Episode 164 – Negotiation and Persuasion- Strategies to Success

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Two important interpersonal skills for project professionals to sharpen are negotiation and persuasion. Before you embark on your next stakeholder negotiation or try persuade an unyielding team member, take a listen to Carlene Szostak as she talks about successful negotiation and persuasion. Table of Contents 01:45 … Meet Carlene02:38 … Types of Project Negotiations03:40 … The Traits of a Good Negotiator04:38 … Preparing for the Negotiation Process05:45 … Finding the Why07:29 … Listen Well10:26 … Enhance Your Negotiating Power12:43 … Dealing with Unethical Tactics14:59 … Reading Body Language16:12 … Negotiating for a Project Extension17:02 … Traps to Avoid in Negotiations18:48 … When Negotiation Stalls21:57 … Kevin and Kyle23:13 … Factors for Successful Persuasion24:40 … The Right Mindset for Persuasion26:37 … Dealing with a Confrontational Person28:46 … Persuasion vs. Manipulation30:46 … Tips to Persuade an Owner or Stakeholder32:31 … Challenges Facing PMs Today34:01 … Contact Carlene34:30 … Closing CARLENE SZOSTAK: ... Well, with technology and with the ability to reach people regardless of where they are in the organization, those walls have come down.  And people that are in the position of power want to hear from the people closest to the projects.  So therefore the permission has been granted.  All we have to do is step into it. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  And we’re so glad you joined us today.  If you like what you hear, we’d love to hear from you.  You can leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com; on social media; or whichever podcast listening app you use. Our guest today is Carlene Szostak.  She’s a business leader, she’s a consultant, author, and an educator.  She’s an established senior leader with a broad range of experience managing people, process, and technology.  So we’re going to talk about negotiation and persuasion. BILL YATES:  You know, Wendy, one of the things that we’re talking about is the importance of getting to know the other person that we’re negotiating with.  And one of the books that I’ve read on negotiation is by Chris Voss.  It’s “Never Split the Difference.”  In that he offers some questions that I think are helpful for me when I’m thinking about a negotiation, and what does the person on the other side of the table want?  Here are some of these questions.  This is just food for thought. “What about this is important to you?  How can I help to make this better for us?  How would you like for me to proceed?  What is it that brought us into this situation?  How can we solve this problem?  How am I supposed to do that, that thing that you’ve asking?”  These are just some questions that are food for thought for those that are trying to get in the mindset of that person on the other side of the table. Meet Carlene WENDY GROUNDS:  Carlene, welcome to Manage This. CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Thank you so much for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Won’t you tell us how you got into project management? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  So my career started with the NFL.  Again, that had nothing to do with project management, but that experience segued me into working for a Fortune 50 company that had multiple moving parts.  And our senior leadership did not believe in project managers.  We hired the team, the team did the work, and that’s it.  And one very excited and future-looking leader on the C Suite came in and said, “Well, why don’t we just test the model?”  I had the opportunity in my region to actually get a project manager to work for me, and they opened our eyes on the things that we didn’t even consider we had to do or think about.  And ever since then I have been passionate about making sure that organizations have project management influence in anything that’s touched that makes a difference for the business to move forward. Types of Project Negotiations WENDY GROUNDS:  Carlene, we’re excited to talk about negotiation and persuasion.  I think it’s a topic that is close to the heart of project managers.  But before we get into that, could you give some idea of the types of negotiation that is commonly used in a project? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Well, I would say that, as a project manager, they would probably say that they negotiate every day, all the time. BILL YATES:  Everything, yes. CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Exactly.  And working on projects are never routine based on my experience.  I would probably say that the most used is attempting to go with a win-win when they’re trying to resolve a conflict.  It could be a conflict between associates that are in impasse.  It could be a stall that just suddenly popped up.  Or it could be a request for a change of a deadline, or even stakeholders that suddenly decide that they want to have a report out and an explanation as to why we’re going that way.  I think it’s – I don’t know if you know the game Whac-a-mole.  It’s a county fair game.  I kind of see project managers doing that throughout their day. The Traits of a Good Negotiator BILL YATES:  Yup, that’s so true.  Things pop up, and you’ve got to deal with it.  In your experience with people that have gone into this area of negotiations, you’ve seen people do things well, and you’ve seen people do things poorly.  What are the traits of a good negotiator? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  I think just the training that a project manager goes through kind of sets them up for success.  But if I had to come up with the top three – I like working in threes – the top three that I would come up with would be the first one is to actually create a plan.  What the heck are they trying to accomplish?  And then the second one would be to organize it.  So identifying what’s important and what’s clutter.  And again, if we don’t sit down and take the time to do that, all of a sudden in negotiations you don’t know which way you’re going because you have all these ideas in your head.  So again, create a plan, organize what really is important and what isn’t, and then stay focused.  And so plan, organize, and staying focused would be my top three. Preparing for the Negotiation Process WENDY GROUNDS:  Creating that plan, what are some effective preparations that can be done to start that negotiation process? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  I guess I would start with talking about preparing.  And again, back in the day, this will show my age.  Back in the day we used to go to the library, we used to find microfiche, we had to read old newspapers.  It would take hours and hours and days for us to find out some information.  Now that information is at our fingertips.  So I would start there.  The Internet is a great, vast place to start with.  Go to using keyword searches, and of course friends in the network.  But knowing the history of the company, knowing the person that you’re interviewing in advance. So these are fundamentals.  And we should be doing that regardless of what we’re involved in, if it’s job hunting, negotiating a podcast, doing some background information.  I think LinkedIn is a great source from a business perspective.  Where did they go to school?  Who are they connected with?  Are they connected to people that you’re connected with?  And then reach out to those folks and find out kind of how the other person thinks. Finding the Why I didn’t talk about this earlier, but one of the things that’s important as you’re negotiating is thinking the Why? question.  And there’s a game that we used to play, I call it the Why? game.  I’m sure if we Google searched it there’s an official title for it.  But practicing asking a question and then saying, okay, and why?  And why?  And why?  So for fun, outside of a negotiation setting, I would recommend people practicing that.  How many whys can you get to before you’ve actually kind of exhausted it? Because sometimes when you’re prepping, you’re thinking at only one level.  And then once you get into the negotiations, the person says something, and then you can’t take it at face value.  You really have to say, so why?  And then you may end up finding out what the true truth is underneath that, if you take the time to ask the question.  So I would think that that’s probably the biggest thing from the preparation standpoint. BILL YATES:  I completely agree.  I feel like there are two key pieces of information that we need to prepare before going into a negotiation.  And I think we tend to focus on the first, which is the subject matter.  Which is, okay, what is it we’re talking about?  What are the details in the contract?  And what does my team run into?  So we really get hyper focused on the subject matter that we’re going to negotiate or discuss.  And we forget the person.  That’s the second one.  And it’s so important. Much of the reading that I’ve done on negotiations talks about empathy.  To your point, you’ve got to ask that question of why.  What motivates this person?  How are they likely to respond to this conversation we’ve going to have?  Based on their background, how do I expect them to respond?  Then how am I going to respond to that?  So it’s like a chess game almost, you’re doing a lot of planning in advance and thinking about different ways this could go.  Listen Well CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Yeah.  Now, one of the things we touched on a little bit, but I think we should emphasize here, is that even though we’re asking questions, the listening part is the important part, too.  I mean, really listening.  And so, your success happens when you hear something and then respond to it.  So I think successful negotiations isn’t just taking the first thing that somebody says, but listen for the story behind the answer, I guess would be the way I would go. BILL YATES:  Okay.  I’ve got to refer to a book, Chris Voss,