Nolan Martin :
Hello, welcome to the NEGOTIATEx podcast. My name is Nolan Martin. With me as always, Aram Donigian. Aram, how are you doing today, sir?
Aram Donigian:
Hey, I’m doing great, Nolan. Do I still get to introduce our guests?
NM:
You do. You do.
AD:
Okay. All right. Good. Before I do that, folks I do have a disclaimer as an employee of the department of the Air Force, the views that our guests will be sharing with us today are her personal views and not necessarily those of the department of the Air Force or its components. She is joining our program in a personal capacity and cannot speak to any department of the air force policies or programs.
With that, let me introduce a dear colleague and our guest, Kimberly Mlinaz, a Juris Doctorate, has spent a professional career in leadership roles in manufacturing, then law school, time as a labor and employment attorney, and now working on negotiation and alternative dispute resolution. The combination of these experiences informs Kim’s perspectives around problem solving.
In addition to her JD, Kim also has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, which is an obvious prelaw path for anyone considering that route. She spent 10 years with the Menasha Corporation as both a production crew manager and as part of the Fanfold division leadership team. She’s been part of the department of the Air Force for the past 14 years, currently serving as director negotiation and dispute resolution, where she oversees a global program for conflict management and dispute resolution, supporting a workforce of over 689, 000 people.
Kim is passionate about empowering leaders to resolve workplace conflicts through early intervention strategies. She leads a comprehensive training strategy for neutral practitioners equipping leaders with the skills they need to mitigate the effects of negative conflict in the workplace. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Kim several times, and I know that today’s discussion will be tremendously fun.
Kim, thanks so much for joining us.
Kimberly Mlinaz:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here today. And I do just want to reiterate one more time. I am here in my personal capacity and these are my views, not those of the department of the Air Force or any of our components.
NM:
Kim, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. We know we need to limit any specific questions on your current work. From a personal journey perspective, what can you share about the path from a degree in chemical engineering? Again, as Aram says, obvious to pre law to manufacturing, to law, and now to conflict management and any surprises along the way.
Embracing Diverse Perspectives For Innovative Problem-Solving [02:32]
KM:
That’s a great question. A lot of people think they’re so different, but quite frankly, I think they have a lot in common. To me, the through line here is critical thinking and problem solving. And this is where I want to put a plug in for our generalists. Those folks that have a really broad approach to things know a lot about many different things and they’re able to see those patterns, those connections, that broad experience that allows them to frame things differently than you might if you’re deep expertise in a particular area
It gives you that appreciation that different people can have really different perspectives on the same set of facts. And it’s in those different ways of looking at the same set of facts from those different areas of expertise that they’re really exciting, innovative ideas and problem solving ideas come from.
NM:
Very cool.
AD:
So I’m curious. So talk, tell us to say a little bit more. How did that show up in the world of chemical engineering? How did that show up in manufacturing? And then it’s whatever degree you can, how’s that show up in the work you do today.
KM:
Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things that we’re seeing evolve in the workplace is we’re going from an economy of doers, where you had to learn the task, you learn the process, and you execute that over and over again really well, to being reliant on knowledge workers, and those knowledge workers exist really in every facet of an organization, whether that’s manufacturing, whether that’s in law, whether that’s in dealing with conflict.
And that’s really in our ability to identify problems early to understand what those causes and factors are, and then be able to figure out an effective solution as quickly as possible. And whether that is the complexity of lots of machinery components working together or the complexity of people working together. It’s really very similar.
AD:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. People are so easy. People are never the problem. All right. Listen, talking about people, you direct a global program for conflict management and dispute resolution for a workforce of over 689,000 people.
I’m really curious about the challenges involved in directing a program like that and why programs like this are so critical to organizational success and employee care for any organization in any industry?
The Key To Creativity & Innovation In Large Organizations [4:59]
KM:
What I can say about large organizations to me from that perspective is two things. One is getting everybody rowing in the same direction, but also doing that with the full understanding that there are microcultures and different perspectives and different ways of approaching things and honoring those different perspectives. Because that goes right into why this is so important to what we do in the workplace.
From a business perspective, creativity and innovation is born from positive conflict. And there are so many people who are conflict averse. They don’t like to wade into that. They’re a little afraid of where that can go, but no great idea ever originated anywhere other than having a big problem that was messy and needed to be dealt with.
So the more we can equip our leaders and folks engaged in conflict resolution of some fashion with the really great skills to mitigate the negative impact while allowing the positive impact to drive creativity, the more innovative and more we are able to adapt to change. From an employee perspective, I think it’s just as important. I’m sure you both have read or seen the Gallup organization’s information on employee engagement and what I find so fascinating about it. There’s great stuff out there, but to me, one of the drivers that I talk about a lot with leaders is that 70% of the amount of discretionary energy at that employee’s level of engagement, how much they contribute in the workplace is directly connected to that relationship with their first line supervisor.
Do they feel heard? Do they feel respected? Do they feel like they’re contributing to something larger than themselves? And in order to be in that space, to be able to be contributing and to be engaged, there’s natural conflict that’s going to come up between employees and supervisors and leaders who can manage that effectively are always going to bring their organizations back to full effectiveness really quickly.
And the last point I’d like to make here, oh, sorry, gentlemen, the last point I wanted to make here is about the speed of change. I was reading a report recently, Dell Technologies reported 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet, which means this old fashioned way of looking at seniority that the folks who are long in the tooth have all the answers. That’s going to be challenged more and more. And there’s going to be a lot more dissenting opinions, a lot more different ways of looking at things. Our experts aren’t always going to look the way we think that they should from our historic experiences, and that is going to cause conflict and we’re going to need to be able to work through that.
NM:
Speaking of conflict, and you said this early, I definitely have never heard anyone call it positive conflict. So really excited to get your take on what that is and how is it positive?
Leveraging Disagreement For Enhanced Problem-Solving [07:35]
KM:
Yeah, positive conflict just means, all conflict really is, Nolan, from my perspective, is you and I disagree on something. And we may have really good reasons for disagreeing on something, we may see it differently, we may have different information from one another, and in building that common knowledge, that common understanding of what really the challenge is, what we’re trying to accomplish with that conversation, I think we end up with better solutions because we’re using that conflict, that energy, that disagreement to drive us to look at things differently than we might otherwise have done on our own.
NM:
Negotiators are often seen as hyper competitive and prone to using various deceptive tactics. How do you address these misconceptions and more specifically, the role of emotion and identity on our unconscious and automatic responses during negotiation?
The Role Of The Ladder Of Inference In Workplace Dynamics [08:46]
KM:
That’s a softball question.
NM:
We knew you could handle it.
AD:
Nolan always gets to ask the hard ones.
KM:
This could be a week-long conversation all on its own. So I think I’d start here by talking about the fact that our brains are pattern making machines, right? We don’t always, every bit of information we take in, we’re not evaluating it as if it’s the first time we’re hearing it. We’re evaluating it against the learned behaviors, our experiences, what we’ve been taught, the culture, we’re a part of the organization and expectations of our lives. And these things create expectations for us about how we’re supposed to show up in the workplace.
You just spend a few minutes googling a free will, and you’ll find out there’s a big, huge conversation around this, right? And it comes back to me for a tool your listeners might be interested in: The Ladder Of Inference. We spend so much time communicating with one another at the top of that ladder.
This is what I believe. This is what you believe. You’re obviously wrong because I’m obviously right. And we argue back and forth up there. But we need to be stepping back down that ladder and thinking about what assumptions have we made based on our past experience? What perspectives have we taken because that’s our learned behavior?
What data are we missing? Because we either haven’t had those experiences or just haven’t had a chance to read that material. And then we need to think about the fact that we’re really socialized to win from a young age. And so that pressure to win spills over into negotiations, the pressure from the folks that we’re probably negotiating on behalf of to deliver great results, television plays a huge role in this.
People watch negotiators on TV and get the absolute wrong approach to how to have a really effective negotiation or conversation and where it comes back to that deception point that you talked about earlier. It’s when people start to feel like they’re losing ground, like they might not be able to save face, like they might not be able to get the outcomes they’re driving for.
Deception can be a really useful tool in coercive power. It’s a way in which somebody who feels like they’re losing ground can gain some back. And unfortunately, some of that is normalized in certain communities. But I think by and large, if you look at the studies, individuals who are collaborative within reason certainly measure who you’re negotiating against tend to have better outcomes than folks who take that really aggressive competitive result approach.
NM:
Yes. Thank you, Kim. That’s great. And that kind of leads me up to thinking like beyond the ladder of inference, are there other strategies that can be used to manage emotions and identity effectively?
Strategies For Maintaining Focus & Granting Grace [11:37]
KM:
Yeah, another softball question. So I think here that this is really a challenge, but this is one of these things that there’s a reason we call it a practice where you’re working on this your lifelong. And there are a couple of things that I would offer up for the listeners. First is you really need to get clear on what your goals are. What are you doing in this conversation to start with so that when you feel yourself getting swept up into some of that more emotional interchange, you can come back to those goals and ask yourself, is this serving my goals or is this coming from my emotional response to what’s happening?
And I think sometimes we need to spend some time thinking about what might trigger us and what might trigger the person that we’re in conversation with. So what do I mean by this? I know that word has a connotation that’s different for a lot of people. So what I’m talking about here is let’s say, as a female in a negotiation, perhaps I might be a little more sensitive to when a male is speaking to me in a tone that I might consider condescending or direct.
And if I don’t, if I’m not aware that has an effect on me, I might find myself having an automatic response that’s kind of like that threat response where I lose control of my response to it because I’m reacting to him in the moment. But if I know, going into it, that is a trigger for me, that if he uses that tone of voice, it’s going to frustrate me, and the only thing it’s going to do is put me off my game, now that I’ve identified that before I go into the room, if it starts happening, my brain knows, hey, wait a minute, you planted a flag here.
This is what’s happening. Pull it back. And then I think the other piece here, and we’ve lost some of this as well, is we need to give our counterparts some grace because they’re under that same pressure and set of expectations that we are. And to create some value to make spaces for people to save face in those moments. That is really impactful. And what I would say at the end of the day, it all comes back to where I started with, is what is the outcome you’re trying to achieve? And is the act in the moment furthering those objectives? Or is it moving you further away?
AD:
Yeah, I think that’s so critical. And it’s a place where people don’t spend enough time before, really any sort of conflict or dispute, whether it’s a formal negotiation or not, which is getting really solid on what negotiation is or what this in success when I be like rather than just winning or losing and especially when you talk about emotional things showing up. It’s so true. Especially like giving others grace. We often talk about the difference between intent and impact and giving people grace on their intent and still being able to have good conversations on the impact and saying, Hey, that impacted me in this way. If in your example, being able to say to your male counterpart, listen, I know it wasn’t your intention to be disrespectful.
And the impact is. It doesn’t make me feel heard. It doesn’t make me feel valued as a partner to this negotiation, right? And I think that’s a respectful thing to do to the relationship as well as to yourself.
KM:
You may not even have to necessarily see it that way. It could also be an indicator to you that individual feels as though they’re losing ground and their way of regaining power in that conversation is to default to some challenging habits. So if you’re able to detach from that, And think about these behaviors from a strategic perspective, it really helps you understand what’s happening in the moment with those other individuals.
AD:
I love it. All right. So you mentioned the ladder of inference earlier, obviously that’s, and maybe you can go in a little bit more depth if you wish to but a common challenge that I know you see in negotiations is just the fact that there’s different, these differing perspectives that parties bring to the table, it’s easy to get staked out, they might be over the facts.
It might be how we interpret the meaning of those facts, it might, or it might be the top of the ladder, the conclusion level or whatever, but I’m just curious in your experience, what’s most effective when you’re trying to bridge the gap and parties just seem stuck and they’re just talking past each other?
How To Foster Understanding & Resolve Conflicts In Negotiations [16:05]
KM:
Yeah, great question. I think the trap that a lot of people fall into in this moment is we really focus so strongly on getting ourselves heard that we start speaking more forcefully. We get louder, hoping that if I just restate this seven or eight or nine more times, they’ll finally see things from my perspective.
And the fascinating thing, and the ladder of inference, to me, I think is such a great tool here. The what we know about brain science is they never will. They literally cannot see it from your perspective because they don’t have your experiences. They don’t have your background, your identity. They didn’t grow up the same way that you did.
And so the challenge here is how can we look at those moments where we feel like we’re an impasse and try to break them down? And I think the tool from my perspective that often gets overlooked is I’ve seen so many times when folks are in that impasse situation, they make an emotional decision that we’ve reached that we’ve reached an impasse, there’s no road ahead, negotiations are breaking down.
And let me sidebar here and say, I know folks like to think that they’re perfectly rational and that they’re not having emotions. But I will remind you that anger and frustration and annoyance are emotions, and they’re giving you signals just like happiness and sadness do. They’re signs that something’s not going right, and we need to think about it differently. So what I often suggest in these moments is to just take a second to stop and get really curious and diagnose what’s happening here. Is this a situation where we’re just shouting past each other about beliefs at the top of the ladder?
Is this a situation where I have information that you don’t, or you have information that I don’t? And if we step back down the ladder and share some information back and forth, we may be able to arrive at a different conclusion. Maybe we really haven’t spent a lot of time talking about whether we’re even the right people in the room to be having this conversation.
Is there someone missing from this conversation that needs to be there? Or oftentimes what I see are there too many people at that table that are giving input and ideas that are maybe detracting away from the purpose of being in the room. So some things really are impasse. You’re not going to be able to move past them. But a lot of times it is about the fact that we really haven’t considered where the breakdown is.
So what I would encourage people to do in that moment is really focus on what’s driving that other person. And I love to say, just get curious. You’re stuck already. They’re not hearing what you have to say. Get curious, ask some good questions. I forget it. I think it was Secretary Rusk who said the best way to convince people is to use your ears, something along those two lines.
AD:
I love it.
KM:
The more that I ask you questions, the more that I understand your perspective, not only are you giving me the inside baseball on what it is to talk to you, you’re feeling heard. And then this wonderful thing called reciprocity shows up. And if I’ve given you the grace to be heard, you’re probably going to turn around and give that to me.
AD:
I love it. You talked about emotions. We’re never the ones that are emotional. It’s always somebody else who’s feeling those emotions, right? Never me. I’m always cool and collected. The response, the, and then to hear us, I, what I’ve seen is people will say, oh, you’re not getting me. So let me just repeat it. As you said, numerous times. And as I do so, I’ll talk a little slower and a little louder and that suddenly somehow that’s supposed to help.
KM:
Yeah. And I think an interesting thing I can share here that I really feel like is a good example of this. I started my career working in a paper mill. There were not a whole lot of women that had worked in that mill before me on the shop floor in a leadership position, and I showed up fully expected to face all of this sexism that I had heard about, right?
And I will tell you, certainly there are bumps and bruises along the way in any new job, but by and large, that was a wonderful organization to walk into. The crew treated me with great respect. The leadership helped mentor me. I had a wonderful experience. And so my personal experience of being a woman in a really male dominated industry was, I don’t know what you all are talking about? The guys are great. This is awesome. That doesn’t happen. So you start to craft your way of thinking about the workplace from the perspective of your experiences. So someone were to say to me who had never worked in an environment like that, hey, Kim, it’s awful to go work there. I don’t know how you did it.
Well, obviously you’re wrong. You’ve had no experiences there. You’re not going to change my mind, but what gives me a more broad approach, a broader understanding of what’s happening there is not people telling me I’m wrong. It’s people sharing their personal experiences where there were different situations that they went through. And to know that the answer to these questions is a lot more complex than the if, and, or black and white thinking that we often times reduce things down to.
NM:
Kim, related to Aaron’s previous question. How do you maintain a composed presence and stay focused on the overall goals of a negotiation rather than just personal objectives, especially when it’s so easy to be unconsciously influenced by expectations and biases?
Mastering Self-Awareness & Composure For Strategic Advantage [21:44]
KM:
That’s a $64,000 question, isn’t it? And I’m wondering how many of the listeners online will actually catch that reference, right? I often think of William Urie in Getting Past No. One of the sentences that really stuck for me from that book was that we are the most difficult person we have to deal with at the negotiating table.
When I first read that, I thought, I don’t know if I buy that, but the longer that I do this, the more I am absolutely certain that he is accurate on that point. And I think the first thing that we have to do, quite frankly as a negotiator or somebody dealing with conflict, is we really have to be able to see the connection between our own composure and securing the best possible outcomes.
If you think this is soft skill stuff, this is the stuff that you’re supposed to do because it’s the right way to treat, no one’s going to use that because they’re thinking hardcore strategy, right? But I would offer up that this is actually one of the most effective strategic advantages that you can have is that really good, solid, composed presence.
And when you do that, you need to think about the fact that really is rooted in emotional intelligence. First of all, you need to think about self awareness. We talked a little bit earlier, but what are your triggers? And the reason why that is so important is because our brains have this little almond shaped thing inside of it called the amygdala.
And most people have heard about amygdala hijack, or at least heard of fight or flight, right? And interestingly enough, if you dig deep into some of the great literature out there right now in the conflict arena, there is some arguments to be made that a personal attack on our intelligence or our emotion, or the way we fit in with the group, that is, our fitting in is so important to us as humans that our brains will take that personal attack the same way it will take a physical threat to us.
So it kicks in that amygdala hijack, which is why if you’ve ever walked away from one of those arguments with somebody or a heated conversation, and you’ve thought, why did I say that? Or why did I do that? Or I should have said, what was happening is that your higher order thinking had been shut down in favor of fight or flight, an amygdala hijack. The cortisol is high, the adrenaline is high, and you’re not thinking as clearly as you should be in the moment to be making those great rational decisions.
So you need to know what the signs are for you. For me, I feel it in my chest. If I feel myself leaning forward a little bit and I feel a little pressure in my chest, I know I’m starting to get pulled into reaction instead of making good choices. And sometimes that’s enough for me to recognize what’s going on. Other times I need to walk away and we’ve all heard since childhood to walk away and cool down. That’s rooted in science. That’s the time for the cortisol and the adrenaline to come down the higher order to thinking to kick back in.
And then I would add on to that layer onto it, the self management aspect of emotional intelligence. How much control do you have over the stories that you’re telling yourself about what things mean? What does their behavior mean? You may have used a tone of voice because you were irritated with the word choice. I may have interpreted that as you were irritated with me or with what I was saying. You may have a dialect from a different part of the country that a word means something different than the way that I use that word. So if I’m telling myself stories that this person doesn’t like me, that they’re trying to be aggressive or competitive, that’s putting me at a disadvantage.
So how can I take those stories, that meaning that I’m creating in my mind about the situation and twist it back to a way that’s going to be helpful for me. Like we talked about earlier with looking at that tone of voice, not as an attack on myself, but potentially indicating that individual was feeling at a disadvantage and was trying to reclaim power.
NM:
Nolan here, I have to jump in and end today’s podcast for part A of this show. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the NEGOTIATEx podcast if you haven’t already. And also join us next week for part B of this awesome interview.101
