Media Coverage
Playing NICE
By John Carroll
So says Ron Shapiro, who has studied the art of negotiating for most of his life. As a sports agent, he’s represented baseball legends like Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson, and Jim Palmer during contract talks. He has a hand in settling the contentious umpires’ strike. And he’s taken what he’s learned on the road, advocating a systematic approach to negotiations that can help everyone in business go “to the next level.”
To hear Shapiro talk about negotiations is to get a brisk primer on the skills and techniques he and co-author Mark Jankowski outlined in their newly updated book: The Power of Nice: How to Negotiate So everyone Wins, Especially You! (John Wiley & Sons). Spirit sat down with the author at his Shapiro Negotiations Institute in Baltimore, where he preaches what he practices.
SPIRIT: You put a big emphasis on preparation. Why?
Ron Shapiro: Preparation is the only aspect of the negotiation that you control. You don’t control the other side. You don’t control outside events. You don’t control the marketplace. You control what you do. That’s the area where you level the playing field. As part of preparation, it pays for anyone to spell out their proposals in advance. Actually write out what you’re going to say – subject to modification – to raise their levels of confidence and give them a chance to devil’s advocate the proposition they’re going to make.
SPIRIT: What if you don’t have time to prepare?
RS: I get a phone call from someone. They call me at 9 o’clock in the morning and they say, “Sorry, but we’ve got to do a deal by noon today or we’re going to go elsewhere.” This is scary. The pressure is on. The first thing I do is probe. Why 12 o’clock? If in fact it’s a real deadline, I immediately say, “Can I call you back in 45 minutes?” No one is going to say you can’t call them back in 45 minutes. If I can take 45 minutes and sketch out a quick strategy and define something about strengths and weaknesses, I’m still better off than if I took no time at all. If you’re sitting at a table and you say, “Ron, we need to do a deal now.” I’m going to say, “Give me five minutes and I’m going to go down the hall.” And as I go down the hall, I’ll be preparing.
SPIRIT: Do negotiations get tougher in lean times?
RS: In one sense, there’s less to negotiate for, so both parties are a little more apprehensive about the negotiation. But the overarching principle of The Power of Nice® is that you want to negotiate in a way that’s systematic so you don’t damage relationships. You want to build relationships. And common sense tells us that when times are tough, relationships are more important than ever. At the back end of the deal, you want to come out with the relationship intact because it’s more likely that things are going to break down in tough times. You’re not only negotiating the contract, you’re negotiating the ongoing relationship.
SPIRIT: What if you look yourself in the mirror and say, “Hey, I’m not really a nice person”?
RS: The beauty of systematic approach to negotiations is that it allows you to cheat – whether you’re not nice or you’re too nice. If you’re too nice a person you’re in trouble, just as if you’re not nice. Knowing that it’s all about asking questions and listening harnesses your not-nice energy and allows you to come up with proposals that are aimed at helping you do the deal. The book isn’t called Be Nice. The book is called The Power of Nice. And it’s all about being empowered to have good relationships by being systematic.
SPIRIT: What are the most common objections you hear?
RS: Most people in the business world, particularly entrepreneurial types, are great seat-of-the-pants negotiators. And until they learn that they can really master the system of preparation and that it won’t rob them of time, they resist to some extent. The other problem is that most people are really ineffective listeners.
SPIRIT: How do you fix that?
RS: I read the aphorism of the old slave philosopher Epictetus where he said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” I carry that in mind all the time, to remind me that I don’t have five mouths and one ear, which most people act like they have.
People are very bad at connecting. You go into someone’s office today, and what are they doing? They’re multitasking. They’re trying to do three things at one time, and they’re not listening effectively.
SPIRIT: You advocate that people sit back and listen to what’s offered because they may be way ahead of you in terms of what they’re willing to offer.
RS: Frequently people are going to describe needs or wants that can be satisfied without going into your budget, without breaking your bottom line on price. Recently an executive told me about a key person who came in and asked for a raise. He had given her a raise six months before. He had nothing else in the budget. Instead of saying “I can’t give you the raise,” he said, “Why are you here?” He probed and found out that her daughter got into an Ivy League school with a very high tuition. He couldn’t get her the raise, but he found a service club scholarship. He took care of the need because he listened it through. That’s how you listen for solutions.
SPIRIT: Let’s do an exercise. Say a reader wants a promotion or a raise. What does he do to prepare?
RS: I’d have him go to his yellow pad and write out a list of questions – What’s important to the company? What else is important? Why is it important? - the probe questions. And then write out what he intends to say once he has the information. “Look, I’ve been here for 15 years, I’ve shown you what I can do. I truly believe I’m entitled to a rise of 23 percent.” Now 23 percent – I’m picking a number out of the air – is intimidating. But the bottom line is if you don’t write it out in advance, by the time you get to the boss you’ll say, “I’m entitled to a raise of 3 percent, don’t you agree?” People get nervous. By writing it out and practicing it, all of a sudden you have a whole new level of confidence.
SPIRIT: What happens when talks take a bad turn?
RS: If things really take a bad turn and a chill comes over the discussion, generally I suggest it’s a good time to take a time out. You need to regroup. You need to go back and think about what went wrong and create a new strategy. Try to find a new location for your next meeting. Just create a new ambience in the hope that you can create a new atmosphere for the negotiations. And know when it’s time to walk away with no deal and get on with the next deal. Sometimes people hang onto deals forever, even after they’ve gone totally sour.
SPIRIT: How do you avoid doing a lousy deal?
RS: If you’re not prepared, emotion will take over and you may find yourself sliding into the deal you did not want to do.
SPIRIT: But people often go for a lousy deal rather than no deal at all.
RS: Particularly salespeople. I’d say half the people we train are in sales. It’s all about making the deal. And then they look at their margins and say, “What did I Do?” They get revved up. There’s a little strategy you can use. It’s called tit for tat. Whenever anybody says, “OK, you’ll give us this and we’ll give you that,” don’t say yes, because if you do they’ll ask for more. Say, “I don’t know if I could do that for you, but if I could, could you do this for me?” You’re tit for tat. It’s a way of slowing the action down.
SPIRIT: And don’t wear out your welcome so you can go back later?
RS: The underlying principle is that you’re always building bridges. Life is not one transaction. Life is an ongoing deal. And some of the best deals I’ve done are with people I couldn’t do a deal with previously.
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