Nolan Martin :
Hello, and welcome to the NEGOTIATEx podcast. My name’s Nolan Martin. With me, as always, Aram Donigian. Aram, you wanna kick this one off today?
Aram Donigian :
Thanks, Nolan. Sure will. Professor Seth Freeman is a globally recognized expert in the fields of negotiation and conflict management. An award-winning teacher at Columbia University and a highly sought after professor at NYU Stern, he also has served as a visiting professor at several programs abroad.In his training, consulting, coaching, and speaking practice, Seth has worked with a variety of clients, including UN diplomats, fortune 500 companies, and many organizations.
His interviews and op-ed columns have appeared in New York Times, Bloomberg tv, Washington Post USA, today and elsewhere. Seth practiced corporate law for six years following his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He graduated from Cornell University with an undergraduate degree in economics.
Seth is the presenter for the art of negotiating the best deal from the great courses, one of their highest rated offerings. He is also the author of 15 Tools To Turn The Tide: A Step-by-Step Playbook for Empowered Negotiating. Professor Freeman lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City. He is a doting father and husband. Seth, welcome to the NEGOTIATEx podcast.
Seth Freeman :
Thank you so much, Aram. Thank you so much, Nolan. It’s a real pleasure to be with you.
AD :
So Seth, I’m also a father of daughters, and I’ve gotta ask you, which do you find more difficult negotiating with one of your daughters or advising a client on a business crisis?
SF :
I love that question, Aram, and immediately brings to mind a story. I was a parent on point one morning, and Hannah, my five years old, was just poised to get on the bus to go to school. The bus had just arrived. I’m all alone and once I’ve got her on the bus, then I can go down and make my class downtown at nine o’clock. And that’s the moment that Hannah decides to lock herself in the bathroom and throw a tantrum.
And I realized that if I don’t get her outta the bathroom and into the bus in literally a minute or two, the whole day is ruined. So what do I do? Your natural impulse in a moment like that is to, you know, suddenly be the daddy and start shouting and break open the door. It’s all the things normally you come, you just react with. And I knew that wasn’t work. So I started channeling my inner hostage negotiator, and I started empathizing. I go, you’re upset, sweet pea. You don’t wanna go because you don’t like to be rushed, and it’s too much stress, and it’s too, it makes you upset. And she started going from screaming to spluttering a little, and then I started to make a little silly sound or two, and the door flies open.
She’s laughing. She leaps into my arms. Yes. Isn’t this funny? Sweet pea. Yes, you’re right. You’re right. Put on the bus. Bye. And race like hell with a subway. Make it on time. So I’ve learned that hostage negotiation is a key tool for parenting.
AD :
Ways to use it in reverse. I love it. It is amazing though, right? When we apply the skills, how effective they can be, even in a situation like that.
SF :
Yeah, indeed.
AD :
Especially when you feel short for time too. Alright, so all kidding aside, Nolan, and I would love to hear about, what got you into this field and was this always your plan? What specifically attracted you to this line of work?
Seth’s Professional Journey: From Corporate Deals To The Rewards Of Teaching [03:13]
SF :
Well, as I often say, I used to practice corporate law. Now I enjoy my life and for six years, I was a corporate lawyer with big firms in New York City and I got to see some and participate in some huge transactions, $30 million aircraft deals, zillion dollar loans, IPOs, workouts. So it was really, it was quite the education, but it was boring, stressful, and endless.
And I’ve since realized that was because my real joy, my enthusiasms, my gifts are in nurture and encouragement and teaching, none of which really has much application in the practice of law. So I dipped my toe into teaching just to see what it was like. And to my amazement, I enjoyed it, the students enjoyed it.
And so I started to acquire these lots of really excellent reviews from students. And so I went from just a little trial run to business. And that went really well. And then I took that and brought it to NYU and that went well. And then I took that and brought it to Columbia and that went well, and it’s been a joy ever since.
NM :
Very cool. On page two of your book, you state it’s hard to negotiate as someone who has trained and taught thousands of students, executives, and others. Why is it that many of us seem to find this activity we call negotiation so difficult to do?
Beyond Win-Lose: Cultivating Strength & Kindness For Harmonious Outcomes [04:23]
SF :
It’s so true, Nolan. I think partly because it requires a certain mindset. That’s just not a natural inclination. We usually think that, you know, as children, that if I want it, you can’t have it, and that it’s a fixed pie and the only way to win is by not letting you win. And although I’m not crazy about the term win-win because it’s been overused, it can be a bit of jargon. I think shifting that understanding to realizing, oh my goodness, one can win warmly, one can be certainly an advocate for one’s needs and do quite well for oneself, indeed very well, better than one might otherwise, and yet do it in a way that’s caring and sustaining of the relationship and helps the other as well.
That’s still hard copy news for the vast world. And it’s actually so simple that a child can learn to do it, but it’s so important and so challenging that you can literally win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing it, as several people have. And I think that’s part of the joy is in short order, helping everyone from kindergartners to you and diplomats discover oh my gosh, this isn’t as vexing and as stressful and as ethically challenged and as self-seeking as I thought it was going to be.
And what that leads to, and this is really what I conclude my course in my book with, is the idea of being strong and kind. These skills help you shift from just being strong, which can destroy others if you’re not careful or just being kind, which can leave you as a roadkill, if you are not careful to being both, and that seems impossible, but they’re actually very much complimentary. And when you have that ability to be strong and kind, not only can you win a Nobel Peace Prize, you can bring forth peace and prosperity and harmony and justice where everyone else feels despair. And what could be better than that?
AD :
Yeah, I don’t know. This is where we really wanna focus our energies and efforts today is on this concepts that you’ve presented already. Win warmly, be strong and kind. Finding how to navigate both simultaneously and the shift in mindset. Now to get there, when I talk, get into your book and you spend, you have these 15 tools and approximately a third of your book, if I got the numbers right and if I didn’t, you can correct me.
Please correct me. Six of the 15 tools you share really connect to preparation. And Nolan and I would agree with you that preparation is important and it does tie to this mindset. Why do you spend so much time on what negotiators do before they even get to the table? And how might you summarize this wealth of advice that you have around getting well prepared?
The Critical Role Of Preparation In Achieving Negotiation Success [06:47]
SF :
It’s true. Preparation really is key. As one expert put in, I’ve shared this quote many times: Preparation is the jewel and the crown of negotiating, get this right and merely doing it is not enough, and your performance in the negotiation dramatically improves. That’s Gavin Kennedy, who is himself an expert on the subject and the research, the empirical research confirms that it’s one of the best predictors of success.
There was a study of 48 excellent negotiators compared with 48 mediocre negotiators. And the question was, what was the difference? And here’s the really surprising thing, the amount of time they spent was the same preparing for negotiation. What’s different is how you prepare, and so my ambition is not to burden readers with just, endless preparation.
No, exactly the opposite. The object here is to make it easier and more useful and more memorable so that prices hits and literally in a matter of minutes, you can do what to make a dramatic difference. And the book begins with a student who did exactly that and may have saved her career and her company.
AD :
And when you say how one prepares is key, like to you, are there a couple key pieces to really effective preparation?
SF :
There are, in pinch, I would say one of the first things I would recommend is literally the first tool in the book, it’s called Three Little Words, and these are interests, facts, options, and the idea is as simple as it is powerful.
Instead of getting caught up with just the number, or I’ve got a habit, the first thing to do is think about why do I want what I say I want? What are my interests and even better. What are the others, as best as I can guess. And once you’ve got the interests, you go do some research, some factual research, maybe crunch numbers, but you learn stuff, which is a hallmark of excellent negotiating.
And then with that information you brainstorm some ideas that you could propose that might serve the interests, theirs and yours. And here’s a tip. Let’s say Nolan Cole is about to call me. I’ve got 10 minutes to prepare and it’s a significant negotiation, and I haven’t had time. What could I do to really just get ready when I don’t have time to get ready?
What I might do is take the three little words, interest, facts, options, and I might actually go to ChatGPT, believe it or not, and I might say. Dear ChatGPT, here’s the situation I’m looking at. Here are three words, interest, facts, options. I would like you to list my likely options, suggest some factual research questions that I should answer, and based on reasonable guesses about what the answers to those first two things are, interests and facts, I’d like you to suggest 10 different options. Rank them. I might suggest to Nolan and my students find when we do that, the quality of the answers is about as good as if we had done it ourselves. And so you can literally do this in a matter of minutes if you have to. And the results are really good.
NM :
I appreciate, you know, what you’ve advised around preparation. It’s so key. As Aram had mentioned with us in the military rehearsals, we’re a common practice as part of this preparation when you’re advising a student or client. What does rehearsal look like and what are the benefits of conducting them before or prior to negotiating?
Role Play To Real Play: Mastering Negotiations Through Strategic Rehearsal [10:02]
SF :
I’m a strong believer in what we call role playing, or as you, you rightly put it, rehearsing, call it whatever you prefer. The research shows that the best results one gets negotiating are by those who do the kind of basic prep that I was just describing with the three little words and other things as well, and then role playing with a friend.
So if again, continuing our hypothetical, imagine I’m about to negotiate with you, Nolan, and I’ve done some of the basic groundwork, but I really wanna make sure that I’m ready. What I might do is say, Aram, I really would appreciate your help here. I would like to role play out my conversation with Nolan, which I’m gonna be having in just a little while.
So I’d like you to pretend to be Nolan. Give you my best description of what he’s like and what his situation is and I’d like you to really press me as much as you reasonably can. Make it challenging for me. I’m gonna play out, start from hello and see where this goes. And every now and then I’m gonna pause and I’m gonna ask you to give me feedback.
How does this sound? What’s going well? Where are you seeing problems? And I’ll use that to improve the next steps and we’ll stop, get more feedback and so on. And we do that two or three times. My students and I and researchers tell us this is a major game changer. So much so that if, I don’t know if either of you have experienced as elite athletes, but every semester I ask my students, is there anyone here who’s been an elite athlete?
And usually somebody raises their hand and I’ll ask them, did you visualize before a performance? And invariably they say yes. Why? It just gets you psychologically ready. It’s oh, I’ve got this. I’ve already been through the emotional experience. Physiologically, I’m there. That’s exactly why role playing can be so effective.
And so yes, complimenting the basic legwork, the role play is a great way to be emotionally readier.
NM :
I love that and I love the visualization aspect. When you over, you’re like, for instance, when we’re in the military getting ready to go out and do a mission, even just thinking through potential scenarios that could go on and everything like that, when you hit the ground, 95% of everything that you plan for is not even gonna happen or go how you plan.
But the fact of thinking through things and responding just really helps you out. So I can’t agree more.
SF :
I really wanna honor the military, which has given me a lot of insights in my own practice, partly because one of the most frequent questions I get is, what do I do with my emotions? And so high performance fields like the military and astronauts and pilots and the surgeons all have a sort of a similar meta skillset, and one of them is what you just described, practicing role playing. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin handled simulated hundreds of landings in simulators in Houston before they landed.
And of course, you know the power of war gaming and the fog of war, the uncertainties of it. Yeah. The plan itself is not helpful, but the planning gets you into that mindset so that you’re ready to adapt. And similarly, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstron, they faced a crisis they never trained for, but because they knew the basic emotional process, they were able to cope in real time. And so too were the mission controllers.
AD :
Seth, you talked about using ChatGPT to help you get prepared, particularly when you’re in a short timeframe. As you think about rehearsals and role plays, have you used ChatGPT or AI to do any of that work too, to help act as the other counterpart before you go into the negotiation as part of your preparation?
SF :
That is the first thing I wanted to try with ChatGPT way back in early 2024. Were we ever that young? And what I found was that ChatGPT gave away the store and so I would have to give it, I’d say, okay, honey, baby sweetheart, that was great. But let’s do it one more time and this time I want you to be tougher.
And this time it would go one or two more lines before we’d give away the store. And I would cut. Alright sweetheart, you’re wonderful. And by the end of it, I was asking it to be like a tyrant and it still would give away much of the store. And I began to realize it’s not ready for prime time yet.
Apparently, it might even be wired to be accommodating. And so for that reason, maybe it’s gotten better. But so far I haven’t seen that.
AD :
All right. So infant role play preferred, at least for the time being still.
SF :
I wanna work with you, not with ChatGPT.
AD :
Thanks, I appreciate that compliment. Alright, so we’re prepared. We’re ready. We’re approaching the table now to negotiate. Tell us, Seth, what’s your mindset at this moment? What’s guiding your negotiation strategy or even the more tactical choices you may need to make in the next few minutes?
SF :
Well, I think, I’m trying not to be too structured about it, whether it’s John Coltrane or Jim Hendrix. These guys would practice 10 hours a day so that they could be free to improvise. It was the discipline that gave them the freedom. And similarly, when you are unprepared for anything, you find that you’re more testy and more defensive and more brittle. But if you’ve done your stuff, you tend to be more relaxed. Generally. It can be like going in for final exam.
You can be keyed up. That’s to be sure, but you’re less so and you’re less likely to be defensive if you’ve done your work. That’s one of the reasons we focus on prep. But once I’m in the room, what I wanna do is first set the tone. There’s something called micro negotiation, where the very first moments of the interaction set the tone, almost like a rudder, steering a ship, and it can seem irrelevant.
Oh, you gotta really rip me off in this conversation. Ah, what you just communicated. Even though you think you’re kidding is that you’re wary and distrustful and that can really hurt so much so that marriage counselors report that they can predict whether a couple will divorce just by gauging what their interaction is like in the first few moments of an argument, if it’s cynical and snide and snarky. Those are very bad signs.
And similarly, if I’m coming in with that kind of an attitude, and of course we have to adjust for culture here, different cultures may have different mindsets. Going into a boardroom is different from talking to Tony Soprano, but you get the idea. I want my approach to be positive, constructive, and curious.
One of the things that we talk about preparing for is rapport building. A couple of things that you wanna touch on at the very beginning of the conversation just to remind yourself, yeah, those first moments matter and we wanna signal positivity, not in a chamber of commerce kind of way, where everyone is boosting and all that, in a basic positive way.
And so what I might do is say, Nolan, I’m really glad to see you. I’ve been looking forward to our conversation. I’m sure together we are gonna find something that we’re both really happy with, or at least that’s what I’m hoping we’re gonna find together. Before we get into specific numbers, let me just listen and see, how’s it going for you?
How is your New Year’s, your holidays? What’s been going on with you? And the basic idea that I just demonstrated is, positive, constructive, hopeful. And one of the reasons that’s so important is precisely because whether he seems like a seasoned veteran or a newbie, Nolan is anxious too.
Everyone is a little or maybe a lot anxious. And so setting that tone can be important. Now, have I signaled that I’m a giveaway, that I’m easy, that I’m gonna just give away the store? Hopefully not. Nothing I think I’ve said is saying, oh, I can hardly wait to give you any everything you want, but I am trying to also go slow to go fast.
And one of the ways I’m doing that is to humanize it and just first be inquisitive about Nolan’s, what his personal life is like. And again, if you’re doing this in New York City, that may take 60 seconds. If you’re doing this in Jackson, Mississippi, it might take five or 10 minutes. In Asia, it might take days.
It really varies, but the important thing is to at least try to humanize it if it’s appropriate. Then I wanna listen and learn, if at all possible. I wanna say, Nolan, before we get into the numbers, lemme just listen first and hear what your sense of the situation. That’s called an open question.
I’m trying to give him as much room as possible to maneuver. We can talk later about when it’s appropriate to make the first offer. In this, I’m assuming that this is our first conversation and we haven’t gotten to the place where it’s time to talk about numbers.
AD :
Yeah, and that’s the second time now, Seth, you’ve mentioned learning stuff or learning. You mentioned before you called it the hallmark of an effective or good negotiator, and you just mentioned that again, feels like the ability to listen well and learn from that is pretty critical to success.
SF :
Amen. I would say that listening is perhaps one of the most important, if not the most important negotiation and conflict management skills of them all. It’s really almost like a miracle drug. The research shows that skill listening innate can actually reduce the length of serious illness by 20%. If a healthcare giver spends just a minute or two really listening to the patient’s. Secret, most doctors take 20 seconds.
It’s a key to reducing suicide, to getting people off drugs, to saving marriages, and of course to hostage negotiation. So if it can do all that, those are hints. This is a miracle drug. And by the way, even in crisis, it is the rule, not the exception. You probably know this. Having been in the military, a cousin situation is air traffic control and aviation. When Sully Sullenberger and Jeffrey Sykes faced the crisis that led to the miracle on the Hudson where they landed their crippled airplane on the Hudson. If you go back and listen to their conversation. They, the tower and everyone involved.
Saying back what the other one said almost every time, you don’t have time for this, you’ve got two minutes and you’re gonna be on the ground. They don’t have time not to.
NM :
That’s powerful. You just mentioned, we’ll get into it regarding the first offer. What are your thoughts on this? Everyone seems to have a different flavor.
Navigating Negotiation Pitfalls: The Perils & Power Of Making The First Offer [19:30]
SF :
You’ve probably heard what’s, I would guess, is the most frequent advice ever given about negotiating, this is the advice your uncle gave. You never make the first offer, and you’ll see this in airport books on negotiation, and there is a place where that can be true. And the reason why is ’cause often we’re going into negotiation, uninformed, and the danger if you make the first offer uninformed, is low balling yourself. Classic story.
Brian Epstein was a 26-year-old furniture salesman in 1961, and around this time he discovered the Beatles, and within 24 months he had managed them to the pinnacle of entertainment. The only problem was that he didn’t know the first thing about negotiating, and he knew it and he was terrified and he was getting deluged with offers and one day.
Some Hollywood executives offered to put the Beatles as stars in a Hollywood movie. How much did Brian want? And Brian gathers himself up and in his British accent, he said, now I must tell you gentlemen that I would not consider allowing my boys to appear in your Hollywood movie for less than seven point half percent of the prophets.
And they look at each other and they shrug and they go, alright, seven and a half percent. And the deal was done and the movie is produced. The Hard Day’s Night, which was a worldwide hit. Made $40 million in today’s dollars, and only later did Brian learn that the norm is to get up to 25%, which meant that by going first, he wound up costing the Beatles millions.
And we now know that making similar mistakes, he probably cost the Beatles today about $200 million. And he was so mortified that they’d find out that he took so many drugs. He wound up dying of a drug overdose in 1967, and it’s a tragic illustration of this idea of the danger of going first without information.
The only complexity here is anchoring, which is where the first numbers someone utters biases the conversation. And this is why when you go into a car dealer and you see a sticker price. You are shocked. And in the industry that’s called sticker shock. They know that the manufacturer’s suggested retail price is crazy, but it anchors the conversation.
So anything sounds good and you tend to move toward it. And so if you know a lot to avoid being anchored, you might wanna go first.
NM :
Now, let’s say that you’re a season negotiator. You can tell that someone is trying to anchor. What do you do?
Anchoring In Negotiation: Techniques For Effective Counteroffers [21:51]
SF :
There are a couple of things you can do, and here I must confess, I’m more using my guess than my research. So take this with a grain of salt. One thing that I’ve often thought might help is to quickly counter, so if Nolan and I are negotiating and we’re talking about a boat and you are selling your boat and you start the research, let’s imagine that something like a hundred thousand is the high end of the range price of this boat.
And you say, yeah, I’m looking at 120,000 for this boat. And if I haven’t done my research, I might just gravitate to it and go, oh geez, okay. I guess 105, not very good. But if I’m a little less savvy, what I might do is go geez, I was thinking about something closer to 70,000, which is a comparably low number, and I bring that out quickly.
And my conjecture is that if I answer quickly with a comparably extreme first offer. That might partly neutralize the anchoring effect. I don’t know that for a fact. I do know that skilled negotiators do try to quickly counter whether it has this, the effect of offsetting the anchor, I’m not as sure about the alternative is to say, okay, thank you Nolan.
I appreciate this. I’m gonna take that under advisement. Let me go do some thinking and I’ll be in touch. And then after I’ve left. I go find out what is reasonable and I find out a hundred is the high end of the range. Okay, I gotta reset, talk it through, maybe role play with Aram, and then come back and go, you know, Nolan, I’ve really done some learning about this. I’m thinking something close to the 70 might be more appropriate, and now we play it out.
NM :
Awesome. You’re into the negotiation. The other party starts to appear angry and you just can’t tell what these are actual behaviors or if they’re negotiation tricks or their actual genuine frustration, how do you handle a situation where it feels like they’re trying to manipulate you to give in?
Navigating High-Stress Negotiations: Strategies For Managing Tough Counterparts [23:33]
SF :
It’s one of the most memorable parts for my students of our full semester course is when I actually play that role. First, I’ll come into the room and simulate a negotiation with select students in the role of a reasonable figure. We call Pat Gray and they’re negotiating this $2 billion deal. And after a short while, we come up with a reasonably good deal for everyone and everyone’s very positive and very happy.
And then I say, alright, now we’re gonna use, we’re gonna do this again, this time with evil Pat Gray. Pat Gray’s, evil twin brother. And it’s not gonna be nearly as simple. And I go out and I come back and I do everything you were just describing, Nolan. I am the negotiator from hell. I’m loud, I’m interrupting.
I’m dismissive, I’m obnoxious. I’m low balling. I’m using every trick in the book. And their eyes widen. They get freaked out, they’ll lose form. They’ll start insulting back. The whole conversation turns into an argument. And it’s off the rail, and I’ll stop and I’ll go, okay, I’m out of character. How’s this going?
Oh God, this was terrible. Then I’ll ask, has anyone ever dealt with someone like Evil Pat Gray? And about a third of the hands go up. This is why we do it. It’s precisely for the reason you’re asking Nolan. This is part of the world and you can’t treat negotiation training like etiquette class and assume everyone’s gonna be like that.
So what that leads us to is thinking about or developing a whole suite of practices that alone and together can help one manage the Godzilla counterpart, as we call it. And there is no one magic bullet here. There’s no one single treatment option. So the object here is to have a variety of skills and practices.
One of the basic ones is to get out of the room in a safe, saving way. If you’re overwhelmed, there’s only so much we can deal with a Godzilla, and you gotta know your limit, so it’s not about being a hero and thinking quickly on your feet. And buying that time may be the most important practice to the point. US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky, was doing a major trade deal in China, and at one point the Chinese representative shouted a low ball final offer and didn’t just shout it, he lunged at her across the table.
And what would you do? And your whole country’s economic future may depend on what you do. And so she did this for 45 seconds and that can feel like an hour. And she said the first reason she did this was because she was freaked out herself and she didn’t wanna sound freaked out when she answered, but it also bought her time and the other to calm down and she could see on his face.
He knew he’d made a big mistake. This gave her time to gather her thoughts, and this is what she said. She said, what I think I hear you saying is that you strongly would like us to consider this most recent offer, and if that’s what you’re saying then I can promise you that yes, we will do that. I must tell you in all candor that we probably are not gonna be able to accept this, but I will at least be sure to seriously consider your offer.
This might be an opportune time for us all to take a break and to revisit the matter tomorrow once I’ve had a to do that. What a saving move. The next day, completely different vibe because they knew they had crossed a line and they didn’t even need to mention it. Now that’s just one example of the suite of skills that we developed, one of which is stillness.
Not saying anything. Another is to go to the balcony, get out of there, and there are many good responses, but I don’t wanna start lecturing, so that would be a starting point.
NM :
Hey everyone, Nolan here. I have to jump in and end today’s podcast for part A of the show. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the NEGOTIATEx podcast if you haven’t already. And join us next week for part B of this awesome interview.
