This week I read a book on negotiation. Start With No, by Jim Camp, is expressly advertised as an antidote to “disastrous” win-win negotiating, and I wanted to see if there was any truth to it.
And there was. While a lot of the book consisted of misguided and petulant attacks that had nothing to do with interest-based negotiating, there was a key insight lurking in there, as well as some beautiful stories.
My #1 takeaway from Start With No is that a good negotiator helps the other side understand how untenable their own pain is, as an act of compassion.
Actually, before I proceed, I want to make it clear that the author sees every interaction you have as a negotiation. So this insight should be applicable dozens of times a day.
Now I’ll say it again.
My #1 takeaway from Start With No is that a good negotiator helps the other side understand how untenable their own pain is, as an act of compassion.
Let me illustrate this by drawing a distinction with the interest-based negotiations I am more familiar with.
In interest-based negotiation (like the mediations I do), my goal is for each party to understand:
- Their own needs
- The needs of the other party
As the neutral, I would ask both parties a question that helps them realize what They Really Want, below their positions. Once we got somewhere, I would summarize those needs to the other party, with the hope that each side could now see creative solutions where both of their needs can be met, rather than a zero-sum game.
This approach works well when:
- The parties have some kind of ongoing relationship
- Each party wants multiple things out of life.
This approach works poorly when:
- The parties don’t care about each other at all.
- The only thing each party wants is money.
(Luckily, very few negotiations only involve only money. Most of the time, when we intentionally spend money, it’s because we want something other than money more than the money!)
Start With No goes above and beyond this approach by embedding the negotiator in the other persons’ mind, with the goal of using questions so the other person realizes the degree to which they need a way out of their problems.
[Living] in the adversary’s world is a fundamental way in which you see your adversary’s world clearly and without false assumptions, and get the adversary to see and act with the same clarity.
(Oh yeah, he calls the other person “The Adversary”.)
In order to do this, the most important element of Jim’s system is to ask questions that draw out the Pain of The Adversary. Not just what problem they are facing, but the gnarly impact that problem will have upon them — all through questions.
You want to inhabit the adversary’s world, because that is the world about which you need information, and that is the perspective from which the adversary makes decisions. He doesn’t make decisions from your perspective, does he? Of course not. He makes them from his own perspective. Obviously. How do you find out about this perspective? How do you inhabit his world? By asking questions.
Pain! Pain! Pain!
In a really efficient negotiation, both parties will work to clarify the vision of the pain of the adversary. In any event, you must never enter a negotiation in which you haven’t seen your adversary’s pain. Never.
So, the mediations I typically run involve asking questions to understand the other sides needs (and pain). The difference in Start With No is that the intent with the questions to give the adversary a clearer understanding of their own pain.
And therefore, hopefully, motivation to do something to get out of their shitty situation.
Which, if you’re sitting at the right table, involves you in some positive way.
There was another interesting bit in the last chapter of Camp’s book I want to share. He makes the following argument in favor of generosity:
- People with high self-esteem accomplish great things
- Giving gifts has a better effect on self-esteem than receiving them
- Therefore, we should dedicate time to giving gifts and “paying it forward” if we want to accomplish great things.
I’m always in the market of bizarre or “selfish” justifications for doing what we know to be right (in our guy, or our heart chakra), and this was a good one. If you want to the story where (presumably) Jim first grasped this truth, here it is:
This story goes back to the mid-1950s, when the queen of England decided to put up for sale the land she owned in the Lake Muskoka region of Ontario, Canada. This land had never been owned by any white man before the queen. It had been taken from the original Canadians by treaty. My dad bid for a lot, sight unseen, on Go Home Lake, and to his family’s delight, his bid was accepted. In our first visit to our new holding, my father met an old trapper and hunter on the lake named Joe Bolier.
Joe was starting to build summer cabins for new people on the lake… Dad and Joe negotiated for our new cabin, and a deal was struck with a handshake. Nothing was put in writing. The cabin would be ready when we returned next summer.
Right on schedule, we showed up with enough old furniture and other stuff to make the new cottage our summer home. Joe stopped by to say hello and to be sure Dad was happy with his work. Dad was happy, and he said so. Then he looked Joe in the eye and asked if he was happy with the deal. Joe said, “Well, Larry, I didn’t do well here. I lost money. I underestimated the cost to carry all the lumber up over the cliffs.” Dad didn’t blink an eye and asked, “Joe, would another $800 cover your loss and give you a fair profit?”
The man was startled. He hadn’t met many landowners like my father, but this was the right thing to do on Dad’s part, and as a businessman he knew it was. Honestly, I think Dad, as an American, was a little uncomfortable in Canada. He wanted to feel good about his presence in the country. He was protecting his high self-image by doing the right thing. He was paying line for line, deed for deed. Dad was paying forward for a lifetime of service from Joe.
Of course, the book has a lot more insights and techniques. I put all my favorite quotes in another blog post, and if you want the full version of insights, you can sign up for the paid version here.
Ankur Shah Delight: Community and Conflict 