Heidi Roizen reframes negotiation as finding the maximal intersection of mutual need. She argues for framing needs broadly to unlock creative solutions, and contrasts collaborative Silicon Valley thinking with zero-sum corporate incentives like those in investment banking. Building lasting, respectful relationships matters more than winning a single deal.
Chapters
So as you heard in my intro, I went to Stanford undergrad and I went to business school. And in business school, I took this class called Negotiation. And I graduated from Stanford Business School— I'm having my 30th reunion this year. So it was a super long time ago. So the fact that I can even remember that I went to business school at this point is sort of fascinating. But I really remember this class called Negotiation. And it was kind of one of those classes that really changed my life. Because for a lot of people, when you say negotiation, they think, I win, you lose, or you win, I lose, and it's awful, and it's combative, and it's aggressive, and it's, you know, there's a lot of negative connotations with the word negotiation. Well, when I took this class, it totally changed my understanding of that, because what the professor said on the first day, he said, negotiation is the art and process of finding the maximal intersection of mutual need. OK. So I'm going to say that again because it's really important. OK. It's— negotiation is the art and process of finding the maximal intersection of mutual need. That's super important because the whole concept of negotiation is not— now, sometimes it's a used car and it's a limited transaction. It's I have something, you want something, and all my only goal in life is to get the most money out of you. The vast majority of the negotiations you will do in life will be with people that you will continue to have to work with. And so the I win, you lose, or you win, I lose mentality is not a very good way to enter most negotiations, because you will be dealing with these people over and over and over again. If you can prove yourself as a person who sits down and says, okay, you have needs, I have needs, we're now gonna negotiate, and my goal is to try to make both of us as much better off as possible, you are going to come up with creative things that the other person didn't think of to solve their needs. And that's a really important thing. And this is also an important thing about when you approach a negotiation. When you approach a negotiation, if you think the only thing that that other person can give you is what you've already thought about that they can give you, right, you're very limiting, right? How can I possibly know what resources you might have In your entire spectrum of life. How might I not— how might I know who you know, what you know, whether you have a different way of getting to the airport, whether you have a connection somewhere, whether you speak Italian and we're going on a business trip to Italy? I don't know all those things, right? I only know what I already know about you. And so how you frame what you're looking for in a negotiation Is the more tightly you frame it, the more you say, I need a dollar from you, right? Okay, you either have the dollar or you don't. But if I say, I need to— I'm going to get a parking ticket out there. Can you help me? You might say, I have a dollar here. Or you might say, I need a car for half an hour. Can I just go drive your car somewhere? Or you might have some other solution to my problem. But if I didn't let you help me by giving you a deeper understanding of what my needs are that I'm trying to solve, You don't have the opportunity to do that and I don't have the opportunity to do that either. This is one of the things I also think is one of the wonderful things about entrepreneurship and the Valley. I'll just say it as a side point because I get asked a lot of questions about women helping women and that sort of thing. And there are some people who say, oh, women don't help women. And I was in investment bank and the women all ripped each other to shreds and all that kind of stuff. And I've come to realize that one of the great things about entrepreneurship is We all believe that we're making pies. We're making pies out of nothing, right? We are making pies and building and growing pies, and we're making them bigger. And so I think there's a general attitude among people in Silicon Valley that if I help you and you help me, the world gets bigger for both of us, right? The thing that we output is bigger. The problem with some of the careers I've just described— banking management, management consulting, investment banking— to name a few. You can tell I'm kind of not a fan of those. There are some wonderful management consultants and investment bankers. But I would say that one of the things I've seen about those roles is they hire 10 people and you kind of all know that only one of you is going to get promoted, right? They hire 10, they've got a slot for one. What incentive on earth would you have to help other people if that's the environment you put yourself in, right? If I help you and you get recognized and you get promoted, I lose. So I really feel that this is also an opportunity that is more broadly experienced in entrepreneurial endeavors than it is necessarily in corporations. But I would just encourage you, if you always go in, if you become known as the person who's always trying to find that bigger solution, and in fact, if you are that person and you find bigger solutions over time, your life will get better as well. So I just would encourage you to approach negotiations this way. And remember, I can tell you this from my perspective, how many times you run into the same people over and over again, and how you dealt with them last time, and whether you were respectful or not, and whether you were proactive or not, and whether you were honest or not, is gonna come back. So I just believe in, in take every negotiation on with the attitude that you are gonna work with that person again.
