just be nice to people.

Yes.

And spend time with them.

Because what it does is it sets us up for success in the future because we can really clearly see how building a firm foundation for the relationship makes. Makes it so that there's more mutual trust, more exchange of information, less skepticism on their part, which makes it easier for you to influence them and work collaboratively with them at the negotiation table. When you're working collaboratively with your internal business units now, you can negotiate much more effectively with the suppliers. It's all connected, and I think we can often think so tactically that we lose sight of the bigger picture.

Absolutely.

This is great, Giuseppe. Every time, every single time you come on the podcast.

You are a fan.

Favorite, especially for folks in the supply chain industry. And I know people are saying, okay, I need to get some more Giuseppe in my life. So can you let them know how they can get in touch with you and learn more about what you doing?

Well, I am also leading a company.

It's a training company.

It's called cabl cabl and the website is cabl ch. And with this company, there are a number of professors from Harvard, from Oxford.

From Yale, that collaborate with me with this company. So our joint mission is to bring the best practice to corporate customers.

Customers.

And what is nice is that, you know, we also have complementary type of skills. So depending on what you need, then you may say, well, for this one.

Maybe the best one is Dylan.

For this one there is Stevenson. For this one there is Owen. And then, you know, we can serve our customers in the way that best meets their needs.

This is great, Giuseppe. I really appreciate you taking the time with us, my friend, and safe travels to the Philippines. I'm really excited.

Thank you very much.

I'm just going to the airport in. The train leaves in 40 minutes, so.

Just the time to get ready enough we go. And then I have the flight in two and a half hours, so really tight.

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