What Does It Really Mean To Negotiate Well? With Remi Smolinski

I have some incredible news. My second book, how to have Difficult Conversations About Race, is now the number one new release in its category on Amazon. I'm so excited, so excited for this because we've put a lot of work into it, and this was risky because as a lawyer who's focusing on negotiation and conflict resolution, talking about race seems for many to be outside of the scope of what I usually do. But again, how are we defining negotiation? We define negotiation as anytime you're having a conversation and somebody in the conversation wants something. And as the podcast is titled Negotiate Anything, we can negotiate anything. And in my years of doing all of this work in the professional world, difficult conversations about race is something that comes up over and over and over again in the workplace. And there isn't really a solid resource out there that blends the fundamentals of negotiation and conflict resolution and effective communication with this particular topic. So it's risky. It is risky, risky to venture in this way. But I'm really excited and encouraged by this early result. So this is not just a win for me, this is a win for you too, because you are part of this tribe. And so a quick note about the book. Who did I write this for? I wrote this for the person who is passionate about changing the world and their organizations for the better, the leader who leads a diverse team, and the professional who wants to learn how to overcome the hidden barriers that make it tough to connect with people with a different background. So whether you consider yourself an ally or just want to avoid making a critical mistake when discussing race, this book is for you and for you as a podcast listener, I'm making a direct request. After six years and over 600 episodes of Negotiate Anything, I'm asking for your support in this endeavor to make the world a better place. Our goal of the American Negotiation Institute is to change the world, and this book plays a critical role in making that happen. And we would love to have your support. We have the links in the description of this episode so you can get your copy of 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 A&I. 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. Remy, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for your invitation. Thank you. Great to be here.

Yeah, it's our pleasure, my friend. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure, with pleasure. Thank you, Kwame. I'm a negotiation professor, cherishing this passion for many, many years. I run a negotiation research institute at HHL Graduate School of Management in Leipzig, Germany, and organize negotiation competitions for students and professionals. Also advise clients on negotiation and innovation.

I love this. And listeners, we. We started this conversation about 20 minutes ago, and the conversation has just been flowing and I had to stop the conversation abruptly. I'm like, remy, we need to save some of this magic for the podcast. This is happening frequently now, where I just start chatting and I'm like, why am I not recording this? So I'm so pumped for this episode. And so, listener, if you, if you're relatively new, I'll start off briefly with my origin story. Remy, I told you about this too, because my. I got on the path of negotiation from law school when I stumbled into a negotiation class, took the class, did well in these negotiation competitions that I didn't know existed until I took the class and I fell in love. And I don't think I would be where I am today with the American Negotiation Institute had it not been for these, for these negotiation competitions. So I'm pumped to talk about this. So, Remy, can you just set the stage for us? Because I know a lot of people are listening and they are saying, what is a negotiation competition? So let's just start there.

That's a great question. To start off, we very often, as negotiation professors, trainers, coaches, very often define negotiation as a skill, which means an ability to perform a particular action. In the case of negotiation, that's an ability to align preferences, decision preferences between. Between two part, at least two parties. Right. And that definition has profound consequences. Like any other skill that we can, that we can possibly look at, such as, I don't know, languages, music, sports. Right. You name it. We have worked out an ability to Measure them and compare them in a competitive context. But I think by this time, there is a consensus. There's a wide consensus, which basically says that it is indeed a skill and that has consequences. I mentioned the consequences that sort of led us, or have led us to. Had led us to organizing the competition, the competition itself. When we thought. When we said, well, if it's a skill, then let's measure it, then let's compare it, then let's work out a set of objective criteria, how we could recognize good negotiators from those who are excellent and. And create a controlled setting in which we could indeed compare the results, be it substantive or relational or any other procedural. Procedural with each other. And that was the origin of the competition.

This is so fascinating to me. This is great. And as you were going through all of this, I realized that you have a very unique perspective on negotiation skills because the majority of people who are listening to this podcast have been negotiating. Right. And the whole ethos behind the podcast is making negotiation feel more approachable and recognizing that you're negotiating all the time. And so the. The definition that we use, it's very, very simplistic. Obviously, we do believe negotiation is a skill. We consider every conversation where somebody wants something a negotiation, just so we can get people to think more intentionally about the way that we interact. And so we can find ourselves in a lot of negotia. And we may have the opportunity to observe some negotiations from time to time. But even if we are observing negotiations, it's probably not many negotiations, and we're probably not observing it with the intent of analyzing and critiquing the negotiator's performance. So you are one of the few people in the entire world who has looked at negotiation through this lens. So given all of the various negotiation simulations that you've observed and the people that you've coached, what would you say are the top three skills associated with being a great negotiator?

Wow. That's a great question, Kwame. Thank you. Thank you so much for asking it. Let me think a while. I think one of the. One of the observations that we've made a few years ago is something that I call the Panda Bear effect. The panda bear effect. It's a working name for something that we still want to research. A little bit closer look at. A little bit closer in a more systematic way. But we've noticed that the best negotiators appear somewhat like panda bears appear when we observe them. A little bit clumsy, a little bit defenseless, cute, kind. But they come across as no threat, they come across friendly, they come across as, as those who don't pose any danger, any risk. Right? So we typically, I mean, I'd say 90 some percent of the population, like panda bears, right? So when we observe them, we don't think about running away or attacking them. We think about, oh, how cute are they? Oh, how nice. We want to spend time, we want to interact with them to the extent, obviously it's possible they typically, they typically live in zoos and breeding centers, right? But, but the panda bear effect typically displayed by negotiators who come across exactly like that, kind, approachable, friendly. Right? But they have a hard plan, analytical plan in the back of our mind. They know very well what to achieve to get in a particular negotiation. But they do have this sort of a kind clumsiness in terms of their appearance. So I define great negotiators as those who are, who combine a hardcore analytical hardware with the panda bear type of a front end. It's so important. It's so important because perceiving someone as too intellectual, too strong, rhetorically might lead to one of the two intuitive reactions which we typically displayed in the presence of a threat that is either an attack, fight or flight, or to defend or escape. Right? And none of these responses are particularly useful in terms of achieving great negotiation results. The clue lies in the right combination of the front end, the panda bear type of a front end, which comes across as universally likable, maybe a little bit clumsy, but definitely no threat. With a hardcore negotiation analytical mind which precisely knows what are the issues, how important those issues are to us, and what are the priorities that I want to set in any particular stage of a negotiation. So if I were to answer your question as shortly as I possibly could, that's the panda bear effect. Typically, great negotiators are able to combine, combine these two characteristics.

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. Oh, that is so cool because. And I love panda bears. Everybody does. Little aside, I'm. I love tennis. Tennis is my favorite sport. I was president of the tennis club team at Ohio State mainly because I wasn't good enough to be on the varsity team. But my. You have the vibration dampener that you can put on your strings. And mine was a panda bear that I had on mine. So this is, this is, this resonates really well. And you're absolutely right because as you were saying that I was thinking about the people who I consider to be the best negotiators. And they certainly are not threatening, right? And they're, they're not intimidating in that type of way, but they're so sharp. They always go in there with some kind of strategy plan. They're analytical and they can think on their feet. And I love that you said this because the description that you gave of what a great negotiator is flies in the face of what Hollywood will make us believe. A great negotiator is somebody who always knows exactly what to say, who's incredibly articulate, who can come up with these moving monologues out of nowhere and, and can be kind of mean and aggressive when, when necessary. And they just wow people with their intellect and assertiveness and the people just submit. I feel like I'm a decent negotiator. I've never wowed somebody like that, you know, and I think it's important for us to realize, like, hey, this is not real. People are operating off of scripts. Nobody talks like that. And even if people did, it would be very off putting because there should be a mutual exchange of conversation and information during a negotiation. And so it's really interesting that this key because again, people feel like they have to be somebody else a lot of times when it comes to their negotiations. But no, I think the, I think the, this effect that you described, the panda bear effect, makes becoming a great negotiator feel a lot more achievable.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You're absolutely right. Yes. It's a panda bear. Panda bear is combined with negotiation intelligence, something which we called in one of our papers negotiation intelligence. Meaning exactly. Which means exactly, you know, having. Knowing the tools, having the repertoire, a broad spectrum of negotiation tool tactics and methods, and knowing which one of those use in which context, because negotiation is highly situational. So what works in distributive context where we are when we intend to claim value, does not necessarily work in other contexts. When we, for example, can create, Theoretically can create value. So this negotiation intelligence combined with the panda bear effect. That's exactly. And that's exactly. That's exactly what makes, in my opinion, great negotiators.

Yeah, this is great. This is great. So now let's talk about the negotiation intelligence that you've observed, because I'm assuming if you are in one of these competitions, especially as you get into the later rounds, it probably becomes more and more difficult to differentiate between the good and the great. And so when you think about, in terms of, like, negotiation intelligence, what are those key things that separate the person who's first place from second place?

Yes, you're absolutely right. Yes. In some cases, the differences are really tiny. Really tiny. Both on. Both in terms of. In terms of the substantive outcome as well as relational outcome, which very much indicate that people who register for our negotiation competitions are passionate negotiators themselves. Right. Which means, in terms of, for example, student competitions, many of them start their preparations with the beginning of the winter semester, which is sometime around September, October, and the competition does not take place until March or April. So they undergo extended preparation process, which leads us to assume that they probably do know their. Their craftsmanships. Tools. Right? Negotiation craftsmanship. Yeah. So that's not so much. So much about knowledge, but the ability to pull out the right tool. Right. If I see a. If I see a nail, I need a hammer, and that's some other tool. Right. So the combination. The combination of negotiation setup. So are we talking about distributive type of a negotiation? Are we talking a distribution distributive negotiation with relational components? Or are we. Are we going to be discussing something where we can. Which we need to solve together that can create more or less value depending on how well we do it. Right. And negotiation intelligence is not only the knowledge of those tools, of tools that work in those particular settings, but also the intuition, the ability to pull out the hammer when there are nails. Right. And not any. And this is kind of. Now we're getting to the art of negotiation. This comes only with repetitions and experience. Only with repetition and experience, we can recognize the type of a negotiation partner quicker. With negotiation, with repetitions and experience, we can recognize the characteristics of particular situations quicker. Mike Wheeler, Harvard professor, who I had a chance to meet during my stay in Boston many years ago, he recently started referring to negotiation as sort of a jazz jam session. And I love this comparison a lot because it tells us exactly about the gist of it. It's not enough to know how to play particular tones according to the notes. But it's also important to react spontaneously to the reaction of our fellow band members. Right. And this is, this is, this is the intuitive part, which is paradoxically, maybe also learnable. So nobody is born a perfect improvised jazz improvise as a perfect jazz improviser. Right. It's something that we, that we come to once we've, you know, figured out the notes, started hitting the right strings or the right, I don't know, drums at the right times. And only with, with experience, with repetition and experience, we get to, we get to the point where we can sort of flexibly react or flexibly optimize the outcome based on our intuitive reactions, which we've produced through hours or days or years of training.

This is so good. And I, I know we can just keep on talking about this. And I want.

I.

We're coming up on time here and I want to give you an opportunity again to let the listeners know about your university, the competitions, and also the consulting firm and how they can get in touch with you.

Yes. Thank you, Kwame, for your generosity. It's been a great conversation so far. Maybe we should continue it at some, at some point. So, yes, if a call out, a shout out to the audience, if you guys are passionate negotiators, there is a competition coming up for, for practitioners and non students, let me put it like this, which is coming up this fall. Registration deadline is October 7th, and all details you can find on www.professionals.thenegotiationchallenge written together.org and I'd be delighted to meet some of your listeners during our competitions.

Yes, that's. That is great. And listeners, there will be links to all of that in the description of this episode. Remy, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Kwame, thank you for having me. It's been a great, great discussion. Great talk. Thank you.

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