The Secret to Becoming a Better Negotiator (feat. Erica Ariel Fox)

Hi, I'm Susan Drumm. And welcome to the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. Today we're focusing on negotiating effectively with yourself as a leader. And joining me today is Erica Ariel Fox, who teaches negotiation at Harvard Law School and is a CEO advisor. Her work is dedicated to the inner life of leaders and showing them how to be human again. With her New York Times bestselling book, Winning from Within, she details how leaders can navigate high stakes situations smoothly for effective results. She's also a senior contributor to Forbes magazine, writing about the inner life of leaders. So welcome Erika.

Susan, I'm so excited that we're doing this. Thank you for having me.

Oh, me too. And what we've discovered in this conversation is we both went to Harvard Law School at the same time, in the.

Same class, in the same class.

And we never knew each other.

Hysterical. But destiny brought us together again.

I tell you what, this is so uncanny.

Super sweet. It's super sweet to be with you.

But this is so great to be here because your work is directly aligned with the purpose of the show and it's so essential, which is teaching leaders to recognize their own humanity and utilize that as a strength to be more efficient in the long run and dealing with the inner voices. So I thought it would be a good place to start. You know, in your book Winning from Within, you talk about how to negotiate better with yourself. And that's a really interesting take because most people, when they come into negotiation, they're all focused on the other person and what do I need to do and how can you teach me to be a better negotiation to get. But the work you do has you say, and let's look at how you negotiate inside. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you came to the book and really what the philosophy is.

Sure, I completely agree with you. I've been teaching negotiation at Harvard law school for 25 years. So when I first started getting to yes, you know, was a new idea and an amazing idea. Moving from competition to collaboration and very much about how to get to yes with other people. And then there was a whole lineage of books over 20 years. You know, what if your boss is difficult? What if a member of your family can't communicate? What if someone you're trying to buy or sell, a client, someone you're trying to hire, you know, these other difficult people, Basically, how do you get to agreement across the table and There are lots and lots of courses and good practices for that. And after all of this time teaching and doing research with live clients and situations of negotiation, real transactions in business settings, what I discovered was all of those techniques and best practices only really work if you first know how to negotiate with yourself. If you can't what Bill Urie called get to yes with yourself, and you've got all these sort of inner negotiators in conflict, trying to reach an agreement with someone across the table really becomes very difficult. And I concluded in winning from within in my research saying, actually, the most important negotiations you're going to have in your life, not just for fulfillment, but for business success, are actually the negotiations you have with yourself.

Yes.

And I have found that over and over again. So, I mean, I'm curious. I don't know if you know what I mean when I say you have all these different conflicting voices telling you, say yes, say no, stall for time. And you've got to reconcile that first in yourself. Should I raise the topic? Should I not raise the topic? Should I wait? That experience of inner turmoil makes it hard to be effective with other people.

Absolutely. And sometimes people say, am I going crazy? That I have all these different voices in my mind, like I have a multiple personality disorder. But my view is we all have that. And the sooner you recognize that there are patterns to those voices as well, that there are themes, and if you can recognize them and almost characterize them, then it allows you to work more effectively with them and recognize, oh, there's that voice again. Yeah, I know what you want.

Exactly. Exactly. Susan, just because you said that, let me take 30 seconds in case anyone does get nervous, to make a clinical separation, because we all have these voices. If someone actually had multiple personality disorder, which is now called dissociative identity disorder, did, what would happen is that one part of their voice, their inner negotiator, would have a conversation or an experience, and when they switched, the other one would have no memory of what this one had experienced. So this one might say, I never said that. And in this part of your identity, you really didn't. It's like this part actually has no knowledge. Right. That's very unusual. Very unusual. So when people say, like, oh, my gosh, am I going crazy? I mean, you know, and I say to them, that's not what we're talking about. Right. When you say something, you lay in bed at night and you're like, oh, my gosh, I totally regret that I said that. You know what you said. Or when you say, I sat in the meeting and I took a stand and they're thinking, oh my gosh, what did I do? Like, you know, so your different parts know what each other are saying and doing and that is universal, you know, across time and space. This has been written about for thousands of years in many different traditions. And it's a very healthy, normal part of the way we operate.

Yes.

So to be a better negotiator, let's first start there, since that's your expertise. What are the things that you maybe at a high level outline that you need to get clear of to get to guests with yourself?

The first thing that I did was really look at the concept of self awareness. Because my experience is many, many people, managers, team leaders, executives, are often being told in review, you know, performance reviews and feedback, you need to develop your self awareness. And they're left thinking, okay, but I don't know what myself is. So if I don't know what myself is, how can I be more aware of it? It's very confusing. So, so what I did was break down this idea of who am I? What's myself? It's seven inner negotiators. And if you can wrap your head around those seven distinct parts of you and I can tell you quickly what they are, that's actually a really helpful map of yourself. And if you start to get more skillful along these seven dimensions, people will say, wow, you've really picked up a lot of self awareness. So it's a very helpful map. And it is, in essence, an inner top team is your core inner negotiators. Kind of like a CEO, a cfo, a chro and a coo. You have an inner character or a negotiator. I call your dreamer, thinker, lover and warrior. These are dimensions that all of us have and they each have different spikes in terms of the functions and roles they play. We can talk about that if we have time. But those are the four key inner negotiators. That's your basic inner team you really want to start to pay attention to when one of them stepping forward, like let's say your thinker is constantly making good rational arguments, presenting data, but not persuading people. Someone might say, hey, you kind of have to win hearts and minds and you're making an influential case to the logical thinkers. But you haven't inspired anyone, you haven't touched them personally about why this matters to them. And your inner lover is better able to add to that logical argument and say, this is why it means something to Me personally, that we do this together as a team, or your dreamer comes in and says, this has been a tough year internationally, in the world and in the business world. And here's how I see how we can inspire our industry, how we can reinspire the people who work here. So you have different parts of yourself. And a warrior might just say, guys, this is something we need to get done. Most executives and most professionals, I think, put themselves in a box where they feel like, I'm a thinker, warrior. That's who I am. I'm a dreamer lover. And actually everyone has all four of these parts. I'm very curious if you had to, if you personally put yourself somewhere. But, you know, the goal is I might have habits I've learned with one or two, but everyone has all four inner negotiators and you can learn to use them all well and then you become more effective. So do you identify with all four or do you feel like. I do tend one way or another.

So I use the Enneagram for leadership styles a lot, which has a little bit more nuance.

Yes, it does.

Type 7 enthusiastic visionary.

So I love Enneagram.

So therefore, based on your model, dreamer would be a big portion of envisioning what the future is and hoping to make it inspiring for other people.

It's interesting, though. It's interesting, though, because in creating this podcast, which I think is so brilliant and so timely, like, it's a real vision that people need right now. You have that dream and you can harness enough inner warrior to say, like, these are the steps that are needed. You know, we're going to make this happen. We're going to week in and week out. And so sometimes it's noticing for people. I do have, like a real strength, but if I harness one of my other three inner teammates, I can fulfill the first part of my dream, for example. But getting a little more action on board. Yes. And sometimes people who have a strong dreamer, they kind of like dis people who get things done. Like, I'm not like one of the executors. I'm the visionary. It's like, no, you have an inner person who can implement and execute. That's good thing. Yes.

Yes. I really believe that leadership is about balance.

And, you know, I'm not a fan.

Of, oh, just leverage your strengths. And that's what we should all be doing. Because I've seen too many leaders go, yes, I'm decisive and that's great. And I'm like, great, you're going to add more decisive just do more decisiveness. No, too much decisiveness becomes pushiness.

And therefore it's not so helpful just.

To keep working that strength. You actually got to balance it with something well.

And this is where I think your target around executives really resonates with me, which is, I think like earlier on in your career, if you're trying to find, you know, a place where you can really shine, you know, building on your strength is one thing at an executive level. I mean, I often talk about you want to be a 360 degree leader, which means if these big four are core aspects of your intelligence, you really don't want to outsource one of your core powers and an executive to other people. And if you're at an executive or leadership level, it's okay for people to give you feedback like, you don't have to just keep doing that thing you're great at. Like there's other aspects that can bring balance, exactly the balance you're talking about. And then actually the results and outcomes get better.

Make the translation for me between understanding this better and creating, bringing more of the balance, harnessing all the four inner team, and how you would then show up as a better negotiator.

So each of the four are more than names. So each of the four have different skill sets that they're really good at. So for example, if you're really connected to the inner negotiator as a dreamer, that's not a part of you that will be very good at getting things done right. But you need to know how to shift into another part of you. So if you're trying to make an assessment about an offer, any kind of offer for whether that's a merger or hiring someone, if you're looking very narrowly from one of your big four, there's a lot of things that you're going to miss. Requests that perhaps you should make, demands that you should make, boundaries you should set and say, actually from the perspective of my inner lover and what I know about psychological safety and employee engagement, I'm looking at this proposal. I logically agree with the fees, but because I'm tapping into my lever, I'm going to push back and ask for something else in this proposal to make sure I'm taking care of my workforce and you're going to negotiate across the table a better deal. If you're watching within yourself, on my own side, in me, which of my big four is raising a flag saying, hey, we need to get better alignment as we're looking at this offer or proposal, you know, or Idea or product? All of that. Yes.

And so are the best negotiations one in which you've leveraged all four types of voices? Is it about balance in that respect?

I think it's more about what is fit for purpose right now. So. And I'm sure you found this many, many times in the last year. A lot of the executives, I work mostly with CEOs and people who are in a CEO succession pipeline. And what people experienced during COVID extremely suddenly was, my workforce needs empathy, they need care, they need to know I have their backs. I want them to be safe. I want them to get home. We're tracking for symptoms, and people suddenly felt that a balanced leadership response was to pivot deep into Lover at the beginning. Right. And. But genuinely not as an act. I genuinely want to know, like, are people's kids safe? Do they know what. You know what I mean? Are people. Do we have, you know, all the tools, the distancing and the hand washing. And that moment was an issue of balance among the four. But it was saying as a leader in this moment when Covid suddenly happened. Yeah, a balanced response is coming forward from Lover and assuring people, we're in this together. And. And so balance really means more agility and saying, I don't need all four all the time, but I need to know and feel enough respect, if I can say it that way, for each of the four, and also have the skill sets of each of the four, that in any leadership moment, I can actually choose and say, people need inspiration. I'm going to give this town hall from Dreamer, because that's what is needed. And I know how to do that.

Yes, I've seen. And that is. That was my experience as well. And working with leaders During COVID the CEOs that went with empathy, went with connection. Building a caring connection with people did far better. Also employee retention than those that went, stayed on. We need to get stuff done or worried about, like, are people productive working at home?

Like, I don't know if they're getting absolutely.

No, absolutely not at the time to be worrying about these things.

Things.

And I see the implications of that play out now when as they're asking some of the workforce to come back. If there wasn't the caring connection during time, you're gonna lose. I've seen it already. You lose some of your workforce. If there was, they're more loyal and they may even be more willing to come back to the office. You know, there's a big sort of backlash to, like, some, like, I don't Want to go back, I want to stay. Like I got totally in some of the workforce.

Yeah. And I think the thing that I care a lot about, and I know that you do. I mean, when you talk about an enlightened executive, what feels important to me with the people I work with is not to make a strategic decision, which can seem almost manipulative. I think what will get people to come back when this is over is if we try to show that we care about them. We try to communicate concern. It's the authentic felt sense of concern.

Yes.

I am in connection with the part of me as a leader that actually is concerned. If people are at home, are they scared? Are they safe? Are they okay? I did so many conversations with people in the past year where CEOs were communicating. If you're not okay, that's okay. Which is pretty radical. But saying to people, we're in this together. None of us have ever been here before. And because it was true for them and real for them, that's why the people are loyal, that's why they're going to come back. And when I talk about, and you talk about developing the inner life of a leader, I think that's part of the shift that we're saying. It's not a technique, you know, it's not a set of tricks that you could say dip, dip, dip. You know, I gave out a nice email. It's. No, I. I've. I've expanded my sense of humanity in myself. And people can feel that. People can see that when I say there's more self awareness, it's more of yourself is available.

Yes, exactly.

Leadership. And people can see that and feel that.

Yeah.

Can you give a more specific example of where this is played out? You know, obviously not giving names, but I think it's always helpful to hear real life stories about how they did the work to win from within and then how that translated externally to winning the deal.

Yep. I mean, just because my mind is there, but you know, we can talk about something else. But because we're talking about COVID in the last year, one of the things that I saw a lot is really innovative. We would have never thought of ourselves in this way. Initiatives coming from leaders like a very classic conventional product oriented organization saying we're going to open up mental health hotlines. So if people are really feeling overwhelmed and traumatized, that has nothing to do with what we do. You know what I mean? We have factories and we manufacture things. But the sort of dreamer lover people are feeling traumatized and we're just going to do this because it's the right thing to do and to see the productivity that was maintained and even increased from those people. And of course not that many people called the hotline, but they saw the initiative of it and it took the creativity and the care of some leader somewhere to say, this has nothing to do with our product. It doesn't have to do our price point or our market share, but we're going to do the right thing. That feels true in ourselves. That led to a response in the market.

Do you happen to have an example where going back to negotiation that somebody was able to be in the experience of negotiating, they were able to be a better negotiator as a result of doing this work?

I mean, as I said, because I work in with a lot of people in a CEO succession pipeline. You know, those people in essence are negotiating with the board because let's say there's four people and it's a two year process. I think that those people were in essence negotiating a salary, a raise, a promotion, however you want to think about that. And because they were working on themselves and because they were taking many different kinds of actions, whether those were inspiring actions or you know, new kinds of decisions, you know, different parts of themselves, when they presented themselves to the board, in essence, they were negotiating packages for themselves, jobs, promotions, as I say, even for those who weren't going to ultimately get the job. They were also negotiating if you want me to stay, even if I don't get the role, I'm negotiating the package that I would need to make me want to stay. Since plenty of people in those succession processes, if they don't get the role, they leave. It was very clear to me that the work people had done accessing these big four, and then there are three more that oversee the four. But people who had done the winning from within journey and understood, understood how to really leverage these parts of themselves when they negotiated for their own promotion, which I think is a thing a lot of people have on their minds. How do I negotiate if I want to raise? How do I ask for, you know, a bigger assignment or you know, to lead that project? This kind of inner work does enable you to negotiate much more effectively for yourself. And I've seen that again in outcomes.

Yes, absolutely. And so they were able to negotiate better once they were clear and did the work internally. And are you able to describe at a high level what does the work look like prior to going in there?

I mean, just as an example, and again, I'm curious, I'M sure you have examples. If someone has for a long time had a story in their mind that, like, they reject aggression. They don't like assertive people. They think, you know, like, standing up for yourself and assertive is sort of bad professional behavior. And someone is making an offer to them. If they haven't done any work on what I would call their inner warrior, they're just going to say, okay. And then they go home at night and at dinner and they're thinking, you know, I really wanted to ask for more than that. I really thought. And I didn't say no, and I didn't say, actually, that doesn't work for me. Here's what would work for me. Without the inner warrior work. Advocating for yourself is almost impossible. Even if you think you want to say no or you think you want to say that doesn't work. Here's what would work. And I've seen so many people learn how to advocate for themselves. Say no to different terms and conditions in a deal, you know, or to say, this is my bottom line, you know, and people say that, oh, you know, that's horrible to say that. And I feel like it's really not. If it's your bottom line, then you should say, this is our best and final offer if you're willing to walk away. And yeah, you may have to embrace a part of yourself that you think is somehow aggressive and bad, but actually if it's done skillfully, there's nothing wrong with it at all. Yeah, a lot of people have to work on that one.

Getting really clear on what your boundary is.

Right.

Or in negotiation term that we know, Batna, your negotiated agreement.

Yes.

You know, getting really clear on that prior is your ability to then set the boundary and then stand up for it and take that stand.

I think this is a perfect example where you would say to someone, your thinker is showing you logically, you could get paid better somewhere else. Your warrior is telling you that you want to say no. Your inspired dreamer has a vision of something else. But your lover is so worried, like, I don't want to harm the relationship and I don't want them to be upset or not like me, that you're actually about to agree to something that every other member of your inner team is saying no to. Clearly. So, wow, we better do some work around that relationship piece because you're so wedded to your identity as like a lovery person that you're going to make a poor decision for yourself. Yeah. So that's it, you know, we're Always trying to find the piece that's going to somehow take you off track. You know, I talk about a lot of times if three of your inner four are aligned, but one, it's sort of less mature, you've developed less comfort with it. That's how you get in your own way, because you go with the one that feels uncomfortable, but you're sabotaging yourself when all the other three are pretty much aligned in the same direction. Yes.

And usually the reason that's occurring is there is some old wound in there around that, and so you're compensating for that. So a lot of things work in that arena so that we can get clear and move beyond it. And you feel totally empowered to use everything at your disposal that you need to in a more balanced way.

Yeah. And I think that's also one of the places where psychology, spirituality, different kinds of contemplative practices, ancient wisdom traditions, all of that genius can come into the business marketplace through the concept of negotiation, the practice of negotiation. Me coming from a law school, I'm not a psychologist, I know a lot about adult development. But because the frame is one of negotiation, it's a lot easier for people who might be skeptical of a course that had a different frame.

I love how you've taken that angle and that you've gone, yeah.

The first word of the title of the book is Winning for a reason. And people know that it's a lineage from getting TS sort of straight to winning from within 30 years later. And the inner negotiation frame to equip you to be effective negotiating with others really works for business people.

Well, what would you suggest someone could do today, like, they like this idea, this concept? Is there a practice that you would suggest? What's one tip you could give?

One really simple thing you can do. It's a little easier if you're in an office, but even if you're working on zoom, pay close attention to people who operate differently from you, and particularly try to pay attention to people who irk or irritate you. Like, this person just annoys me. They always make that kind of move and just ask yourself, like, does that style annoy me? Because it's a part of myself that I reject, you know, because oftentimes that's what happens. Or, you know, is there a person on the team I just admire? And every time they come into the conversation, I think, I wish that I could contribute that way. Well, they might be expressing a part of you that you have, but you're sort of rejecting it. So Watch people around you, listen to them, think I would have never said it that way. Or, you know, wow, I'm impressed by that person. And these are little hints and clues about parts of yourself, positively or negatively, that you kind of distanced yourself from. And the more you feel like I could do that, I could say that in an authentic way, then your skillset just starts to grow like this.

Exactly. We like to say the person that triggers you is actually the person you.

Can learn the most from.100%.

And then that's why I use the Enneagram, because there's actually a model that.

Shows I know that direction.

And you're like, yeah, now I get why that person and what can I learn from them? What can they learn from me? And it turns conflict on its head, because conflict. Now you're my best friend, Susan.

The one thing I would want to add about that, because I'm sure that I agree 100% with what you're saying, and I do think the Enneagram is a phenomenal and nuanced and subtle model. When people talk about find the person who triggers you, because that could be your best teacher. I also want to say, I know I said it, but I'll say it again. It could be also the person you look up to and admire, and you say, I put that person on a pedestal. You know, I could never be like that. It's not that they upset me in some way, it's just that I, you know, I don't worship them, but I just think, wow, they're like this heroic person. But that also could be a clue that they're carrying a quality that you do have, like, you've put it on them. But actually, that's a great teacher for you, too, because you could take. You could say, wow, that person's so compassionate, or that person is so insightful. Really. Well, you can be that way, too, and you can take it back. So either sort of negative or positive projections of your own qualities to other people, I think are opportunities. As you were just saying, these are things you can do tomorrow. Start paying attention to how you put people in positive and negative boxes and. And just ask, what can I learn from that person?

Yeah, I love it. The curiosity that you come with there can only serve you in the path to enlightened leadership. So where can people learn more? Or if they want to connect with you, where can they come.

Oh, thank you for asking. For me, the most meaningful thing I'm up to right now, you mentioned it before, is writing for Forbes. I'm a senior contributor for Forbes. I do not write every week, even though I aspire to do that. But pretty regularly I have new posts and I think if, if people want to follow me, you can follow me on LinkedIn and you'll see my Forbes post or follow me at Forbes, follow me on Facebook where I post these things, sharing what I'm thinking about so people can read the columns in Forbes. For me, probably that's the most meaningful thing for people if they want to follow me. That's what I'm up to.

All right, fantastic. I'm so happy you came on and so happy that we connected all these.

How long it's been only we know.

But it's been a while.

Well, and I'm super excited to share this with all my social media. I have to say, like, I think people are going to so appreciate what you're doing and where you're coming from. And, you know, the way that you're embodying what you're bringing in the world is just really beautiful.

So if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Joey Klein, whose Inner Matrix system uses his training in martial arts to help leaders navigate and manage their inner skills. State Hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive.