From the course: How to Be Both Assertive and Likable

Other tips in staying strong

From the course: How to Be Both Assertive and Likable

Other tips in staying strong

- [Interviewer] So when it comes to being strong, I love the specificity of not nodding. Do you have any other specific tips for the listeners? - [Interviewee] Yeah, I mean, I also think that holding your cards to the best a little bit can be another useful technique. And it's funny because even as I say this, I feel a little bit of internal turmoil because I taught at Harvard Law School with their principle negotiation framework and getting to yes is what it's all about. I still negotiate with the principled framework when I do business deals or legal negotiations. And the reason is that most of the time they're talking about repeat business. So working off of principles, discovering interests, all that kind of stuff is awesome and is great. At the same time, when you are an SMB owner for 16 years and you know yourself from running American Negotiation Institute, you have to negotiate very tough all the time as well. And so in those instances, it really helps to do things like holding your cards closer to the chest. So one thing that is a typical sequence that happens in a negotiation and ultimately, I look at negotiation as like this cultural norm and there are ways of doing the dance that are expected. And so one of the dance moves that is expected, I think in a negotiation is what I call negotiation bartering, where it's like, "All right, I'll trade you this deal point for that deal point. You trade me this deal point for that deal point." So in that situation, it helps where the other side doesn't really have the proper weighting on your deal points. And what people will do is hard bargain or sometimes is they'll pretend that something is important to them, even though it's not. It's like going to the car purchasing lot, to the dealership lot and saying, "You know, I would get this car, but it's the wrong color. It's it's blue. I really, really had my heart set on red." Now, secretly you actually wanted the blue one but you're pretending like it's something that you really cared a lot about. So then when it finally comes down to it, you're like, "All right, fine. Look, since it's not the color that I want, give me knock off $500. I'll just take this (indistinct)" So that's an example of kind of being strong by not just revealing all of your cards and saying, "Look, this is how exactly how I feel about everything." At the same time, you can be a hard bargainer by trying to genuinely get at what are their interests. And if you find out what they're genuinely interested in, but there's a little hazy, what's important to you and what's less important to you, then now you have information asymmetry and you can use that to your advantage. So again, it depends on the situation. If I'm negotiating with, you know, North Korea, maybe I'm going to be a little bit more obtuse about my position. However, if I'm negotiating with (indistinct) Christian, then hey, it's a whole open book to you. - [Interviewer] I appreciate that (laughs) Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And you need to make that determination of what type of relationship and what type of interaction we're having. And I really appreciate you bringing up the typical getting to yes style collaborative negotiation approach. Because I think one of the issues that comes with that is the belief that this approach is the way when it is a way, one of the possible ways. It's a tool in your arsenal. And I think Chris Voss did a great job of outlining the differences, because if you go against the hard bargainer and you are completely win-win collaborative, there's going to be a problem (laughs) - [Interviewee] Yes. I think that it kind of goes down to game theory also just like you point out and the prisoner's dilemma. And it turns out that one of the most effective algorithms in a prisoner's dilemma type scenario, where you have to collectively a medium amount to gain if you work together where you will have more to gain if you win and the other side loses, if you play hard and the other one soft, but if you both play hard, then you kind of end up at the bottom. When computers play against each other, the scenario that works the best, the algorithm that works the best is the tit for tat strategy. So you start off nice and hopefully the other side reciprocates, but if they don't and they start going hard bargaining and take advantage of you and don't yield an inch when you're yielding miles, then you have to switch your strategy and then follow them and then go with a hard style.

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