Afford Anything - The Hidden Tax of Avoiding Tough Conversations, with Harvard Law Senior Fellow Bob Bordone

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

#591: Imagine you're about to ask your boss for a raise. Your stomach tightens. You've rehearsed what to say, but doubt creeps in. Should you be more assertive? More understanding of company constraints? Bob Bordone, who has taught negotiation for 25 years including 21 years at Harvard Law School, joins us to explain why you don't have to choose between empathy and assertiveness. In fact, combining them is key to successful negotiations. "It might feel like a tension, but it's not an actual one," Bordone explains. "I can fully appreciate what you're feeling without ever giving anything up in a negotiation." Bordone breaks down his three-part preparation framework: Mirror work: Identify the different sides of yourself in a negotiation — the empathic side that understands company constraints, the assertive side that knows you deserve recognition, and perhaps an anxious side worried about finances. Chair work: Give each side a voice through role-playing exercises, literally sitting in different chairs to embody each perspective. Table work: Bring these voices into the actual negotiation in an authentic way that doesn't make the other person feel attacked. He also introduces fascinating concepts like "conflict recognition" — how quickly we perceive something as a conflict — and "conflict holding" — our comfort with leaving conflicts unresolved. These differences often cause relationship problems when we're unaware of them. "My best friend and I might debate over Flaming Hot Cheetos for 25 minutes. For me, with high conflict recognition, it's completely fun. I go home and sleep like a baby," Bordone says. "For someone with low conflict recognition, they might think, 'That was horrible. Did I hurt the relationship?'" When someone tries to shut down your request with policy ("that's just how we do things here"), Bordone recommends what he calls the "Wizard of Oz tactic" — asking a few more questions rather than immediately accepting defeat. The skills you develop asking for a raise transfer to other challenging conversations — from family inheritance discussions to political disagreements with colleagues. Bordone emphasizes that conflict isn't something to avoid but rather a normal part of relationships. The question isn't whether we'll have conflict, but how we handle it when it inevitably arrives. Resources Mentioned Book: Conflict Resilience Web: BobBordone.com Timestamps: Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising run times. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths. (00:00) Introduction to Bob Bordone (02:35) Contentious times vs 25 years ago (04:26) Negotiation vs facilitation vs conflict resolution (05:56) Key negotiator skills (08:35) Empathy meets assertiveness (11:22) Mirror work explained (15:58) Chair work technique (19:58) Table work strategies (24:10) Role-playing in preparation (31:44) Rights, power, interests framework (35:39) Conflict recognition vs conflict holding (42:22) Handling power imbalances (50:13) "Difficult people" reconsidered For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode591 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode is about the art of making your boss want to give you a raise. Our guest today is Bob Bordone, one of the world's leading experts in negotiation and conflict resolution. Bob taught at Harvard Law School for more than 20 years as a clinical professor of law. While there, he founded the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program before going on to launch his own consulting practice. Currently, Bob's a senior fellow at Harvard Law School, the founder of the Cambridge Negotiation Institute, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. In today's conversation, Bob shares practical techniques that you can use immediately, whether you're asking for a raise, resolving conflict inside your family, or dealing with

tough coworkers. You'll learn his three-part preparation framework. You'll understand the difference between conflict recognition and conflict holding, and you're going to understand why empathy and assertiveness are not at odds with one another. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything, every choice carries a tradeoff, and that applies to your time, money, focus, and energy. The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship, double eye fire. And today's episode focuses on that first

letter I, increasing your income, specifically as we deep dive with one of the world's leading negotiation experts on how you can get a raise. Bob has written multiple books on negotiation and his latest book, Conflict Resilience, is fascinating. He co-authored it with a neurologist. With Bob's expertise, he talks about the psychology and tactics of negotiation and conflict resolution. And then, from his co-author's point of view, he talks about the neurology of negotiation. And so this week, we're doing something very special. We have interviews with both authors separately.

So today you're going to hear from Bob. And in our next episode, coming out on Friday, episode 592, you're going to hear from his co-author. So today is totally the tactics and psychology of getting a raise, buying a house, buying a car, handling any kind of tough negotiation or conflict. Starting with whether or not you even recognize that as conflict or not, because some people have a high conflict recognition threshold and others have a low one. We'll talk all about that in this upcoming interview. So that's today. and then later this week, we'll dig into all of this but from the neurological perspective. With all of that said, enjoy the interview.

Bob, how long have you taught negotiation? I think we're going on a quarter of a century, Paul, at 25 years, 21 years full-time at Harvard Law School. And then for the past five years, mostly executive education, working in all sorts of corporate and nonprofit environments, and also still doing some adjunct teaching the last few years at Georgetown Law School. So since you've been in this game for 25 years, are we living in more contentious times now than we were 25 years ago? So I think the sad answer to that question is yes, although I also think that there is a perception that we're in a lot more contention than we were a quarter of century ago. And I'm not sure that's true. What I think is true is that our capacity to handle those differences in conflict. is significantly lower now than it was a quarter of a century ago. And that seems troubling to me

and in many respects, a real impetus for the work that I've been really trying to do for the past five years since I left Harvard Law School. But so the work that you do, can you clarify it for me because you teach negotiation and yet the class that you taught at Harvard Law, at least one of them, was called the lawyer as facilitator. So already I'm seeing a distinction here between negotiation and facilitation. And then in reading more about your work, it seems as though you do a lot in conflict resolution

and also conflict resilience. What are the differences between all of these and what are the similarities? Sure, yeah. It's a little bit of a word jumble, I think, for kind of the average person who's just like, I need a raise or I'm in a dispute with my boss.

But I could say this, right? So what I think of negotiation, sometimes I think what comes to mind is something that happens between the president and Congress or maybe when you're buying or selling a car or maybe when you are asking for a raise. And those are all negotiations that fall into something that we would broadly call dealmaking. But another domain of negotiation is when we are in disagreement with each other, who needs to do the dishes, whose fault is it that the conference went poorly? So conflict resolution is, I would say, a subset of negotiation.

Then you asked about facilitation. So facilitation is really a process by which some third party helps people who are in conflict or who are trying to reach a deal actually get to that deal. And there's a big then diagram of overlap in terms of skills. And then there are some skill sets that are, I think, distinct to, each of those particular processes. At the 30,000 foot view level, what are the skills needed to be a good negotiator and what are the skills needed to be a good facilitator?

And really where I'm going with this question is, if I want to get a raise, right? If I want to go to my boss and say, give me an extra 10 grand, what are the skills that I need to do it? Yeah. So if you are getting a raise, if you want more vacation or benefits, that is purely in negotiation land because you are advocating for yourself. It's a process by which you are trying to influence someone's choice. I would say one of the most counterintuitive but critical skills for great negotiators are good listeners.

Really deep listeners, people who have a deep sense of curiosity about the perspective of the other. And here's why. Because to be a great negotiator, you need to frame choices for the other side that are easy for them to say yes to, that are attractive. for them to say yes to. And the best way to be able to do that is to understand them. And the more curious you are, the better listener you are, the more you'll know how they think, because you get them speaking. And that helps you frame how do I kind of make this best choice for them. So listening, number one, over the top. By the way, that's also true for facilitation. Second really important skill, though, I would say, is being able to advocate for yourself and to be able to advocate in

an effective way, your full set of interests. So when I say full set, at one level, right, you want to raise, and that's really important. But underlining that, right, might be promotion, issues of status, financial security, maybe thinking about increasing rents, maybe wanting to be set up for a new position in the organization. And so being able to kind of advocate effectively for that wide set of underlying interests is the second really important skill in negotiation. And then I could go on and on, but I'll give you one more. And that it's really related to listening, but it's perspective taking. The ability to kind of view the world from the perspective of the person you're trying to influence. And I think a

really common error that people make in negotiation is that they think it's about leverage. it's about who has more power and it is certainly a way to get what you want by using leverage it's just not the most effective way because if I use my leverage against you on Monday and I get what I want how are you feeling on Tuesday

and Wednesday you don't like me very much and then you're going to be spending time trying to get leverage on me for next time but if I understand what's important to you and then I can frame a choice in a way that's attractive to you then we're both getting what

we want, that helps build long-term interest and create value. So you mentioned two things. You talked about deep listening, but you also talked about advocating for yourself. There are some who would say that empathy is at odds with assertiveness. Yeah. One of the things we talk about is making this distinction between empathy and assertiveness. And I would actually say that it might be an experienced tension, but it's not an actual one, meaning that I can fully appreciate what you're feeling, why you see the world the way you do, what's important to you,

without ever giving anything up in a negotiation or a conflict. Assertiveness is simply my ability to advocate for what's important to me. We confuse empathy with sympathy or giving something up because we feel sorry for somebody. And that's not really what empathy is. There's actually a lot of research around this, right? folks who are both empathic and assertive tend to get better outcomes in negotiations. One of the things in the work that I do is we often notice that people tend to fall more

into one or the other bucket. There are people using your example of asking for a raise, right? I mean, people, there are some people who will be up, you know, nights on end stressed about this, right? What if they say no? Like, oh, my gosh, am I being too bold? like maybe I don't deserve this and oh I could see their poor boss is pressed or the organization you know has a hiring freeze and how could I do this and so they're very empathic but they're losing

sight of the fact that they've been there for five years and there are cost of living increases then there are other people I think I wouldn't call them assertive they're kind of aggressive but they're just like yeah take it or leave it this is what I should get and I deserve it and so part of the skill in being effective in both negotiation and in conflict is actually there's a both and there. You can put forward your own needs and you could also embrace the needs of the other and then frame that as a shared problem. What do we do about that? How do we move forward? Right. But there's the internal and external element. It's easy for me to see how externally, sure, a person can be both empathic and assertive, but I can also see how internally, the more

empathic I am to someone's perspective, the more I can really see things from their perspective, the point where I can argue their side better than they can, it actually then causes me to doubt my own position. So it isn't that I'm failing to be externally assertive. It's that my conviction of my own position internally has weakened. Yeah, this is such a huge challenge. It's like, oh, this is disappointing. But I think precisely for the point you're making, Paula, which is typically for most of us,

there is some side of us that can see the perspective of the other. As human beings, we want to feel connected, right? And we want to be empathic. And then there's another side of us that still feels like I have needs and I deserve this. I think the task is, is, and it's going to vary for individual people, to actually hold on to both. So if you're somebody whose tendency is to lose yourself in that process of empathy,

the work you need to do is giving that assertive side, that legitimate side that maybe wants to say no, more voice. And this may seem like a mind trick, but I don't think it is. it's actually saying this side also needs empathy. The side of you that says, yeah, I don't really want to work seven days a week for the next month. Or it really isn't okay that I haven't gotten a raise in three years. That side of you deserves as much empathy as the boss telling you that they're pressed or your colleague saying that they really need off the next three weekends. And so doing the kind of internal work to both name those different voices inside yourself,

the side of you that knows you deserves it, the side of you that also wants to be a people pleaser, and then saying these each need to be a part of the negotiation and the conversation because if I just pre-silence my own needs, then yeah, you're not going to get the race. your empathic side is going to override the other side, and you're ultimately going to be left disappointed with yourself. And so a lot of coaching work that I do is helping people amplify that side of themselves that kind of knows that they do deserve it, but can get doubt maybe because of their family of origin,

maybe because of cultural issues, maybe personality-wise. They tend to be someone who just wants to make others happy, or they were taught, maybe the role they played in their family was that you're always the one who's the mediator and the problem solver. So they're solving everyone else's problems, except there's that side of them that still knows they need something, and that problem isn't solved. Right.

You mentioned that then that's the work that they would need to do. How tactically, actionably, does a person do that work? I mean, what are the elements of actual practice? Yes. So a lot of this starts before you get to the proverbial negotiation table. We have this kind of three-part preparation, if you will, called mirror work, chairwork, and tablework. And the mirror work is we've been talking about so far. Like, how do I give names to each of the sides of myself that are in play in this particular conflict, which can be a salvely. renegotiation. It could be, though, how do I say no to somebody? And by mirror, what we're trying to get people to do is give themselves an kind of accurate reflection of each of these sides. Accurate, what I mean is, I think, again, by dint often of like our upbringing or maybe a family role we played or a personality, we can sometimes have these kind of, what I call

a circus mirror. You know how like these new or something. you go and they kind of distort you and they make you look super long, you know, or super skinny or do some weird things to your face. And it's not really accurate. And so part of this, I think, involves both writing out, almost creating different seats or chairs for each of these identities or stories. The side of you that maybe feels like asking for something is selfish. The side of you that feels like asking for something is being cruel. The side of you that also feels like you, you've worked pretty darn hard. And so you lay them all out.

And then the second piece is the chair work. And we use the work. Yeah, stop. Yeah, good. So what you're saying then with a mirror work is that there are different elements of you. So you, version A in no particular order, is that side of you that thinks that making this request is selfish, especially if you know that the company is struggling and you have a hiring freeze.

So side of view A is that side. Side of view B is the side that knows that you're working really hard and feels like you want some recognition for that. Side of you C is the side of you that is really anxious because we live in these inflationary times. And so these aren't necessarily opposing sides. They're simply multifaceted sides. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And sometimes they might be opposing or feel opposing, but the fact that they feel or might be opposing doesn't make them any less real or legitimate. I think the mistake that happens, depending on who you are as a person, but folks who really struggle with the assertiveness piece, pre-shut down the side that says I've worked really hard here.

And they overamplify the empathy side and the anxiety side. and then they don't ask. Or they think, until I can somehow resolve all three of these, it's too confusing to actually have the negotiation. Like, I need to be certain. And I think the mirror work is actually saying, yeah, you are certain. Each of these is real. And you can bring each of them into the conversation.

And in fact, that's often a good opening into the conversation. So what is the purpose then of doing that mirror work? Is it simply to recognize the multi-dimensional elements that comprise you? It is both to recognize them and also to, I would say, depolarize them or judge them because, just to take them for what they are.

Because I think that where we get stuck in assertiveness is that we are kind of vaguely aware of all the pressures the boss has and wanting to be seen as a good person. Then maybe we muster the courage like, you know, for a nanosecond to say, like, maybe I could get a raise this year. You know, it's like, you're all, like, for three weeks thinking about this, and then that's the way you start the negotiation. And then of course, that's not going to work. And then you go home

and feel bad. But if we've kind of done that pre-work of naming each of these sides, of giving some sense of, yeah, that's actually okay. That's legit. It gives us some more power, I think, some more kind of psychological safety and certainty to actually bring that forward into the room confidently. And that's really what the prep work is about. All right. So that is the mirror work. That's the mirror work. Yeah. Mirror is one of three elements. It's the first of three elements. Yeah. So the second piece, right, which is what we call chairwork, is still part of preparation. And what it is now that I kind of have identified, we can continue to use our example, right, our three different sides here. The side that kind of feels bad for the boss and wants to be a people

pleaser. The side that also knows you've worked really, really hard and just on the merits deserve a raise. And then the side that is actually just feeling anxious about being able to pay the bills. The chair work is literally, and when we really recommend this, and I actually do this when I coach, I'll say, let's set up three chairs. The physicality of it, I think, is really powerful. And I want you to go back and forth in each of these chairs and have the chairs have a conversation with each other. And sometimes people look at you like, oh, okay, that's weird. Can I just like do it in this chair? And I'm like, you know, you can. But I want to encourage you to do the chairs because there's something about the physicality that forces each of those chairs to actually get a voice. And that

voice, I think, is, well, does two things, right. I think it's confidence building. It's also really diagnostic because what I'll sometimes see is, for example, just again, to continue with our example, the empathy chair might start to silence the you worked hard chair. Well, you worked hard, but you know what? You could wait another six months. And they'll be like, okay, no, get up and sit. I want the assertive chair to respond to the empathy chair. What? I just wanted to respond.

And they'll be like, I've been waiting for four years. So that kind of work, I think, just builds that confidence level up and set you up for the next step. Right. Basically, the chair exercise then is almost an acting improv exercise in which each side of you gets broken out into a caricature. Absolutely. A one-dimensional caricature. Yes. And then you just embody that one-dimensional caricature when you're sitting in that particular chair.

Yes. So you can fully embody it. Amen. That is it. Wow. That is it. I think it's really empowering. And as I said,

diagnostic for people. Because, again, folks who struggle with that a servantess piece get a little window onto what's hard about it. And I think it helps them realize, like, yeah,

this side doesn't sound crazy. Could this exercise work, let's say the, could you do it in a group? Like, do you yourself have to play all three elements of yourself? Or could you play one element and then have two other people who are embodying the other two caricatures.

Yeah, I mean, great question. In the dream world, if you have a team of people who could help you on this, it's so much better. I mean, and I've been very fortunate in some of the kind of executive coaching work that I've been able to do where we can have a team. Or even sometimes, right, I'll jump into one of the chairs and I'll be like, okay, I'm going to be, you stay in your little empathic one, and I'm going to go and be assertive you, right? And we can really have a conversation. And that, I think, is a wonderful way to prepare. I think you can do it on your own.

And most of us maybe don't necessarily have at hand, you know, a set of people. But if you have that, take advantage of it, for sure. Yeah. I can imagine that that way, if you take a turn in each one of those chairs with two other people embodying, then you get a chance. Like when you're, say we've got these three dimensions of us, right? There's the side of you, the empathic side of you that understands that you work for a company that's struggling and you feel bad for your boss and you feel bad for the company and you know that the company doesn't have a lot of money. And that's the empathic side of you.

You've got the assertive side of you who's like, look, I work hard and I feel like I've earned it. And then you've got the anxious side of you that's worried about macroeconomic conditions. And it's so easy, as you mentioned, as you mentioned, you're going to be. the other sides to shout down one of them, I could see that in a roleplay actually happening. And so if you've got these other people in the room, then you could actually experience those other sides shouting down the one side and then experience what it's like to fight through that. Amen. I mean, that is exactly right. My background and training, as we said in the beginning, is in law. But at some point in my teaching, we entered into a collaboration with a bunch

of family therapists at the Cambridge Family Institute. And I found that experience to be really transformative for the way I think about my work and the way people show up or don't show up in conflict and negotiation settings. Actually, this really interesting internal family systems piece of this work that we're talking about here, which is why I think identifying these different sides.

And then if you have this opportunity to bring others in to help you with this, I think it just helps to, I'm going to use this word, depolarize the kind of negative valence that certain of these identities sometimes have for people. The kind of identity of maybe asserting for yourself

that was just kind of coded as being a troublemaker, or it's not okay, or as not caring for the others in the family. Or on the other side, just we've focused, a lot here on the person who isn't that assertive, but maybe on the person who struggles with the empathy piece or is extremely aggressive, in some situations, right, people grow up and it's

like, if you don't stand up for yourself, you're a nobody. And if you show a little bit of care or concern, you're going to take advantage of. And so realizing that you can't be a super effective negotiator if all you do is plow through people all the time. You can't in a moment, maybe you get the race, but guess what? Your boss is like, this person's a pain. I don't really want them around. And doing this work, I think, of the chairs. I love the idea of bringing other people in is such critically important.

Just one last thing I'll say about this, because I'm imagining at least some of your listeners is like, who has time for this? Like, I got three kids to go to basketball practice, whatever else, shovel the snow. And what I would just say to that is, are you going to do this for every single negotiation in your life? Probably not. But if it's something like a raise that's been haunting you, if it's important negotiation with maybe your spouse over where you're spending the holidays, which, by the way, is a negotiation. And it's important to you and you get into a fight over it every single year, yeah, it might be worth the prep. It might actually, in the long run, be a time saver for you to do this. the prep work. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just

fast and efficient. They're also powered by the latest in payments technology built to evolve with your business. Fifth Third Bank has the big bank muscle to handle payments for businesses of any size. But they also have the FinTech hustle that got them named one of America's most innovative companies by Fortune magazine. That's what being a fifth third better is all about. It's about not being just one thing, but many things for our customers. Big Bank muscle, FinTech Hustle. That's your commercial payments, a fifth-third better. The holidays are right around the corner, and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared. Maybe you need bedding, sheets, linens. Maybe you need servware and cookware. And of course, holiday decor, all the

stuff to make your home a great place to host during the holidays. You can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale. Wayfair has Can't Miss Black Friday deals all month long. I use Wayfair to get lots of storage type of items for my home, so I got tons of shelving that's in the entryway, in the bathroom, very space-saving. I have a daybed from them that's multi-purpose. You can use it as a couch, but you can sleep on it as a bed.

It's got shelving. It's got drawers underneath for storage. But you can get whatever it is you want, no matter your style, no matter your budget. Wayfair has something for everyone. plus they have a loyalty program, 5% back on every item across Wayfair's family of brands, free shipping, members-only sales, and more terms apply. Don't miss out on early Black Friday deals. Head to Wayfair.com now to shop Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off.

That's W-A-Y-F-A-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. Okay, the first step of the prep work is that mirror work. The second step is the chair work, which we've just discussed. What is the third step? And the third step is the tablework, which is the actual doing of it. So we say the proverbial table, meaning I'm now going to go into the conversation. What that really entails, I mean, I would say the simplest way to talk about this is

what is an opening that can bring together all three chairs in this case? In a way that is authentic and inviting and draws the boss into a conversation that doesn't, make them feel up against the wall or attacked. And the simplest way, I mean, just the simplest way to do that, and this is how chairwork can often bleed right in the tablework, is to just give a voice to each of the chairs. So just to play out an example, this example with you, I might say, there's a side of me that's incredibly hesitant to raise this with you, dear boss, because I know that we've been struggling here this fiscal year. There's another sign of me that feels that's quite important and appropriate. And frankly, there's just an economic reality side

that I'm considering is making my own life quite challenging. And I wonder if we could have this conversation or something like that. I mean, maybe I could have phrased it a little better there, but maybe a little bit more succinctly. But the naming of the ambivalence as an opening is both more authentic. There's nothing weak about that. If the boss says, you're right, we have economic problems and I'm sorry, you can't afford the eggs. doesn't take away from the, yeah, but there's still the side of me that has to meet these things. So we together, dear boss, have to figure out a way to be sensitive to the economic realities you're facing, the economic realities I'm facing.

And what I just think would be kind of fair, given the benchmarks I've made or the KPIs I've earned, whatever it might be. Right. And then, you know, then it goes from there, right? So then it's like, how do I make sure I've done the work to, understand what the norms or, you know, the criteria might be for the right salary. How do I listen appropriately to what the boss might be putting forward? How do I be creative about some outcomes that might work? Which doesn't mean, so I think really importantly, that like you leave this

either with the raise or without the raise. It might be much more creative than that. I mean, it might be a little raise now and something down the road. It might be some flexible time to do some other work. It might be one or two things that you've agreed to over the next three months that are going to happen and then you will get the raise. But you want to leave the room with some sense of knowing what's going to happen next, not just the boss got you out of the room and you have some idea that you can come back in six months. That's not a good outcome. Right. And so when you get to the table giving voice to all of these different facets of you actually enhances that conversation. It does, yeah.

And then, of course, you want to make space for them, right? Very context specific. But one of the things from a boss perspective is you probably haven't thought as hard about it as the employee, because you have a bunch of employees. You may, a boss sometimes has like some one-liners. Things are pressed come back in six months. You do fabulous work, but if I give this to you, everyone else is going to be knocking on my door. You know, that's not how we typically do things here.

No one's getting a raise. All of those kinds of, I call them one-liners, are designed to skedaddle you out of the room. And this is where both the empathy and the assertiveness piece come together. They're married. When the boss says something like, if I give you the raise, everybody else is going on a race. The empathy move is, so one real worry here

is that this is going to create an avalanche of problems for you. That's the empathy move. Yes, you got it. And then you say, yeah, I could appreciate that would be challenging. At the same time, it feels to me like for any number of reasons that you would list out,

like I'm still deserving of some salary adjustment here, I wonder what we can do that would actually help me both sets of those concerns. Maybe this is the better example to your earlier question, Paul, of how do you combine the empathy and the assertiveness? Right. You take in what they're saying. You don't fight what they're saying. You don't say that's unimportant. If you were the boss, it would be important. Right. It doesn't take away the legitimacy of what you're saying. How do we try to find something that actually does both of these things. That's the shared problem. And then it's us against the problem. Yeah. Right. You got it. Then it's not you versus me. It's us against the problem.

Yeah. You mentioned something earlier. You were talking about interests. People have different sets of interests. And then you contrasted that with power. A lot of times people will try to flex their power in a situation. And so I was wondering if you could talk about how rights, power and interest, how all of those things play together in a conversation like this? Sure. None of the three of those things can be eliminated in any kind of negotiation or any kind of conflict context. Power, right, really, I mean, there's lots of articles that have been written on power negotiation. And my own definition of it, right, is a really simple one, which is it's the ability to persuade. And, but I think a more traditional way of thinking about power is my ability to force you to do

something. And people who are in positions of power, often because of they have more money or they're the boss or they can use physical force in some ways and will often use that power to get their way. The problem with that is it often leaves a lot of value on the table. Interests in kind of our negotiation speak are what are the underlying needs or concerns of the parties? The things that really matter to them. And when we're able to shift a negotiation away from power and toward interests, usually that enables some more value creation. So if it's just about, I asked you for a raise, I have a lot, you know, I have too many demands. I'm going to have too many people knocking in my door. The answer is no. I guess the person with the power ends it. And the answer is no.

Now, the reality, though, is that the employee probably has some power. If they're highly valued, do good work, they can always walk away, but in that moment, they don't have so much power. But the beauty of the empathy is certainness mix is if I can get you to talk about the interest, embrace your interest, which in this case is not set a bad precedent and have 20 other employees asking for a raise, and you can appreciate my interest, which is simply getting an appropriate increase in my pay, that opens up a completely different conversation. Now, your third thing you asked about is rights.

So now we're in like kind of more of a legal land. I would say not legal land. But usually I would say rights come up in conflict or negotiation scenarios as a way to check abuses of power. So in an employment context, right, I may have so much power that I can force you to not take a lunch, not take a break, work 12 hours a day. But at some point, I'm probably violating some labor loss. And so now I'm going to take a rights-based approach to stop your abuse of power. And maybe I'm going to call an HR. Maybe I'm going to file a lawsuit or go to the EEOC, the Equal Employment Appropriment,

opportunity commission. So just from a conflict perspective and a negotiation perspective, as much as possible for the good of all parties, we want people to be thinking about how do I bring forward my interests, because that opens the most capacity for creating joint value and building better relationships. But that is a harder and harder thing to do and higher conflict and lower trust environment that we are tending to see more and more in our country and our workplaces and our schools. You mentioned that we are in a higher conflict and lower trust environment more so now than ever before.

One element of that is that there are some differentiation around what even constitutes a conflict. There are some people who would view a given exchange as a conflict, while others would view that same exchange as not a conflict. And there are also those who, by viewing that exchange as a conflict, they would then react by either being combative or by being avoidant, whereas others would not. Can you talk about that element of all of this? Yeah, I love this question. This is one of the fun areas that my co-author and I exported in our own collaboration. So let me first of all say what we mean by this. At the level of what do we mean? mean by a conflict. It sounds terrible and horrible, but we really just think of conflict is when

people are not seeing eye to eye, when people have differences. And I want to frame it in that kind of lower level because I want to try to normalize conflict as something that is actually a healthy part of life. We didn't name the book, Conflict Resolution, and we didn't name the book Conflict Avoidance. We named it Resilions because we think that part of being. with other people and working with them in a family and an organization means conflict. So the issue isn't whether we're going to have this, but how do we deal with it? So that's the first thing I would just say. Within that range, though, I would say, of differences, we have different sensibilities

of when our brains go into a panic, when we kind of feel this heightened sense of like, this is not just us talking about differences, but this is. something that's going to the relationship, something that is eviscerating the trust. And we have different conflict tolerance. And we have different conflict, what we call, conflict recognition levels. Right. Meaning that. So I have a very high conflict recognition level.

Like you and me, Paula, we might, I don't know, pick some topic. Okay. Cheetos. Chitos. Are flaming hot Cheetos better or worse than regular Cheetos? Yeah. Really dislike flaming hot Cheetos, right? I love flaming hot Cheetos.

Yeah. All right. And we could go out this and it might be the case. So for me, because I have a high conflict recognition, I might go out this for 25 minutes. I think it's completely fun. That was such a great conversation. I go home to sleep like a baby. Right.

For you, I don't know you, but for someone like, like for my co-author. Right. He'd be like, oh my gosh. That was horrible. Terrible. Terrible. He doesn't share my views on Flaming Hot Cheetos. Yeah.

And I might have heard the relationship by doing this. that like Bob fought so hard like I don't even know like is he going to want to have dinner on Friday how are we going to continue to collaboration I'm like that was wicked fun right he's like oh my gosh that was awful I can't sleep in night right and so that's conflict recognition yeah yeah conflict recognition right then there's the moment of what happens when it is registering for me or anybody as a conflict what is our ability to stick to with or stay with that, which we call conflict holding. So what's interesting about me is you and I could have our Cheetos debate for a long time

and it could be fierce. But as long as I'm not feeling like that was a relationally damaging level of conflict, I'm in. As soon as I feel like for me, oh my gosh, like she was really offended her dad invented surprise. Play about Cheetos. I was like, I invented her family. Now for me, my, this is that something I need to work on, right?

My conflict holding is pretty low. I suddenly go into apology mode and relationship building mode. And you might go home and have like sent from Uber Eats, like mounds of flaming hot Cheetos. I mean, if my family invented flaming hot Cheetos, then it's an attack on identity. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's even worse, right? And that identity thing is the kind of thing that for me might trigger, oh, now we're in a sense. We are really in a real big conflict here.

And my holding ability, one of the things we've often seen is that parties, relationships can fall apart because we're not sensitive or aware that our conflict recognition and holding levels are different. That in itself sometimes could be a really healthy and good conversation. when I was in high school, my best friends and I were going up to a trip in Montreal, and we got into this big fight. It was two in the morning, and we were still fighting. And all he kept on saying is, can we just talk about this in the morning? Like, why are we having this fight? And I was like, no, how could you possibly even think about going to sleep with this major conflict going on, right?

And he literally left the room because we heard, you know, kids, we were like sharing. a hotel room and didn't come back to the morning. But I think a lot of that had to do with my own low conflict holding and that discomfort that I had in letting it go unresolved. I felt for the things to be right, it needed to be patched over. And now, I don't think I'm perfect at this by any stretch of the imagination, but becoming more conflict resilient is being able to be like, you know what? Like, that was kind of rough.

It's a little bit uncomfortable. And, like, this relationship is more durable than that. It could live with this kind of conflict. And strong, better relationships should be able to live with some degree of disagreement and conflict and not fall apart. Right. Okay. So just to make sure I'm understanding the terminology correctly. So conflict recognition is the recognition of whether or not this constitutes

a conflict in the first place, and people have either low or high thresholds for that. Conflict holding is comfort with that conflict remaining unresolved, and people have high or low thresholds for that. Correct. And those are independent variables. Yes. And so is there an optimal place to be? Is there a statistical average that we should all be aiming for? Yeah, definitely the answer to that is no. I think what we do say, so we have these diagnostic quizzes to kind of help measure your own both recognition and holding levels. I think that one of the things we would say, well, two things we would say. One is that wherever you are at, there's ability for growth, where I would say growth would mean being able to kind of sit in the heat of the disagreement more. So, because sometimes people say,

just can't, I hate, I'm so uncomfortable, I can't handle conflict. And it's like, well, you could still improve with some intentional practice. The second thing I would just say, though, and I think this is probably the more important piece, is the awareness of these differences between us, give us another domain for how to talk about, how we will talk about the hard things together. So we use this example of two siblings who have these unproductive fights over political differences where the sister kind of shuts down immediately and then the brother kind of thinks like well she obviously just gave up and knows I'm right but that's actually not what's happening what's happening is the brother isn't recognizing that the way he's doing this is creating

such a level of discomfort and high conflict for the sister that she's thinking, I can't handle this. And the sad thing about it is that both of them would actually like to have a conversation about this political difference. So giving them the language to talk about the ways they're experiencing the conversation also gives them a way to have the conversation in a different way that then allows them to sit with the discomfort of disagreement and actually engage the issues more. Does that make sense? Right. How would you go about this when there is a power and balance between the two parties, such as a boss with an employee?

Yeah. So this is a really a tough one. But I think part of what I would say is if there's like a certain dynamic that comes up a lot, and there's a power dynamic as well. But maybe it's a way in which we are experiencing each other. I think that the employee needs to find some way to kind of reach out to the boss in a very direct way and ask for some time. And not to be mysterious about it, but this is a both and aspect to it. Ask for some of the boss's time even?

Or ask. Ask for some of the boss's time to actually discuss the dynamic that they're experiencing. So maybe it's, I'm just making this up, right? Maybe it's an experience of every time we have a meeting, I feel like we have 20 minutes scheduled, but half of that time you're like looking at your texts. You're like fiddling around, you're like glancing over there for the email.

And I find that challenging and hard and disrespectful. I might not say disrespectful actually. But I find a challenging and hard. But so the dynamic is, My boss is doing this thing that's really annoying. It makes me feel like really small. And there's a power dynamic there. But it doesn't mean the employee can't talk about this.

The employee has to actually carve out sometime when the dynamic isn't happening and talk about this observed dynamic. And one of the things we talk about is framing it very much as an observation. One thing I noticed when we meet often is your texts are going off, your email is going off. there's lots of things happening. And then again, not to be a broken record, this is where I think both empathy and assertiveness come in. It's just not around salary.

It's around something different. It's, I'm curious for you, if that's something you're aware of and what your experience of it is. What's it like for you? Yeah, I can barely focus at all. Like, you have no idea how exhausting this job is, right? Whatever they're going to say.

Or, you know, that's just life being the boss. That's another thing I might say. being the boss, right? Whatever it is, but if they say it's like being the boss, more empathy. Well, what is that like? Then the second piece is whatever they say, like being the boss, I'm so sorry, I'm busy a lot of the time, just trying to keep up. That's the assertiveness piece. Here's how I experience it, sometimes as distracting, sometimes as wondering whether you're hearing what I'm saying or whether it's important. And I wonder how we could address the busyness you have and how hard it is for you to find 20 minutes

and also make this maximal use of my time in a way that makes me feel our meetings are worthwhile. That is harder to do in a power dynamic, but it's not impossible to do. And I think the one thing I would say, Paula, on this, is that anyone who's a good boss will see this as leadership. because I know someone who has been a boss in the past, right?

The more you go up a ladder, the less frequently, people are direct and honest with you. And really good leaders want people who will actually tell them what's going on, because you can't make good decisions otherwise. So that might lead to another question, which is like, what if my boss is a jerk? But you didn't ask that question. That's a much more complicated question. in my mind, then what if the person just has more power? All right.

So then what if your boss? I do you can ask that question. Why did I do that? If your boss is a jerk. A few things I would think about. One, so there's some diagnostic questions. Do they do behaviors of a jerk? Or do you genuinely think they're a jerk?

For many years, I taught into the exec ed program at the program on negotiation at Harvard Laws. school and they have these programs called dealing with difficult people, which I really dislike the title of it. And the reason why I dislike the title is, do I think there are difficult people in the world? I do. I think that we have a much wider set of people we call difficult that are actually not really difficult people. There are people who use difficult behaviors. And difficult behaviors are things that are telling us some need that that person has that isn't being met, and they're not skillful at putting that forward.

So you can deal with them. So first question, I mean, we could go into this probably for a long time, right? But really doing some diagnostic work of, is this truly a jerk or is this a person who is doing jerky things? If they're really like, you really feel like at some level, this is someone who maybe is clinically a narcissist. Then I think you have to really think about how do I find a way out of this situation? Maybe not tomorrow morning, but how do I look for other employment and prove my alternatives

in some way? Because long term, this isn't good for you. Right. If they just have challenging behaviors, I think they're addressable and they're probably addressable through, at the risk of being a broken record, really good listening. Because so often something that is blame or it's an attribution or it's an attack on you is a marker for feelings that they're having. Right. And if you can reflect those feelings back to them several times as a feeling instead of getting defensive, often they come down.

Are they likely to be the most skillful person? Are you going to put them in the video of all-time great impact? Catholic leaders? Probably not. But could they be worked with? Yes. And so those kinds of diagnostic questions, I think, are really important that are always being measured against what opportunities exist for you outside of this particular workplace. One of the things I just love about your podcast is it's about really empowering people. And I think just such a critical piece, if there's one thing I would want your listeners to leave with is like whether they're negotiating for a salary, negotiating for a promotion, negotiating over a real estate, low power.

You have agency. As a human being, you have legitimate interests. And if someone is in a conversation with you, whether it's they want you to work 15 hours a day, they want you to take a pay cut, they want you to have all the family holidays with their family and not yours, the fact that they're in that. interaction with you means that you have some power in that and you have some agency in that and you have some ability to speak and persuade and be heard. And anyone who tells you otherwise, right, is wrong. Foundationaling negotiation and conflict resilience is about hope. It's about

the ability to influence and persuade. And sometimes when I teach longer courses, like these two or three day executive workshops, someone in the first day will say like, well, I didn't do that. I didn't take this move because I felt I couldn't persuade them anyway or it was pointless or this is the safest thing I could do to stem my losses, right? If your attitude is about stemming your losses, right? It's like, oh my gosh, why are you in a negotiation class? This whole class is about how do I influence?

How do I persuade? How do I take my sets of interest what I know is true and the power that I have? and make something. Negotiation is about influence and persuasion and agency. Yeah. It's all of those things. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that, like, I would also just say, right, is that's why there is so much power

in disagreement and in saying no. Because whether it's in a relationship or at work, whenever I put that first no forward, all of the other yeses suddenly have some meaning because the first no means that the yeses were actually yeses. If you've been in a relationship with someone for six months and you've never had a squabble or dispute, who, not a good sign. Right?

Because it's like the mark of really strong relationships and this, I think, also goes to conflict resilience, is not how do we get along because we both like, what's it called, we're super hot Cheetos or... Oh, slimming hot Cheetos. It's how do we handle the fact that I don't like them and you do or that you're a Yankees fan and I'm a Red Sox fan or that fill in the blank. If we can work through those differences, that's a real relationship. If it's just like we agree on everything, it's nice, but I'm not sure it's the mark of a super strong relationship.

Right. You don't know if you're skilled at disagreeing with one another. Yeah. And you need that to make it work with people, right? And I think you need that even internally to be able to name the internal disagreements and be like, that's okay. It's okay that sometimes I'm generous and I have a selfish side as well and like welcome to humanity. And both of those sides need to be met and fed and are deserving. You mentioned the importance of listening.

Let's say you have a boss who is not a jerk, meaning they're not a clinical narcissist, but they do exhibit jerky behavior. And you talked about how that often is a reflection of some unmet need, and they are expressing that unmet need in a maladaptive way. And you mentioned listening as a potential solution, but doesn't that presuppose that they have the self-awareness to even know what they themselves are feeling or experiencing? Well, I'm going to give you like a partial yes on that, right? I mean, it's certainly easier if they have that capacity. I think having said that, really good listening can sometimes help people discover a little bit more of that set of needs. And I think that there's a line between your taking on the role of the unwanted therapist that they don't want. And that's definitely not what I mean to be saying here.

On the other hand, some of the listening at even just a kind of professional level can just kind of calm them down in a way that, they might not even be able to name themselves of being kind of seen or as important or valuable or maybe even the boss, right? Now, the need to be the boss probably has a bunch of other needs that we're not going to get into in the workplace, but that need can be met with some active listening that might tone down other performative behaviors that they're doing to show. you that they're the boss. Does that make sense? Right. Right. And what are your thoughts in that? I'm so curious.

Well, I think back to elements in my own life where I had certain emotional needs that were unmet. But at the time, I didn't consciously realize that the reason that I was upset was because of some bigger or deeper unmet need. So I would think that I was upset because someone cut me off in traffic or because I accidentally stepped in a puddle and now my socks are wet. I would look at the immediate irritant in front of me and think that that immediate irritant was the source of my distress and wouldn't even realize that there was actually some bigger context around it. Yeah. And I think those things do come up right in work examples. I also think that if there's some trust between like boss and employee, a little bit of that listening,

I think does advance just some self-reflection in the boss. And is something that probably most of the other team members aren't doing, which I think then builds some affiliation and some connection, even if the boss isn't like going home and journaling about that, you know, per se. But yeah, I mean, I think it's obviously very context dependent. And as in all of these choices, it's how important is this to the person who knows to do this work? Because really good listening is exhausting. Right. It takes a lot of work.

And it's not just sitting there for a few minutes and saying, ah, ha, aha, going home. You know, I mean, that doesn't take a lot of work. But again, like, I think so many of the kinds of themes that people end up having sleepless nights about, or talk to their spouse about with their boss, right? If you're thinking about it a lot, if you're talking to your friends about it a lot, if you're venting at your book club about it a lot, then there's something there that probably says

it is at least important enough to spend some more time strategizing on what you might do than just saying, oh, well, they suck. Right. And everyone says, yeah, let's get another glass of wine. I think maybe that's the invitation for the work. Is it the case that every single conflict that comes across your transept,

you should be conflict resilient and do all these things? No, you'd be a puddle, be exhausted. But is it the case that each of us should have a set of conflict resilient skills for those moments that most matter? whether it's asking for a raise, right, which is not only in the moment, but your whole retirement or future, or when I'm asking a bunch of due diligence questions before I buy a business and maybe I've asked a bunch of questions and now some surprising and concerning thing at the 11th hour comes up and I'm like, oh, well, maybe I should have said that earlier,

maybe it's too late or maybe it's not a big deal. And you're all in your head. I'm like, no, no, no. This is your moment and it's okay. And you could do it in a graceful way and an assertive way. So those are the moments taking it out of the business context. If you're meeting with your doctor about a health plan, about a course of care, and doctors are really busy, right? They'll scaddle you in and out, not because they don't care, but because they got 22 other people behind the door,

but having the assertiveness to sit there and raise the questions and know that you deserve some answers. Like those, all of those instances, or again, you know, at the personal level with a spouse or you're an aging parent about thinking about their ability to continue to live in the house or living safely.

Those are the areas where if we don't develop good conflict resilience skills and just think it'll work itself out or it'll go away, it doesn't happen. And then there's the Allen parent with five siblings that are fighting over what mom and dad would have wanted to happen because nobody actually talked to them.

Those are the areas where I think we could all, and when I say we, I very much include myself in this as someone who wrote this book and thinks a lot about this, stand to improve. We're now living in an era in which more and more communication happens digitally through email, through Slack, through WhatsApp, through any type of written asynchronous electronic messaging. How should negotiations be approached when they happen in the written form? Yeah, this is a great question. One could write a whole book about this.

And there is a lot of research around this. I would say a few things. So first, the existence of email and social media is a great boon in all sorts of ways. And certainly around negotiation, it is inevitable and necessary and helpful that we have email. You could see there's a big butt coming here. Yeah, exactly. The butt is this. At the first moment where you are getting that feeling in your stomach, that something doesn't feel right, that someone's cranky, that you're upset, that they're upset.

It is time to end the written communication. If you can get in person, if you can't at least do something video, something synchronous and spoken. And there's a whole bunch of reasons why a lot of them kind of embedded in the research, right? First of all, we actually pick up lots and lots of cues in that face-to-face interaction. And in fact, even Zoom is not as good at it. Many of us will remember at COVID. At the end of a day, you were like completely exhausted. it's actually because the pixelation is not good enough

and our brains that are looking to pick up facial cues and emotions are just lagging, they're working harder. And I want those social cues, particularly when I feel like there's some tension. Again, if you're not conflict resilient, it's really convenient to just write another email. I don't have to see them. I don't have to face their reaction, right? But that's not a good move, right?

I want to move it to like, live, real in person, right? We also know that I'm just less likely to name call you when you're in the room with me. It's just easier to write whatever that nasty thing is. The other thing that happens with the asynchronous is I take the email and who do I share it with? Do I share it with typically people who are going to say, yeah, but consider their viewpoint? Now, I share it. were my people. And they'd be like, oh, yeah, I can't believe she did that. Oh, yeah. And so it actually fester. So I would just say there's a lot of literature on like, when do we use Slack, when do we use email. And there are times when we can use it. Certainly it can drive more progress at times.

We certainly don't want to fly out to Chicago in a hotel conference room every single time we have to do anything that's extremely costly. When there's tension, when there's a sense of there's miscommunication. I want to try to not do that over email. And then, you know, the use of, like, I think about things like X and Instagram and blue sky and these are not great places to have dialogue around areas of difference, right? They're not great places to drive deeper understanding. Could we see some magical improvement of the use of these, maybe? But right now, I think that those spaces tend to be more toxic. I think they tend to not promote understanding. And then I would just say algorithms tend to kind of reinforce that poisonous polarization. And so I'll say this. One of the

reasons why I think we're less conflict resilient is because it's easier to avoid. Right. Right. It's easier to cancel. It's easier to create my cocoon of comfort in my social spaces. The algorithm will support me. And I never have to see those people who don't agree with me. But that's a loss. I actually have a couple of follow-ups. So one follow-up is I've heard from introverts who have said the reason I prefer having difficult conversations by email is because I have time to gather my thoughts. Yes. In live synchronous communication, I feel very put on the spot. I feel as though I have to come up with an answer immediately, which is the nature of a live conversation.

whereas with an asynchronous written conversation, I can absorb what's being said, I can take some time, I can think, draft my thoughts, I can revise that draft. So I've heard introverts talk about their preference for it, but framed in ways that sound,

at least to me, very positive. So that's kind of one component of the follow-up. So I've heard introverts talk about the fact that they prefer written asynchronous communication for that set of reasons, which is a set of reasons that, at least to me, sounds very positive. Yeah. So I am extremely empathic to this, and I'm going to concur in part and dissentant in part. So the thing that I want to concur with, right, is that particularly for introverts, although I would say for all of us, being able to take a pause, and be more considered is really helpful, particularly in conflict situations where there's like high emotions and we're in what we call our emotional refractory period.

That's, I think, especially true for introverts. So I want to double-click that in favor of it. Here's where I want to maybe still say, I'm empathic to the writing and out, but I think that what I would actually more encourage is taking just more time to prepare for and practice and go to go back in the room because all of the downsides that I mentioned don't go away just because a person's an introvert. So I think what that means, right, I actually think even as someone who's not introverted, frankly, I could benefit from this, is having a few prepared things to say in that moment when

And if you're an introvert, you feel overwhelmed and like you want to go under a rock. Or if you're like me, you want to go bang, bang, bang. Which is just to say, you've said a lot and I want to give it very careful consideration. So I would like to take some time and maybe we can reconvene and fill in the blank next week. I could follow up with you on a call. If we've all flown out to Chicago, I can say, can we meet in a half an hour? I need 20 minutes. That's totally legit.

And if they say, oh, we need to know right now. What are you unprepared? I am really very prepared. And part of my approach to this is just, I like to absorb some things and give it some consideration. I think those are very, very acceptable and helpful things to do. I think another thing you can do,

I actually have a colleague who is it, I would say, an extreme introvert. I love this move. It's really funny. Like, he's done this with me. Before we begin, any kind of thing that's not going to go. So I just want to let you know, Bob, that I made a pre-commitment to myself to not make any decisions today. So I'm going to listen, I'll ask some questions. I promise you I'll get back to you quickly, but I just want to say I've made this commitment to myself so that you're not disappointed or feeling it was personal or feeling anything before we even gotten into it.

So having some hacks there, I think, can help. Right. And it sounds to me as though if you know that you are negotiating with an introvert and you want to be a good counterparty who does a good job of facilitating that, setting up some process ahead of time where you say, hey, I want to make this a space where you can hold up a little card that says introvert intermission. Absolutely. I mean, if you know you're working with someone who tends to be introverted, setting up. some share norms that allow for that is great. I even would say if it's a like somewhat longer negotiation as a process rule saying something like, hey, we know we're going to be here for a few hours. I'm just making this up a little bit, but why don't we say that 10 minutes of every hour is just a chance for private caucusing and break. This way, when that happens, it doesn't even feel like something's gone wrong or just like that's what we agreed to do. And we'll both be fresh. And so I think those

kinds of things are helpful. And here's what I'm imagining without knowing that at least some of your listeners might be thinking like, well, why would I give the advantage to that person? But you're not giving an advantage. This negotiation, this conflict is a shared joint endeavor. The best outcome is going to be one that advances my interests and their interests. Right. So somehow thinking that there's a winning involved is missing the point. If their interests aren't met, because I took advantage of the fact that they're quieter or more introverted, that's just going to come home to roost on me sooner or later. It's not a good outcome for me. Right.

Okay. On the topic then of setting up a process in which there are times that you come together and then times where you break for that intermission or that caucus. So what this makes me think of are multi-issue, multi-party negotiations in which you might have 10 stakeholders at the table. and everyone has a different set of priorities. And in those little breaks, everyone goes off and makes side deals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey, we need a majority in order to get to this yes vote. What is it that you and I on the side can work out so that I can secure your yes? Yes. I can see that you're leaning yes right now. How do we get to? Yes. Right? And so it's in those little breaks where those side deals happen.

And how do you manage all of that when now you're not even on the surface, you're kind of having this one negotiation. But in those quote-unquote downtimes, in those sidelines, you're having 10 separate ones. The class is a taught at Harvard Law School, which is 110-hour class. Now the one I teach at Georgetown is 48-hour class. Doesn't really even spend any time in multi-party negotiation because you have just highlighted how so much more complicated multi-party negotiations. gets for all of the reasons that you said, the possibility of coalitions, the challenges of negotiating process around that. So what I would just say, I mean, this is, I mean, we could go on and on, but my most kind of simple piece is first, when you are in multi-party negotiation, process

becomes even more important. And related to this, if we're going to take time for breaks or what we might call caucusing, sometimes in multi-party negotiation, that we also, we also also have some rules and understandings about what's happening during the caucusing. And because if there are no rules on that, I think what happens is people are cutting side deals. And then you have these unhelpful coalitions forming. Instead of it helping, it actually makes things worse. I think it also, though, suggests that one of the important process norms in a multi-party negotiation is that there are some really clear tracking of all of the.

the party's interests in ways that are observable and seen by all. And this is where having a facilitator whose highly skilled can make a difference. Because if the side deals are happening, we always have to come back and look at the shared Google Doc or whatever's on the screen and say, how well are these things actually meeting all of these interests that we spent, I'm just making up the time frame, the first three months of our time mapping. And so, again, for your listeners who are interested, there's lots of complexity, is lots of richness in this.

And in terms of process, right, it's just amazing examples of how process considerations will drive substantive ones and people often just gloss over the process. Let's just start talking the issues. Okay. But that's a danger if we don't know what the rules are. Right. when we're having these very complex and prolonged discussions, there are really two elements to these discussions. There's the process and then there's the substance. Can you elaborate on how both of those should be discussed and at first, I guess, start with what exactly falls into the purview of each?

Yeah. I love this. This is such a great nerd out topic for me, Paula. So the process is really the how. How do you we talk about whatever is the issue in play, whether it's, again, salary, business terms, price point, covenants, warranties, representations, et cetera. The how is the process. Or maybe it's a difficult conversation about a political issue. Are there some ground rules? Are we just going to exchange offers and counter offers? Or instead are we going to actually spend some time identifying together, here are the three issues we're going to negotiate. Here are our interests with respect to each of these issues. Here are our ways we could address those issues.

And only then maybe talk about the contours of what an agreement might be. Those are radically different processes. The substance is literally the discussion about the deal terms. What is the price point? What representations are in the contract? And I think the mistake across the board is they go immediately into the substance. And that often looks like offer counteroffer. Mm-hmm.

Onto offer counter-offer Hagel. Right. And if that's the process you're using, you've already thrown away a huge amount of possible value. But when I think of a real estate transaction, for example, the process is set up in that way. The process is seller lists the house. buyer makes an offer, seller returns with a counteroffer, and all of this happens through agents on pre-printed documents where there aren't humans coming to the conversation other than the two agents talking to one another. Yeah, so this is a great question, which is where are the domains

where we can negotiate process from scratch? Where are the domains where we may not be able to do it from scratch, but there might be still process changes we can make, right? And where is it like, this is just how it's done here, just to use it? I would say, like, real estate transactions are probably somewhere in the middle. There are some kind of rules that I think are a little bit hard to get around, but often there is some negotiation space, especially if you can do some due diligence and maybe find out who the seller is or what's important to them or use letter, or once you're maybe within some buy-sell range, start to negotiate some process around other things like dates or terms or other conditions.

So I think there can be some flexibility. I think most of us think there's none. Where there's none probably, right? When you go to Macy's, like that's the price. Maybe you have a 25% off. I don't think there's a lot of room to negotiate that process. but lots of domains right there really isn't much of a process at all and sometimes you can fundamentally change the process so i lease my cars and the way i do this is i turn it into an auction and like i'll

go and i'll i'll decide the card that i want and the options that i want and then i'll do some research around things like invoice price dealer holdbacks etc etc and i'll wait towards the end of a month and I'll send a letter to eight local car dealers. Let's say it's a Jeep dealer. And I'll tell them what I'm looking for. And I say I'm sending it to seven other dealers plus them. And I'm accepting bids by this time. I don't put my phone number.

I just give them an email. But I say I'm just going to take the lowest price. People will play that. Now, that is a process that drives very much to the benefit of the buyer instead of a process that drives to the benefit of the seller where they play good cop, bad cop, but you have to go from dealer to dealer to dealer, right? So that's a domain where you actually really do have some ability to control it. And I think people would be surprised that in many, many domains there are creative ways of negotiating the process.

And maybe because I teach this stuff, I like to push up against it, like even, you know, for our book, right? We had an agent. But I tried to think about, like, where are some ways we could draw value and sometimes how to even say to our agent, Well, you know, I know this is how you usually do things here. And also, can we consider this? And also, what would this look like? So I'll give you an example. Lots of times people create a deadline.

Like, we need to know whether you want to do X by midnight. And I always be like, what happens at midnight? And I'm genuinely, this is empathy and discern this. If they say the reason why is at 1201, we're going to give the job to Sheila, Smith? Okay. That's an actual reason. I guess I have to do that. But most of the time they're like, well, that's just, you know, we have to make decisions quickly. Oh, absolutely. Like, I want to make sure we make this quick. I also don't want to be rushed. So what's magical about the night? Right. So in other words, like sometimes there are these process norms in there that we're like, oh, we're stuck with it. It's like, no, highly negotiable and should be negotiated if you need some more time. Right. Not not. Not. just as a tactic, but they're using it as a tactic to drive a sense of scarcity and a sense of panic. And if that's the case, part of what I want to signal is I don't think that's the basis of a good long-term working relationship. I want to honor your interest in speed.

That's very fair. And I hope you'll also respect my interest in being able to sleep on it and have something considered. And so again, there's bringing in like the empathy piece and that assertiveness piece to change a process. Does that make sense? Right. And that actually answers one of the other questions I was going to ask, which is what do you do in a case where you're asking a boss for a raise and they shut down the conversation by relying on policy? Oh, our company policy is that we evaluate all offers between December 1st and December 15th and though potential window is anywhere between one to three percent and it's going to be based on these

pre-planned KPIs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like, oh, my God. I feel like overwhelming. And it feels like that's completely non-negotiable, right? Right. And I think the thing that I would. It's very procedural.

Very procedural. It's very procedural. And again, we'll just say, like, I see. So it sounds like there's company policy that's really important. There's some specific windows. All I'm doing here, by the way, is listening. What I'd love to understand is what do these policies get from the company's viewpoint? What gets advanced?

Well, that's just how we do it here. That's just how we do it here. I see, but I presumably there's some reasons why. I don't know. That's above my pay grade. I see. So it sounds like you're not really sure why, but you're kind of stuck. You need to enforce it.

Yeah, you got it. Hey, I respect that. one of the things that I definitely don't want to be difficult, and if you think I'm being difficult, you should let me know. But for a number of reasons, I think there might be at least some consideration of whether this is a unique case. And if we don't know what's being achieved by the current policy, like I wonder whether we can figure that out in some way so that we can make sure those things are met and maybe evaluate whether there's something unique here. Now, again, you have to play this out. you can't go too far, you can't be disrespectful, but there's a distinction between aggression and assertiveness.

And one of the things that I'm always kind of looking for in these situations, right? So first of all, I think any initial pushback that involves some listening and taking into what they said is appropriate. One of the things I'm looking for, I call this the Wizard of Oz tactic. And it's not done, I think, from a place of a boss being difficult, but they have a lot of problems. Their goal is to get people who are variously complaining and unhappy in and out of their office as quickly as they can so they can focus on more important things. So the Wizard of Oz tactic is I'm going to give you something like come back to me December 1st and you go away.

It's like saying to Dorothy and the scarecrow and the tin man, get the brewstick of the Wicked Witch and then I'll give you what you want. And of course the wizard thinks they're never coming. These three, I'm never going to see them again. right right like he's not planning on them getting that brunstick and when a boss does something like it's December 1st or December 15th or we need to wait six months to see your key KPIs or some one liner it's a wizard of out tactic designed to get you to nod and say thank you so much for paying the time and then you walk out and you're like in your journal you're like I'm so proud of myself that I at least tried. You know, it's like, yes, I'm going to give you that.

I'm so proud to you. And you could have done that better without being a jerk. Because the other choice is not being a jerk. It's just a few more questions. I, of course, don't want you to break company policy. Of course not. And I also want to understand it more. And I want to see if we can be creative.

And I wonder if you'll partner with me on that. If they keep saying, no, no, no, okay, well, you got to go. But like, I want you to stand there a little bit more, you know, yeah. What should a person do if they are in a union and have union-related restrictions around their ability to negotiate for a raise or for any other type of compensation? Yeah, so this is a challenging question, but also there are some things that you can do. So obviously when you're in a union, the union has taken the responsibility of negotiating the basic contours of compensation. Having said that, at least in my experience, it can often be the case that a particular employee is actually doing a set of tasks that are outside or in addition to the actual bounds of a job description, particularly if they are kind of entrepreneurial. So going back to whatever the original job was and being able to demonstrate how maybe you had five or six,

duties and now you're doing nine different duties or the nature of your duties have changed. That often is a way then to suggest working with the union, possible reclassification of your job, and then the classification is the thing that will move you up and get the race. I think it's much harder if you're just kind of doing the same five tasks you were hired to do, you might be doing them at an excellent rate. probably harder to negotiate salary there. I think one of the benefits of being in the union is hopefully you have union stewards and negotiators who are good negotiators, but you've also ceded some ability really to

negotiate your salary if your job itself has to change a bit. More often than not, I have seen people be quite savvy making good cases where the union then is on your side saying this person is really doing a much. bigger scope of work that needs reclassification. And it seems like a lot of the work really is in structuring that process, even in the cases where it can't be structured from scratch, even in the places like a real estate transaction where it seems to be laid out in advance, there are still elements of process that can be negotiated. For sure, right? And I always want to be looking at. So for whenever I can, if I can design and create the process, I want to do that. If there's a general

process in place that I have some ability to influence, I want to do that. And if I can't do those things, I'm going to kind of do the best I can at the margins, right? Now, again, you're talking to a negotiation nerd who's always like seeing these things. I mean, clearly your listeners are going to have to think about for the context isn't worth it. But again, some of these contexts, right, it could be worth a lot of money to them. Right. Both immediately and down the road. Yeah. But you know one thing that strikes me, so in your example of how you lease a car, two things strike me. One is that you unilaterally set the process.

Yeah. Right? This is how we're doing it. Take it or leave it. Goodbye. So you unilaterally dictate the terms of the process. And then by only giving them an email address, you don't even allow for conversation. Yeah.

You're observing, Paula. Yeah. So, I mean, car negotiations are. quite unique. I think in a best practice for any negotiation where there's some ongoing relationship, it is better to propose a process, but also to negotiate it. And so you are a keen observer that I am not negotiating it. I'm kind of saying, this is the process. You're welcome to play or not play. So why do I do that in this kind of a context? I think for a number of reasons. One of the things I'm trying to adjust there are a bunch of asymmetries between car

buyers and car sellers. One of them I mentioned earlier, which is just the cost of going from dealer to dealer to dealer. The dealer sits there. I got to go from dealer to dealer. Not a great situation for me. The other is information asymmetries, right? What I'm signaling is because I've done some research about things like dealer holdbacks and the difference between an invoice and an MSRP, I'm saying, you don't really have more information than me. The other thing that I'm doing here is making a broader assumption of an individual dealer's interests that we know cuts across the industry, but may or may not cut across any individual dealer, which is that marginal extra sales at the end of a month,

will be rewarded by the manufacturer, both with bonuses and also getting a better selection of cars coming to their dealership, which is why there are some dealers who are willing to give an incredibly low price in exchange for that marginal sale at the end. But what is probably not in play for me here that usually would be in play with an employer, hopefully, or even like buying a business, is a real long, term sense of we're going to work together over time or my reputation like I don't want to be a reputation as a jerk but this not a jerk it's just a way of doing this right so some of the other things that might be more important to me in all sorts of other negotiations are less important to me here and I want to try to adjust some of the structural things that put me at a disadvantage by turning this into an auction.

By the way, it's highly effective, except in cars that, like, if it's a car that can't stay on the dealer's law because it's so popular, then you're going to hear crickets. But if you're buying a Jeep Cherokee, it's what I happen to have. They're like people like them, but they're not special cars. And it works. So, yeah, but good point, right? And listen, there are times when you always want to lead with process,

because process will drive substance everywhere in negotiation. You'd think about presidential elections, right? You think about our Constitution. It was hotly debated and whether the election for the presidency should be popular vote or an electoral college. And we know, like in 2016, right, if it were a popular vote, we would have had a very different president than we did. Right. We would have Hillary Clinton. So the substantive result is very much driven by these process choices.

And so that I think is the biggest thing I would want to say, again, to listeners, pay attention to that. Right. Well, the Constitution is a process. Yeah. You know, there's substance in it as well, but largely it is a process. It is a system. For sure. I mean, as you asked earlier, right, it is a process that balances interest, rights, and power.

And its essence, it is a conflict handling procedure. Right. And going back to this idea of do we have more conflict, I think we are seeing more conflict play out in ways that are putting more, more pressure on the Constitution in ways that for some people feel very troubling. What is the ability of this structure and document to hold us together through some very challenging waters on policy issues, on power of presidency and Congress, right? And then that kind of holds us together in terms of our ability

just to work with each other at state and federal levels, right, around national boundaries, like I overcaution that like everything in the world isn't about conflict, right? But in some level, to the degree that conflict is about management of differences and interests, it is, right? And so, again, just developing that capacity to do it with more skill and to disagree better, feels to me very prescient in this moment. And that's true on both sides of the aisle, or really every side, if you don't look at as a binary,

but as a multiplayer. It's true on every side of the aisle from every political persuasion. I think probably one of the unifying themes is that many of us are all nervous, not to just put a bow on it by saying, here, we're all united in the fact that we're all really worried. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? I mean, Paul, honestly, I think one of the times when, like, when I'm mediating, or you know, we're talking about facilitating, like, a dispute, sometimes people are like,

we have nothing in common, right? Nothing in common, except that we're stuck in this fight. I'm like, no, I'm not sure that's true. I think you're both super anxious. You're both really sad. You're both really angry. You both really feel a sense of loss. You have a lot in common.

It's just kind of crummy things. And so the question is, is there some. will here to try to shift that just a little bit. Because if there's just a little bit of will in that, we can work. It might be a little messy. We're not going to be on everything. But at the end of the day, if the only thing we want to share is anxiety, anxiety, depression, sadness, anger, then it's really going to be really hard to do anything, which also comes back to them

just increasing that willingness to sit in that morass of the discomfort. Because you cannot get the conflict resolution and you can't. not get to a negotiated agreement and you cannot get to problem solving if you can't work into the conflict. The notion that if I avoid and avoid and avoid it will just go away is fantastical or that if I mount my horse with my spears and my knights armor, I will vanquish you on the battlefield. may or may not work, but even if it works, the cost of that is so high. So we don't really have a choice, which is why we have to do the work. The work is not easy. It's doable, though, but it's not easy.

But the gains are out there. Like we talk about this called the Bigger Better Offer, the BBO. Folks have to believe there's a BBO on the other side. The reason why I think we've been talking a lot about salary increases. The reason why people think about salary increases is because it's super easy. to see the BBO. It's much harder to see the BBO in maybe really stuck family situations over, I don't know, a fight over what are we going to do with mom and dad's vacation property when they die,

you know, or how are we going to handle this family business? Like the only thing we could see is like blood, pain, and anguish over, let's say, a family business succession, right? That's like a really big domain of work that I do around family business succession. Right. And so if you don't see that there is something on the other side, you're not going to engage, you're going to hope the problem solves itself somehow. And it's just not going to.

It's just going to kind of linger and linger and linger until it really blows up in your face. So by developing the skill set to learn how to ask for arrays, a skill set that it seems on the surface that that might apply only to that one discrete topic, but it's actually a transferable skill set that applies to everything ranging from how to care for aging parents to how to handle an inheritance to how to have conversations with a coworker who is on the opposite side of the political aisle. Oh, absolutely. The reason why I actually think one of the biggest questions that I just get from friends and family is this raise question. Because embedded in that raise question is every single hard thing that you can

imagine in a conflict. It's partially about being treated fairly and like the money aspects, right? The kind of traditional negotiation, like I should just get raised. It's also about my sense of kind of self-worth. The no on the other side isn't just, even if they say we don't have the money in our budget, it still lands as a, did I do good enough? Am I worthy? Right. So the identity questions are there. There's a lot of emotion in it as well, particularly if you've talked about it with family or significant other or spouse, right, you're coming back either as success or failure. There's just a partisan perception aspect of it because worse than being told we don't have money in the budget is, well, you haven't really haven't done those two KPIs.

Or, well, the reason why we gave her a raise and not you is she's unexceptive. proceeding, you're just on meeting expectations, right? So all of the things, it's not just like, I mean, anyone who says it's just about asking for, you know, 50-sad raise, no, it isn't. It's about the emotions and the identity and the doubt and the, all the other things we were talking about earlier, all packaged together. And it's an advanced negotiation and difficult conversation, really, I think. And I completely agree with you, right? If you can, Do that with courage. And whether you get it or not, use it as a way to grow so that you could enter into some of these other challenging domains.

The BBO will be there. The bigger, better offer will be there. Because it's the other thing about this is just it takes practice. We all have different levels of skill at this for sure. But nobody is amazing at it. In baseball, if you're a really good hitter, you're like maybe batting 400, which basically means you're missing 6.000. 60% of the time. Right. That's like the best people. Right. That's like a negotiation. But you know a sure way to never get better is to never get up to bat. To just think about getting up to

bat or to wish you could get up to bat or to watch somebody else get up to bat. Well, that is the perfect place to leave it. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they'd like to know more about you and your work? Paula, this was so much fun. So thank you. And yes, if you want to learn more about our book, you can go to our web. website, which is conflict resilience book.com. Or if you want to learn more about me and my work, you can go to my website, which is bobbordone.com, B-O-B-B-O-R-D-O-N-E.com. Thanks for having me. That's fun. Thank you, Bob. What are three key takeaways from this conversation? Key takeaway number one. Empathy and assertiveness work together, not against each other, but together

in effective negotiations. Despite what many people think, being empathetic doesn't mean being self-effacing. It doesn't mean giving up on what you want. The most effective negotiators combine deep understanding of others with clear advocacy for themselves. And I would actually say that it might be an experienced tension, but it's not an actual one, meaning that I can fully appreciate what you're feeling, why you see the world the way you do, what's important to you,

without ever giving anything up in a negotiation or a conflict. Assertiveness is simply my ability to advocate for what's important to me. We confuse empathy with sympathy or giving something up because we feel sorry for somebody. And that's not really what empathy is. There's actually a lot of research around this, right? folks who are both empathic and assertive tend to get better outcomes in negotiations. Practice developing a blend of empathy and assertiveness. And most people are going to find that

they naturally bias in one direction or another. Perhaps one of those two sets of muscles is overdeveloped and the other set of muscles is underdeveloped. But having balanced development of both in which you are neither two people pleasing nor too steamrolling, that's the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two, prepare for important negotiations by using a three-part framework, mirror work, chairwork, and tablework. Before you go into your boss's office and ask for a raise, first, identify these different parts of yourself and give each perspective a voice and have a strategy. And have a strategy, for bringing these voices into the actual conversation. This preparation builds confidence and leads to better outcomes.

And by the way, if I can give an ancillary takeaway to this one, it is, it's not just about the three-part framework. It's about the prepare for it, right? Practice, prepare. Much of negotiation is that preparation. So the verb prepare and the nouns mirror chair table, those are all equally important in this second key takeaway. We have this kind of three-part preparation, if you will, called mirror work, chairwork, and tablework. And the mirror work is we've been talking about so far. Like, how do I

give names to each of the sides of myself that are in play in this particular conflict, which can be a salary negotiation. It could be, though, how do I say no to somebody? And, And by mirror, what we're trying to get people to do is give themselves an kind of accurate reflection of each of these sides. Finally, key takeaway number three, don't give up at the first no, especially when someone falls back on company policy. I'm using air quotes right now, company policy in order to shut down your request. Because if a boss responds with, well, that's just our policy, or come back in six months, This is a tactic that they're using to end the conversation quickly. And so rather than just accept defeat, it's time for you to ask more questions so that you can keep the conversation open in order to suggest creative alternatives that address both your needs as well as theirs.

One of the things from a boss perspective is you probably haven't thought as hard about it as the employee because you have a bunch of employees. A boss sometimes has some one-liners. Things are pressed come back in six months. You do fabulous work, but if I give this to you, everyone else is going to be knocking on my door. That's not how we typically do things here. No one's getting a raise. All of those kinds of, I call them one-liners,

are designed to skedaddle you out of the room. That is the third and final key takeaway from this conversation with Harvard Law Professor Bob Bordeone. You can find his book, Conflict Resilience, anywhere books are sold, and remember our next episode is going to be with his co-author about the neurology of negotiation.

Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I hope you got a lot of value out of it. If you enjoyed it, please share this with the people in your life. Share it with your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, your siblings, your college roommate, share it with all the people near and dear to you, as well as the people

kind of weak and far from you. This is the single most important thing that you can do to spread the message of strong financial health. As always, don't forget to follow us in your favorite podcast playing app, and while you're there, you can leave us up to a five-star review. I really appreciate them, and I read every single one. So big thank you to everyone who has left us to review. And remember the URL, afford anything.com, slash your next. raise. Big thanks to Bob Bordone for spending all of this time with us. His book, Conflict Resilience, is everywhere books are sold. It came out this week. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy our conversation with his co-author later this week. And I hope you are as excited about learning this

skill set as I am and as many of the other people in the Afford Anything community are. This is such an important skill set. And I'm honored to be able to bring you all of this free content around it. So thank you for being part of the Afforder community. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast. And I'll meet you in the next episode.