The Power of Negotiation in Business and Life - Featuring Krista Russell

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Krista, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a long time coming.

Yes, yes, yes. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure. My name is Krista Russell. I am deputy general counsel of Airbus OneWeb satellites, which is a joint venture down on the space coast of Florida. We design and manufacture satellites for low earth orbit. And by we, I mean I don't have anything to do with it, but I manage the transactional activities of our supply chain and other general corporate matters as they come about. I'm also an adjunct professor for the University of Miami School of Law, been doing that for a few years now, where I teach a transactional skills course. And I'm also mom to three and bonus mom to four. So that probably is the biggest and most relevant title in my life on most days.

Very impressive. So, mother, professor, lawyer extraordinaire. So you are busy, so I appreciate you taking time.

No, absolutely. Thanks for making time time for me.

Yeah, my pleasure. So, Krista, when it comes to human interaction, negotiation, conflict resolution, what is it that's giving you the most energy right now?

What I really love about human interaction is just what's really not always apparent, like figuring out what's going on behind the scenes. What. What drives people, what motivates people, Whether it's fear or passion or energy or maybe the intersection of both, that's really what I enjoy most.

I love it. And now when we think about figuring people out, actually, what would be interesting, Chris, is to talk about the commonalities between your various identities. So you're dealing with students and faculty. You're handling transactional negotiations as a lawyer and Then you're also a mother to three plus four.

Yes, sir.

So how do you flex all of these skills in different ways, but in these different circumstances?

Carefully. I used to write a series on a blog that I ran for many years and it's still live, but I don't write as often anymore. It's called Recovering Superwoman. Just Recovering Superwoman. Com was the website and I used to write a lot about whether being a lawyer made me a better mom or being a mom made me a better lawyer. Just as fun. Series of picking through and the things in now my seven years of being a mom that I've learned in the practice of parenting and how negotiating with a toddler is arguably sometimes more difficult than your most obnoxious opposing coun or supplier or whoever it might be, and just how those things kind of cross together. They're obviously all influential and in many of my roles, particularly as a professor and as a mom, you have that more of a pedestal kind of role. Your kids look up to you, your students look up to you, and it's very easy to settle into that as well. But I think in my day job, if you will, it's a little bit more humbling. Right. You're not really elevated. Sometimes people look at lawyers that way. But I've always been the kind of lawyer where I want my clients to look to me more as a business person than a lawyer. Like, I want them to come with me with non traditional legal questions because they think that I know their business so well and I'm a creative solutioner just as much. And isn't that what parenting is like? Creative solutioning through crazy situations that come up, whether you're cooking dinner for the seventh time that day or any other negotiation that the kids come up with over the course of a daily life.

Yeah, I mean, you have to stay nimble, especially at home with the kids, but then also at work. Because what's really interesting about being in house is the fact that you're sitting there at the cross section of law and business. And I think there's a stigma. There are many stigmas against. Against lawyers. Where do we. Just a couple. But there's the stigma, especially when I talk to my folks who are in sales and procurement, they call the lawyers deal killers. They're like, oh, they just get in the way of the deal that we're trying to do, like we're trying to conduct business. And the lawyers are often seen as getting in the way of that. So I think the fact that you are positioning yourself as not just a thought leader within your company. Yeah. Counsel. But also somebody that can be turned to in for business advice and for business matters. I think that makes you a lot more valuable within the organization.

Thank you. I spent about five years of my career working for a large Fortune 50 company whereby legal had a seat at the table. It was just given, maybe it was earned earlier, decades ago, but by the time that I got to the company, you were treated with a very important role. And it was impressed upon the entire hierarchy of the legal department. And there's 300 some lawyers across the globe how important and valuable that seed is and how rare it is. And most of us that came from other places knew how rare it was because perhaps we weren't given that same weight or deference or respect in previous companies whereby legal's not just here to foresee consequences, but rather to actually weigh in on decisions. And I think that shaped how I practice, really. I think it elevated me to a level where I think I had the confidence already. But just kind of having the backing of a really large organization that valued that input allows you to operate, like you said, more nimbly earlier. It just allows you to move quicker.

Absolutely. And let's get into that a little bit because you said legal should weigh in on these decisions. Can you give an example of the benefits of having your lawyer weighing in on those decisions?

Yeah, I mean, I can come up with a bunch of them. The first thing that most often comes to my mind when you have that business and legal intersection is making choices faster. So you already said so. Many people say, like, deals go to die in the legal department, but that's because lawyers get involved at the end. They're like, brought in because, like, we don't really want to get the lawyers involved unless we have to. And then the lawyer's like, what the hell is this? You didn't think. Think of this, this and this. Right. And the fact of the matter is, when the lawyers present themselves in a way that they know the business, they figure out what's the cash flow, how's the margins work, where does the product move through, how are the widgets made? Essentially, when you actually get into the business and you're empowered to do that through legal department of adequate size and resources, really, you can be that. So when the lawyers are involved from the beginning, even though the instinct might be like, let's not get them involved by the early involvement, you're like, partnering all the way through, and it's one more person coming up with strategic plans and Solutions. And all of us have had the negative litigation experience when deals went wrong. Right. So we can take that knowledge and we can kind of help guide it along the way. I always say, read the books. Like getting to yes, getting to maybe all of those things. For me, it's always about getting to yes. It just means it's not always the same way the business wanted to do it. I have this objective I need to meet. But you can get to that objective. It just might not be going down street A. It might be street B, then turns onto street A after a certain intersection. And I think that's really what our job is, is helping them actually execute on their goals, their plans, their sales numbers, whatever it might be.

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, when we think about law and negotiation, too, these are tools that help us to solve problems and take advantage of opportunities. And I love the fact that you said, yeah, we're always trying to get to yes, but we have to make it clear that the yes is our objective, the yes is our goal, and it's not this particular deal right in front of us. And sometimes the right answer is no in this situation. And it's better for us to understand that early so we can pivot and find another solution for the problem in front of us.

I had a boss that described it something like, there's always ticking time bombs in the closet. It's just our job to make sure the right people know about them. Some iteration of that. And I thought that was really poignant. That's right. We are going to have risks that come up, but we should know what those risks are. We should choose them intentionally because somebody's hiding it and doesn't want it to be found out. Or like pushing a deal through so we can meet the end of the quarter numbers or whatever.

Absolutely. Let's bring this back to what we were talking about before when we're trying to figure people out, because here, within an organization, you have the people within your organization. On the legal side, you have business development, you probably have marketing, everybody involved internally. And then you have external conversations as well. So let's think about it from the inside out. When you're trying to figure out people internally, what does that look like?

So I know one of your taglines in the podcast is like, the best things in life are on the other side of Is it difficult conversations?

Let's go. Yes.

Difficult conversations with yourself. Right. We always think about the conversation as the negotiation with the other side. But really, what I've spent the best Part of my years of practice doing is getting out of my own way, like really finding a way to unpack what is behind the reason that I feel so strongly about this particular issue in a contract? Because it's never about that issue in the contract. Right? Just like when we're fighting with our spouse, it's never about your sock that's right next to the camper and not inside of it. It's never about that. So really trying to unpack and have the self awareness, that's really what I try most to impart on my students outside of the actual legal skills in a transactional class is really spending the time to get out of your own way to go slowly to figure out what's driving you, what's making you tick, what's making you excited. Where does fear come into it? How much of your interactions and your conversations or your negotiations because of fear of you're not going to do a good enough job or needing to impress a boss? And how much of it is just authentic? How much of it is really you? So to me, I think those most important conversations are those that we have or sometimes neglect to have with ourselves.

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Elevate, negotiate and succeed. This is great. I'm glad we started here too, because I think it's something that is almost so obvious that people often miss it. Because I think most people hearing this would say, of course, yeah, negotiate with yourself. And then we ask, hey, when was the last time you had that internal dialogue to actually find out why you feel the way you feel? Well, I'm busy, Kwame. Everybody's busy. Krista's busy, Right? But you, but you still find time to do it. So break down practically. What does that look like? How long does it take? Because I want to really demystify this for the audience.

I don't know that I can answer the second question. How long does it take? Because it's really an approach in stillness and we don't get there all at the same time. Even if we know we set out, which probably would be. My first piece of advice was be intentional. You have to actually say that, like, this is what I'm setting out to do. I want to understand my inner workings, what makes my blood boil and what am I passionate about so that you can bring it to your practice. It's practicing at the top of your license. Practicing at the top of your game means understanding the things that cause you to be reactive. Right. So slowing down and measuring our reactivity. And it doesn't have to be just emotional reactivity, although it often is. But what are those things that make us go so that we can really pause, then take a more measured approach doesn't mean slower pausing. In fact, I find that the more that I slow down in my practice. When you read the email, I'm not just talking about like firing off the response right away. I'm just talking about reading the email, taking a pause. Do I really need to say this 10 sentence response? That's a little vetted. Do I just need to say received? Thank you. The more that I slow down, the find it's actually faster. It's less work for me. I think trying to figure out fear and how fear plays into our lives is probably what I would offer is a third piece of advice I have found, and I'd venture to say more people realize it would also find this true for them, that like, fear is a massive force in our lives. And I have a friend that says fear is an invitation, examination, reflection. It's often an invitation for opportunity. And we just have to find careful process to work through it and to not react to the fear itself. It's a secondary emotion. It's never the primary thing underneath. So the more that we set out and try to follow that path, being intentional means kind of having a plan, Whether it's sitting in a yoga class or just pausing at the end of your day and reflecting on various pieces. Like, I mean, I have a lot of kids, as we talked about already. Like, it's very hard for me to find intentional time if I'm just letting the days happen and if I'm waking up without really being mindful of what I want to get done before the insanity in my house starts. It is insane. It's chaos by any traditional definition. But it's very easy to let that take over on a daily basis. And I'm not always setting up with the intention to get up in the morning, an hour, two hours or three hours ahead of the kids, that's not sustainable every day either because you can't predict what night looks like and how that's going to go with seven kids. But there is an overall intentionality in my practice of heavily involved self examination.

I think this is brilliant and it's so important, so many gems, but I want to focus in on a couple of them here. So with fear, I like the fact that you identified it's a secondary emotion. When we are going through this process, we're going to uncover a number of different emotions if we dig deep enough. A lot of times we just focus on the emotion that is the most obvious to us and we say, ah, what am I feeling? Fear. Good done.

Right.

Or we might be saying, oh, I'm feeling annoyed. Done. But there might be fear behind that. And I think fear is a very crafty emotion and it manifests itself differently in different people in different circumstances. It's not us as lawyers cowering in the closet because we're afraid of an indemnification clause or something like that. We're not afraid in that way, but we might fear. What does it look like for us if we miss something? How does it reflect upon our colleagues or opposing counsel, depending on how we respond, those type of things. And it's not a sign of weakness to discover those emotions or those feelings. It is an opportunity for us to build our strength when we're really clear about what we're feeling and why.

I am so glad that you said that because I realized when I started going into all this examination and awareness that quite possible what people think. Oh, you're afraid of the negotiation. Because some people do like they have a little bit of nerves or anxiety that comes up with those conversations. Whether they're big, small, it doesn't really matter. But yes, what I mean is exactly what you said. It's more how does the fears that I have about my performance in my job on a daily basis or my ability to execute on whatever my specific task is, where do my fears come from that are affecting me in ways I have no idea about? I haven't even begun to unpack because I didn't recognize them. Mine are often from a place of like, what does it say about myself, the difficult conversations with myself, or like the negative self talk that you might have in your head? Or what will my kids think if I'm not. If I don't get this deal done, or if I don't have the limitation of liability at the exact amount that my company wants me to negotiate it at Right. What will they think if I don't think so great of myself? How will I be able to effectively demonstrate to them what it is to be a strong woman, to be a woman in a field of I'm in the aerospace industry, I'm a loner out here in the lawyer field. What does that look like to them? It's very important to me in my own calculation of my self worth, to unpack those and figure it out. Because like I said, most of the time for me it's getting out of my own way. Like I have all these thoughts in my head that aren't affecting my ability to negotiate a particular clause, but that play into how I react and how I respond, how I provide a red line to the other side, the comments that I put in and just ultimately how the deal gets done. Or when some business person comes in and decides that they want to go against us on a clause in a call with a lot of people involved and you have to try to like mute button them kindly, you know, like all those things that happen to us, how we respond to those live situations in every day. And it's so much broader than just an actual conversation with two parties in different states. It's so much more than that. It applies, as you always say, it's a life philosophy.

Right.

It's how we take it to everything else as well. And that's why I always tell my students, if I could, I'd be the Oprah therapist. You get a therapist, you get a therapist, you get a therapist. And we're not giving out cars. Life should come with people to talk about and ways to unpack things in our lives so we can just go on to live the life we were meant to live.

Absolutely. One of the things that we have to focus on here, Krista, is that we haven't even gotten to the strategies and tactics yet. Because if we talk about strategies and tactics but we haven't explored ourselves to understand what's getting in our way, then we won't be able to execute upon the strategies and tactics that we put into play.

Or at least not well.

Not well. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is, we have to recognize our triggers. We have to understand what throws us off. And sometimes even if we prepare, we might not see it beforehand. But like you said in the middle of that call, it's like, well, you know what? I did not like it when Steve called me out in the middle of this call in front of 10 other people. I didn't like that note. I'm going to Remember that in my preparation for the next time I'm going to say, what happens if somebody calls me out in the middle of a call? How would I handle that? Not just strategically, but, but also emotionally, too. And you just keep on getting better every single time. And you're strengthening yourself from the inside out so you can perform at a higher level when it matters most.

That's right, because it becomes the new default programming. Right. Instead of the default programming being just a reaction, we have rewired and reprogrammed ourselves to respond in a way that isn't like a gut punch or isn't some sort of counteractive disengaging blow to the other side. We can just roll with it and keep going. And it allows us to actually stay focused, to actually continue to further that objective that we were brought in to assist with in the first place.

Absolutely. And I think the clearer we get when it comes to understanding ourselves. So, for example, in the moment, there's a difference between facts and feelings, but they feel the same way when you're very emotional. Right.

Well said.

And so I need to be able to stop and realize, hmm, that kind of thought sounded really clear. That's not the path I want to go down. And so I have to understand the difference between Kwame when he's thinking strategically and Kwame when he's thinking emotionally. I have to understand that distinction so I can get clear messages and make the right decision. And like you said, we have to be flexible, we have to adapt. And we won't be able to adapt appropriately if we're misreading the situation within ourselves, too.

Yeah, that's so brilliant. And if you don't mind, I'm going to, like, go to a personal place for one second because I think that comment on feelings and facts is so important. So I'm remarried, but I was previously married when I had my three children, and I've had sole custody of my kids for about four and a half years. And the most interesting way to measure one's own reactivity is when you are trying to protect your children. I've been in litigation for basically all of that four and a half years, or a large portion of it. Regarding custody and as good of a lawyer as I know that I am, as good of a strategic partner, or frankly, just a good strategic business solutioner. When it comes to your own stuff, it is amazing how your feelings sometimes feel like facts. How your feelings and your thoughts get mixed up when you are otherwise or can be so logical or straight thinking without measuring, reactivity in any real way in your regular day job, if you will, like how much those things get mixed, Right. And it ultimately leads to, for me, an examination of what am I afraid of. And it's very easy for me to articulate. I don't need to do it now, but you could probably guess based on the context I gave. But what are you afraid of is so much deeper. And fear is an emotion. But it is amazing. The thoughts that sometimes feel like facts because the emotion is so strong in being strategic. It's so easy just to be like, these things are all mixed together and they're all facts, but really, you know, at the end of the day, and this applies beyond any personal situation. But really, I think when we hear those thoughts that come into our mind quickly, when it's not an easy business solution, those things that come into us quickly are usually the feelings. They're usually very influential and very powerful. And we have to learn to measure the difference between those feelings, the facts, and our related thoughts, right? And we take all those three things with a great deal of self awareness and it's kind of like a little triangle, right? And we push them together and then we act, right? So feelings, thoughts and facts that inform our actions. But we cannot be so impulsive and just jumping because the feeling is screaming the lack loudest.

Oh, that's good. You're so right. We have the feelings, the facts and the thoughts. And you're right, the feelings are always going to be the loudest. When you think about it, amygdala and the limbic system, they have the first shot at interpretation. It's very, very fast and very, very loud in our heads. First, I just want to commend you for telling us that story and being vulnerable in that way. Even if we can't relate to the intensity of what you were going through, we can relate in general to the reality that sometimes our feelings can have their hands on the steering wheel. And if we can think about this in the metaphor, I think it was emotional agility. A great book. The author gave this metaphor of you're going on this car ride and you have your emotions, they're with you in the car, but they shouldn't have their hands on the wheel. That was really interesting. But you have to be able to be savvy enough to know whether it's an emotion or a thought that's trying to reach for the steering wheel. And I think one of the things for me personally is that I like to pride myself as a strategist. Sometimes I can See with clarity that I am not thinking clearly and I have to give the reins to somebody else. So sometimes the best strategy is to bring in somebody else to handle this negotiation for you. Because for whatever reason, your emotions are clouding your judgment and the best thing you could do is step back.

I couldn't agree more. Tell me if I'm wrong here. It's that pause that gives you the awareness and the ability to take that step back. Substitution's a super powerful tool and really underrated. In negotiations, I always try to tell students, coworkers, some people on my team, pulling someone else in to finish a deal is not weakness. That's not you can't get it done. That's you being a brilliant lawyer and recognizing that sometimes it's just changing the personality. Right? It's just changing the dynamic of we've been in a long nine month cycle of negotiations and the parties just kind of butt heads at a certain point. That's good lawyering. You're not weaker, you're not less than. You have to get out of your own way. You got to deal with your stuff in order to be able to have the maturity to do that. As you just said in your example, that comes from a pause. That comes from not being super reactive in the moment and just saying like, hey, actually part of my strategy here is getting it done. And so I'm going to pull in my colleague. I can make myself sound like the bad guy. It doesn't even matter. My boss is going to be happy when it's done. At the end of the day, no matter what skills in my toolbox I use to do that.

Oh, brilliant. I love it. Krista, this was great. I really appreciate you coming on the show today, dropping some knowledge bombs. I'm looking through the notes. This was exceptional. I think we explored emotional regulation and just negotiating with yourself in a way that we haven't done yet on the podcast in 900 episodes. So kudos to you.

Hey, I love that. That's awesome. Thank you so much for this opportunity. It's been a pleasure.

Yeah, my pleasure. And anytime you need a refuge from parenting, just let me know. Come back on, we'll make it happen.

That's right. I mean, like, I need a couple hours. Let's get on. But I think we'll talk again even without me needing a refuge, so.

Absolutely, absolutely. Krista, thank you again for joining us. And before you go, let the listeners know about the best way to reach out if they wanted to connect.

Yeah, sure. LinkedIn is the best way to reach me. I am at LinkedIn/Legally Kristalyn L E G A L L Krista Lynn Put that in the show notes.

Awesome. Thanks again for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Thanks.

Wait, wait wait wait, wait.

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