Kwame Christian is an attorney, mediator and the director of the American Negotiation Institute, which organizes workshops to help people navigate difficult conversations at work and at home. Kwame is also the host of the top ranked negotiation podcast Negotiate Anything, and the author of ‘Nobody will play with me, using compassionate curiosity to find confidence in conflict’.
In our conversation, Kwame explains why he chooses to live in a constant state of conflict. We also discuss why women need their own negotiation podcast, how preparation helps him find confidence in conflict and why slowing down is critical to success in difficult conversations.
“The best things in life lie on the other side of a difficult conversation.”
- Kwame Christian
Show Notes:
0:49 –How Kwame turned from an outcast into a pleaser, avoiding conflict at all cost
3:37 – Defining difficult conversations
4:57 – The difficult conversations that we tend to avoid in the workplace
5:42 – Why Kwame choose to live in a constant state of conflict
6:32 – The Halo and Horn effect
11:57 – Why women need their own negotiation podcast
14:20 –Prescriptive vs. descriptive stereotypes and how it affects women in negotiations
17:18 – How priming can help women to ask with confidence
20:10 – The gender investment gap
23:05 – How open-ended questions can give female founders an edge in VC meetings
24:12 – Using low-stakes meetings to lay the groundwork for difficult conversations
25:43 – How to prepare for difficult conversations
28:41 – The importance of understanding which options and alternatives you have
30:56 – What you should say and what you shouldn’t say
32:37 – Preparing for difficult conversations through visualization
34:14 – How visualization works when preparing for speeches or negotiations
35:39 – Finding confidence in conflict – one step at a time
38:02 – Turning surprise negotiations into information gathering sessions
39:24 – Why slowing down is crucial to success in difficult conversations
42:06 – The power of breathing deeply
44:14 – Optimizing the space between stimulus and response
47:44 – Changing your brain with neuroplasticity
49:45 – Kwame breaks down his Compassionate Curiosity framework
54:43 – How parents and leaders can keep it cool in the heat of the moment
1:01:30 – Putting the framework into practice
1:04:31 – The role of power in difficult conversations and negotiations
1:07:24 – Value creation vs. value distribution in negotiations
1:08:59 – How to improve your difficult conversations, starting right now
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Links to people, books and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Kwame’s profile on LinkedIn, his show Negotiate Anything via Apple Podcasts, his TEDx Talk Finding Confidence in Conflict, his book Nobody Will Play With Me, the website of the American Negotiation Institute and the negotiation guides he mentions on the show.
- The newly launched negotiation podcast for women Ask with Confidence, hosted by Katherine Knapke, and Dave Stachowiak’s Coaching for Leaders podcast, on which I first learned about Kwame.
- The Harvard Business Review article on the gender investment gap that we discuss on the show and my earlier post on this important topic.
- Other books mentioned: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, The Confidence Code by Katte Kay and Women Don’t Ask by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (all via Amazon.com).
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If you enjoyed this episode of the Meeting Strategist podcast, you might also like these:
Ep. 11 - How to Listen When Emotions Run High, with Hostage Negotiator Dan Oblinger
Ep. 10 - How to Become More Conversationally Intelligent, with Bob Pointer
Ep. 09 - Creating a Safe Space for Young Professionals to Thrive, with Julia Hart
Ep. 08 - How to Close the Power Gap in Meetings, with Marcel van de Hoef
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Here are a few edited quotes from this episode:
“A negotiation is any conversation where somebody wants something.”
“Preparation helps you to see that there will be life after this conversation, win, lose or draw.”
“When we get scared or angry or frustrated or anxious, the human response is to talk faster.”
“You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
“When it comes to negotiating and resolving conflict at a high level, you are cultivating unnatural responses. Because your natural instincts will lead you into a direction that is not beneficial.”
“You can literally change your brain and you are creating these new neural pathways, so once you are confronted with a stimulus this becomes your new normal response. So even if it’s currently unnatural, by practice it can become your new natural.”
“We have to realize that in the business world, for whatever reason, sometimes people might be facing a scenario where they are incapable of having a productive conversation. So sometimes it’s better to break it up, gather a little bit of information and put yourself in a better position to win in a subsequent conversation on another day.”
“I want to give people a process that’s easily remembered. Even if you don’t remember the three steps… if you remember Compassionate Curiosity that will change the way you approach difficult conversations: ok, I need to ask questions and not sound like a jerk. If you can at least do that, it will improve your outcomes significantly.”
“One of the biggest things in these conversations is to recognize: ‘This response is not about me. This is how people’s brains are designed. This is actually a very predictable response to this type of situation.”
“People are oriented toward the negative. We are more likely to see the other side’s source of power and think that we have some kind of deficiency.”
“If we are in a position where we have less power, we need to really focus on value creation. We need to spend a lot more time being creative and finding creative ways to meet our needs.”