This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 043 / Negotiating with Christine McKay

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

I’m excited to welcome guest Christine McKay - Founder and CEO of Venn Negotiation, Global Negotiation Strategist, International Speaker and Author, to help us develop this important skill, and empower the negotiator in all of us. Christine defines negotiation as a conversation about a relationship, and shares the difference between negotiating and haggling. These are extremely helpful distinctions… and we are negotiating on a regular basis, so we might as well be great at it. Asking for what you want, standing in your power (in your confidence!), standing in that belief that you deserve it, negotiating for a win/win… All of this is Woman’s Work. To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Coming up on this episode of This Is Woman's Work. All negotiation is communication, but not all communication is negotiation. Hey there, Nicole Kalil here, and I am more than a little obsessed with redefining what it means to be doing women's work for myself and together with you. I don't think it would shock anyone to know that I believe a very important part about how we do this is eliminating the wage gap, advancing more women in leadership, having representation in the C-suite and on boards, running businesses, and ultimately creating professional equity. And while I wish there was an easy fix or an obvious fix, I haven't found that to be the case.

But I do think there are some skills that we can develop, things that we can work on individually that will have an impact collectively for women. Skills like confidence, taking risks, choice management, communicating boundaries, and the skill of negotiation. I've invited Christine McKay, founder and CEO of Venn Negotiation, global negotiation strategist, international speaker, author, mother of three, and happily married for 27 years. Like that, I'm assuming some negotiation was involved there as well. I've invited Christine to help us develop this uber important skill and empower the negotiator in all of us. Christine, thank you so much for joining us. I mean, this topic is so big. I'm so excited. I am so excited to be here. Thank

you. I'm very honored. And thank you to all your so excited. I am so excited to be here. Thank you. I'm very honored. And thank you to all your listeners for tuning in. So glad to be here. I have a feeling this is going to be a hot one because I get this question all the time. And this is not my area of expertise. So yeah, my first question is, I've heard you say that negotiation isn't what you think. And if that is in fact true, which I believe you very much that it is, then what is negotiation?

So most people think negotiation is a win-lose and they treat it like a game. And what negotiation really is, is it's a conversation about a relationship and you cannot win a relationship. And so when you, especially as women, when we take that concept and we say, wait a minute, it's not all about beating up somebody. It's not all about walking away and winning everything. And it's about a relationship. We do relationships really well.

And it's one of our strengths and research bears that out that women actually, in general, tend to be better negotiators than our male counterparts. We just often don't give ourselves permission. But a lot of people think of negotiation and the way that I delineated is negotiating versus haggling. So when we go to buy a car or we buy a house or really kind of negotiate a lot of things, most people think of it as haggling. I'm going in and I get a discount. I'm asking for a discount. That's a negotiation. No, that's not. That's haggling. Negotiation is about thinking about where are you at today and what do you want your relationship to look like in the future and what are the best ways to move that relationship forward? Because when we

enter into relationships, we're doing it because we believe that there's hope for something better and greater in the future than what we have today. And if we focus only on the short-term immediate gain, it ignores what the possibilities are for the future. Negotiation is about exploring what those possibilities are so that we are all better off working together in a relationship than not. You said so many powerful things in there that like really resonated with me. First of all, the idea that negotiation is fundamentally about relationship and how we as women, obviously that's an area where generally speaking, we tend to shine. And you said something that just surprised me that women might actually be better at

the skill because of that, but maybe we avoid it either we're not used to it or, or, or because we have it as something different in our, in our mind. So I'm, I'm already obsessed with everything that you said. Um, I know for some women we've experienced negotiation maybe differently than how you just shared it. It does feel like we've been on the losing side. Absolutely. Is that haggling too? Like I'm thinking like professionally or is that just somebody not being very good at negotiation?

Is that more bullying? Yes and yes and yes. So I think that, so one of the challenges is that it is fast becoming something. And there's a very famous, internationally famous motivational speaker who I kind of am around and I see him doing this. is becoming this word that he's using that the way that it's easily interpreted is we should be okay just taking whatever scraps get tossed off the table to us. And when I recently, somebody asked me about my business and who my clients were, I hadn't actually realized it because it was unintentional, but a hundred percent of my clients are minority women owned businesses. And there's a reason I think think, for that. It was subconscious, but it's because we've all been told we don't have a voice at the table. And so we

don't speak up. We don't stand in our power. We don't acknowledge what we bring to the table. And we do that. We fall into that trap in part because we don't have clarity on what it is we want. And we don't do enough research to understand the data that drives what we want and is that doable for our counterparts. And so when you get that clarity, when you have clarity on what it is that you want and why it's important to you, it's much harder to shake you from and move you away from that and take you down a different path. The other thing is that we've been taught that saying no is not something that we're allowed to do. And no is the most powerful word in a negotiation because we don't have to accept something just because somebody offers it. It doesn't make sense for us. Does it generate profit for us?

Does it put us, do we like the people, right? and that drive a positive outcome of a negotiation, that when we don't have clarity and we haven't evaluated effectively, then it puts us in a position of lesser power, and we abdicate our leverage. And you never have to abdicate leverage. That's a decision that we make to do. So I think you said this, but if I'm off base, let me know. I would imagine based on what you're saying that negotiation and communication go hand in hand. Absolutely. All negotiation is communication, but not all communication is negotiation. Okay.

That's a good clarification. You can be communicating and that not be a negotiation. To be in a negotiation. So a lot of times, especially for small businesses, they don't even realize they're in negotiation. And it's one of the reasons why I launched Venn negotiation because I got frustrated watching small businesses being taken advantage of by larger organizations. because what happens is that we don't ask effective questions. And when we don't ask effective questions, we don't even realize that we're in a negotiation process. And so not until after the fact, and it's like, wait a minute, what just happened? I have a client right now, women-owned business,

and they have a PR situation with a PR company. And they just kind of went by how they felt. Oh, I felt a connection with this person. But then when you look at the contract, the contract is horrible. It's written entirely on the PR's firm. And now my client is currently out $30,000 and not gotten delivery of good service because her contract was not effective and she didn't ask effective questions and was negotiating when she didn't realize it. So she just didn't, she just didn't negotiate. So she abdicated. Yeah. Okay. So obviously now, you know, you've defined that communication is probably one of the fundamental parts of negotiating. Is preparation a big part?

You talked about research and so maybe if you wouldn't mind maybe walking us through, like, I know you can't, you know, but generally if you're helping somebody with learning how to negotiate, what might be some of the steps? Yes. So, so the first step is getting clarity on what you want and how important it is to you. And so I always kind of joke and tip my hat to my grandmother. My need to know what the possibilities are down to what my grandmother calls the Nat's ass level details. So you have to think about all the possibilities, as many possibilities, and you're never going to think of it exhaustively. But the reason why you want to think about what's in all of the possibilities is because even if a possibility

ends up not being important to you, that may be really important to your counterpart. And if you discover that, then you can give that away to your counterpart in exchange for something that's important to you. So you need to have, so the first step is getting clarity on what it is you want and how important it is to you to set up your trade-offs. The next part is, okay, now you know that, is that doable for your counterpart? I tell a story about how I bought two cars for the price of one plus $5,000. So I went into the dealership and I offered to buy two cars, but only pay them for one of them. Now, most people, when I tell that story, they're like, are you out of your mind? Why would you ever do that? No dealer would ever do

that. But in this particular case, it was a specific type of car that wasn't selling well. We drive manual transmissions. We were in New England, something like 7% of the population of New England drives a manual transmission. This was like a decade ago, so it was even less, right? And it's like, so I figured out, I did research, lots of research on my counterpart. How did they sell cars? What's their profit margin? Who was the market for the car? What was the cost of holding a car on the lot? How did the salespeople treat a man versus a woman? What was the process that the salesperson had to go through to get a deal approved? I researched all of these things.

And when I put forward the offer that I was going to buy two cars for the price of one, they laughed at me and then got frustrated with me. But I was transparent and said, this is, this is what I know. And I ended up being wrong on the holding cost of inventory. So I increased my offer by $5,000. So we drove off the car off the lot with two cars for the price of one plus $5,000. We saved $23,000 based on one hour of research. So research and preparation is important, incredibly important. And the preparation part is something that many, many people forget to do. Even people in big companies who do negotiation all the time, they don't get prepared enough. They don't understand

who they're negotiating with. I research the people I'm negotiating. I research their business. I research their clients. All of that becomes critically important. Then once you know what you're going to ask for, you need to know how you're going to ask for it. And so that comes down to negotiation styles. So we've all learned how to negotiate when we were like seven and you know, the kid, and if you're a mom or dad or grandparent, any of our listeners, kids are amazing at this. So when we're about seven, we develop this style and it works most for us. It's though you've got a kid who threw a temper tantrum and threw things or kids who like ran to their bedrooms and shoved their heads under their pillows

and, you know, kind of things in between. And most of us, because we don't get taught, we're not taught at any point in our education, how to maintain moving between different styles. As we get older, we tend to default to one style. And so knowing what your style is and kind of assessing what your counterpart might be, that matters because how you ask matters. And so understanding that, figuring out how you're going to deal with difficult people, not being afraid to walk away. Sometimes the best solution to a negotiation is to, because it's a conversation about a relationship, is to acknowledge upfront, this relationship is not going to work for me. And as a result, I'm going to go find somebody

else to do business with. Right. And that is an okay thing. And then once you know, so you know what you want and why you want it and how it's going to impact your counterpart, you figure out how you're going to ask for it. Then once you're engaged, it's making sure that you get the deal that makes the most sense, that moves both of you forward. And that comes down to understanding risk. So in business, when we're talking business, there are five types of risk. So understanding how the risk comes together. So there's cash flow risk, profitability risk, operational risk, strategic risk, and legal risk.

And that all comes into contracts. And part of what we do is we help people demystify contracts because those are intimidating for a lot of people. And people are like, only lawyers can negotiate. And I'm like, no, lots of lawyers are really bad negotiators too. And they do a lot. Some are really good and some are more hagglers because they are all about winning and losing and they have a demarcation point. But when you understand where risk comes into your relationships, then again, because it's just negotiation is just a conversation about a relationship. Now you have something you can actually talk about. It's no different than the fact that I've

been married for 27 years. My husband and I have been together for 29 years almost. And the contract we had when we got married is not entirely the same contract as we have today because we are not the same people that we were that many years ago. Yet in business, we often get into relationships and we just expect them to stay the same without acknowledging that each party is going to change over time and then create opportunities that reinforce that change, that allow each other to change and grow and improve. And so that's something, because I believe negotiation is a relationship, that's really important. You said this multiple times, but I just, I think it is worth repeating, you know, that nobody loses. The goal isn't that somebody loses in a negotiation and

in preparation, in the steps, yes, you're thinking about what you want. I find so often, and I've made this mistake myself, we get so focused on what we want that we don't take the time to think about what, you know, the other person in the relationship wants, what, you know, how this, I don't know, win-win might not be the right expression because it's back to winning, but like in an effective negotiation, I would imagine both parties walk away feeling like they got something good. Maybe not everything they wanted, but something good. So let me use this as an analogy. So I often have, I often, when I come on a podcast, I'll bring a raw egg in a shell.

So I've got, just pretend I have an egg in a shell and it's raw, right? And there are three people. So three people want that egg, right? How do you get three people to have that egg? So most people say, when I asked that question, most people say, well, you boil it and you cut it in thirds, or you scramble it and you divide it in thirds, right? So that for me is a description of haggling. And's how most people the vast majority would would take that approach in fact I've never had a person say what I'm about to tell you

negotiation is oh I have an egg I can take a pen and I can poke a hole in that egg and I can drain the white and the yolk and then I can separate the white and the yolk, and then I can separate the white and the yolk. And now I have three different parts of an egg and I can give three different things to three different people, right? Negotiation is about understanding that you don't necessarily have to change the property of something in order to find an equitable and fair or not necessarily equitable but a fair resolution to it because negotiation is not about equality it's about fairness it's about creating an environment that allows you to have a fair relationship over time right but so yeah so the egg is like, yeah, so you might, so then somebody has the shell

and they can paint it for Christmas decorations or use it for composting. And somebody who has the yolk can use it to glaze something. And somebody uses the white can, you know, make an egg white omelet, right? And so it's understanding what's important to each of the people involved in the negotiation and then looking for the creative solutions that actually can get you there. But you're right. A lot of people, because they focus only on what it is that they want, they're not able to see that there's a solution that gets them what they want, but still gives their counterpart what they want as well.

And that is really what the, that's what the compelling part of negotiation for me is, is that opportunity to find solutions that create more for everybody from a position of abundance versus a position of scarcity, right? When we think about negotiation as I have to get what I want and I don't think about my counterpart, we're thinking about things from a scarcity perspective. And so for me, negotiation, really effective negotiation is about thinking about abundance. There's so much to have. How do we make sure we all get what we need to be successful? So again, all amazing things. Maybe would you be willing to walk us through a little bit of an example? The one I hear the most is negotiating a pay raise, right?

So if I, for example, want to be paid and feel that it's fair that I get paid $10,000 more a year than what I'm currently getting paid. When I think about how this is going to benefit the other person, that might be hard because now they have to pay $10,000 more. It's more of the budget. So is that an example that you could help me? We can walk through that. So the first thing is knowing what it is you want and why you want it. So what's driving the desire to have the raise? What form can the raise come in? Right. Because there's more than just cash as compensation. There could be vacations compensation. There could be an increase in a bonus. I mean, there's more flexible schedule. Yeah. and how important are the different things and what are the possibilities, then it's like sometimes it's easier for somebody to give you more vacation time. Or maybe one of the things you want is the ability to start your own business and that's not in your current employment contract, right?

So you want to redraft your contract to allow you to have a side hustle, right? So understanding what those possibilities are, and then researching what does that look like in your existing organization? And what does it look like in other organizations? What's going on in your industry? Are there, you know, big thing right now is people wanting to maintain their existing salary, but relocate to a lower cost of living area. That's happening like crazy right now. And in the tech industry, they're making, and this has been going on actually for a few years now in the tech industry, they'll let you relocate and work remotely, but they'll give you a pay cut. Well, some companies are saying, I'm not going to do that, right? The job you're doing is the same. It doesn't really matter where the heck you live. But you've got to understand what's going on in your industry and what's doable. Look at things like Glassdoor and other external sources of information because that gives you credibility. That absolutely gives you credibility. And, you know, people talk. You might find out or discover that somebody who is at the same level as you doing the same job is making 10, 15, 20 percent more than you are.

And you have that evidence and that needs to you need to have that in your bucket. Then the next thing is knowing who you are as a negotiator, understanding your default style, but then figuring out who are you asking? How's the person you're going to ask going to react? What's that person's style? What's their personality? How do you communicate with them effectively? So that when you're positioning your ask, then you're able to move forward more quickly because you're meeting them part way. And then the big thing that people then come up with on what they want that they don't ask effective questions that actually help them get to something that their counterpart wants. Maybe there's a part of the job that's not being done in the department and it's kind of falling off, you know, it kind of fallen off the table somewhere and nobody in the company is picking it up. Maybe that's something you can add to your job description that actually helps out your boss,

right? So you're using questions to get to that. And then when you ask questions, just don't say anything. Let them talk and listen to what they actually have to say. And then after you've had the conversation, make sure you document the conversation, make sure you send that document in an email, send it back to your counterpart, say, this is what we discussed. This is what we agreed. These are next steps. This is when we're going to reconvene to continue the conversation. Right. So that then you have a record of what that conversation was so that you have something that both of you can look back to. And in your opinion, where does emotion

play a part or not play a part in negotiation? So you gave the example of maybe finding out that a peer is making 20% more than you. I mean, I can't speak for all women, but I know for me, that creates a lot of frustration, anger, disappointment, hurt. And do I carry that into the negotiation? Do I not? What are your thoughts? So there's a great book by a gentleman named Chris Voss called Never Split the Difference. And Chris is a retired FBI hostage negotiator. He was the head of FBI hostage negotiation. And there's some things I don't agree with him that he says, but that's true in every book. But one of the things that I love that he acknowledges that he's brought forward is we're emotional creatures.

We bring emotion anywhere, everywhere with us. And negotiation is inherently emotional because as soon as there's something we want from somebody else, our emotion is already engaged. Now, controlling your emotion is really important. The person who controls their emotions the most in the negotiation is likely to be more, more effective than the person who doesn't. And so if you find out that your, that your male counterpart is making 20% more than you, then you, you know, that's evidence. Absolutely. But the more you can convey that evidence and then find other points of evidence to support your position and do that, not emotionally, the better off you're going to be. If you get angry or you start throwing things or crying or, and I've

seen all of these things in negotiation, you're, you're, it puts your counterpart off and it makes it hard for your counterpart to problem solve for you. And so you want to think about it from that perspective, because that's really what you're trying to get them to do. Yeah. I had a coach help me work on, because I am a reactive sort of emotional person and working on the skill, not of being non-emotional, but of being neutral in those types of situations. Does that resonate with you? Yeah, it does. I mean, it is really hard not to it is really hard to, it's not to act on your emotion. It's, and I'll actually be in a negotiation and have been in negotiations before where I will say, I'm very angry at how you are treating me. I feel that you're being disrespectful.

I feel this, I feel this, and this is how that is translating into what I'm doing. And this is why I don't like it. And this is what it leads me to want to do. Right. And so that, again, negotiation is a conversation about a relationship. If, if my husband does something that I don't, that doesn't work for me, I'm going to tell him what you just did upset me, what you just did caused me to react in this way. This is how I'm feeling, right? And so I have no problem in a

negotiation, acknowledging those emotions and then working through them. Because what I found a lot of time is, and I have a mentor named Blair Dunkley and Blair does mind models. And one of his mind models, it's kind of gives us different ways of thinking about things that were in, you know, problems and issues that we're in. And one of the things is, is it effective or ineffective? Is it externally verifiable or is it in my head? Right. And so, so part of it, if I react to something emotionally, that's a trigger for me to go, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, is this something that's going on just in my head? I better, I better verify externally, you know, that this is, that this is a thing, or am I just making this thing up? Because we do, our brain works that way.

We make stuff up in our heads and it impacts us. And so focusing on figuring out how to externally verify whether the emotion you're feeling is, is valid. Is it, are you, is it, you need to evaluate that versus judging it. Right. And those, those kind of, he calls them the three E's and they're very, very, very powerful. And yeah. So is it, is it, is it effective or ineffective? Is it externally verifiable or is it in our heads and is it evaluative or is it judgmental? And, you know, when you think about things in those three, that three E model that he describes, um, it helps take that emotion and puts you back into

control in control of the situation because emotion takes you, it takes you out of control. Yeah. If you let it, if you let it consume you. Yeah. And sometimes to do that, you need a third party, to be honest. Sometimes like I have clients who are just so emotional about the situation because they're going to lose their business or, you know, that's kind of the biggest one, you know, or, or they've just really been feel disrespected by their counterpart. And it's like, Christina, I cannot engage with this person and make any progress. And so sometimes you need a third party to help you with that. So when you say third party in the actual negotiation or in the preparation for, or both?

Both. I mean, so in my company, we actually, we do, we have services where we help people and coach them through a negotiation, but then we also have a lot of clients who are just, Christine, you guys just go and do this negotiation. So we negotiate on behalf of our clients and we work with, in partnership with our attorneys and all that kind of, cause we're not lawyers, we're business people. And, but yeah, so either we coach them through or we'll help them. We'll actually do the negotiation for them. That's awesome.

OK, so we've talked about negotiation as it relates to profession contracts, even a little in marriage. Where are other areas that you see where negotiation is pretty important or where it's happening a lot that we might not be recognizing it for what it is? Well, we're negotiating all the time. And, you know, the hardest part of every negotiation is the negotiation that happens between our ears. So we're negotiating with ourselves all the time. But we're negotiating with our partners. We're negotiating with our family, with our kids, our parents. We're negotiating with employees, employers, suppliers, contractors, customers,

people, investors. I mean, we're just, we're negotiating all the time. And some of those negotiations we can carve out into this kind of haggling concept, but some of them, because they're more relationship driven, are negotiation. And if we're intentional about those relationships and we're intentional about our negotiation in those relationships, it's going to influence and positively impact all of your relationships going forward. So my last question, let's say we're in a negotiation with somebody who is behaving like they're in a haggling situation or for whatever reason, you know, we're not meeting eye to eye on what a negotiation is actually supposed to look like. Any tips on how to address or handle that? So the biggest thing is using effective questions

to actually figure out what it is that they're trying to accomplish. So there is a negotiation style, which we call the champion. And the champion is, they see negotiation as a game. They essentially, they see it as a battle and they come onto the battlefield fully armed and fully armored. And their entire objective is to annihilate you. That is, that is all they care about is winning at all costs. And in fact, I've heard champion, one champion I know said, literally said in a massive group of people, I hate losing even more than I love winning. Yeah. So, so that about 10% of negotiators are that style.

But a lot of times people who take on that style are doing it because they don't have leverage because they think that they don't have leverage, because they think that they don't have any power at the negotiation table. So you need to use effective questions and effective questions are what questions, they're how questions, they are not why questions. Stop asking why questions. Because if I ask you, why are you wearing that necklace? Right? It immediately, there's a part of you that goes, well, wait, why are you wearing that necklace? Right. It immediately, there's a part of you that goes, well, wait, what's wrong with the necklace? There's we, it's, it creates a negative emotion, negative emotion on the part of our, on, on our counterpart. And so stop asking

why questions ask what and how questions. And the other reason you don't want to ask why questions is because the best answer that a lot answer that you'll get a lot of times is well, because, and you can't do anything with because. So ask effective questions to move somebody to discover why somebody is behaving in that way, why they are taking that aggressive position. And then if you find that it's this champion style and they're just going to be super aggressive all the time, then go find somebody else to do business with. Because if somebody is being a jerk and in the negotiation and you've not even done a business with them, trust me, they're going to be bigger jerks once they have a contract with you. And that's just,

that's that style. And so, but make that determination if it's, if it, is it because it's their style and who they are, and then rethink about whether or not you want to do business with them, or do they think they have no leverage? And is there something that they are worried about that has them that, you know, that you might actually be able to help them deal with, right? And you'll uncover that by asking more effective questions. Christine, I feel like I've learned so much in such a short period of time. Thank you so much. And for those of you listening to learn more about your negotiation style, you can take a quiz on Christine's website. And she also has a free ebook on there as well. So her website is vennnegotiation.com, V-E-N-N negotiation.com. And to follow Christine, you can follow her on Instagram

at vennnegotiation or listen to her podcast. It's called In the Venn Zone, V-E-N-N. Christine, that's available anywhere you listen to podcasts, I'm assuming. So it hasn't been launched yet. So it's about, I've recorded 19 episodes of it. We're recording 20 and dropping them all at the same time. So it'll be launching the end of January, but you can go onto the website and find more information.

I have a book coming out in February called why not ask a conversation about getting more that people can pre-order also on the website, as well as our new program, which we were talking about earlier called Venn Masters, which is essentially Toastmasters for Negotiation, where you'll practice your negotiation skills and get at the end of the program, you actually get an individualized report on what are your strengths and what your development areas are on negotiation and how you can actually continue to improve your negotiation skills. Ladies, go follow Christine McKay at Venn Negotiation and any and all of those resources.

Again, I said this at the top of our episode, this is a skill we can all benefit from developing. Christine, thank you so much for your wisdom and your knowledge and helping us to become better negotiators. Thank you very much for having me. It's an honor. And thank you to everyone who listened. All right. So I know it's going to take a lot more new contract with a client or a more equitable schedule with your partner or eating healthy food with your child, we are negotiating on a regular basis. So we might as well be great at it. Asking for what you want, standing in your power, in your confidence, standing in that

belief that you deserve it and not settling for less than what you're worth. All of this is woman's work.