Three Key Principles for Negotiating as a Leader

It's no coincidence that the principles behind interest-based negotiation framework dovetail with time-proven leadership principles. 

1. Success is 80% mindset and 20% tactics. My clients are applying this insight to reinvent their lives and careers from stifling to thriving. Success is an inside job.
2. Ask open questions to understand their why before seeking to be understood. Far from being "nice," this is a powerful strategy that enables my clients to win over a room of naysayers, flip no to yes, and turn transactions into transformational conversations.
3. Be ready to tell a new story. My career changed when I stopped telling myself, "I can't do it," and started saying, "I will walk the talk I give."
What new story will you tell? Come to www.jamieleecoach.comfor future webinar updates and more.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to Episode 35 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.

I believe that we are all born to thrive.

I know that some people are rolling their eyes when they hear me say that but I really do.

I’m not religious. I do consider myself spiritual and I know that we are all created for a reason. For a really good reason which is to expand, to thrive, and to be happy.

And for me, I thrive when I get to help other people thrive and that’s why I feel like I have the best job in the world.

I work as a coach. I train and I teach people leadership and negotiation principles that can help them become more brave, bold, and better paid.

And, you know, I’m on a mission to help double women’s income.

Late last year, at the end of 2017, I was visualizing what would make the end of 2018 really awesome.

And here’s a lesson for you, if you are working towards a goal, start from the end. What would you like to have happened at the end? What would make whatever project or goal you’re working towards, what would make it super awesome for you? What would be the x, y, and z that you would want to see?

And for me, that was having made such an impact that I’ve helped double somebody’s income.

That’s really an exciting goal for me because I want to be part of the solution, not the problem, when it comes to the gender wage gap and I believe that we can make change happen one conversation - one really powerful and transformational conversation - at a time.

And that’s why I teach negotiation because negotiation is simply a conversation with the intention of reaching agreement. I don’t think of negotiation as confrontation, manipulation, or some sort of a trick or a game that you play.

And I also believe that money is awesome. Money itself is not the end-all, be-all of success but that money is a really great tool that can help solve problems, like money problems.

And when you have money you can save time and when you have more time you can do more good. You can make even more impact. So money is awesome.

And I believe that women who negotiate are to be celebrated, not judged, because women who negotiate are women who lead and we need women to lead.

So, I want to share with you three quick principles.

Well, not quick. They’re key principles behind collaborative, interest-based negotiation framework which is the framework that I teach my clients because they dovetail so beautifully with time-proven leadership principles.

So, the first one is that success is 80% mindset and only 20% tactics.

I know a lot of people get hung up on, “What do I say? What do I do? Tell me all the tactics you use!” and I think that’s a mistaken approach.

First, we have to get clear on what we are thinking and believing because what we think and believe get expressed through our emotions, our body language, our tone, things that we do unconsciously like self-sabotage. And it’s in the actions that are generated from our feelings that generate our results.

Let me say it one more time: What we think and believe are so powerful because they impact our emotions and our emotions impact our actions or inactions, and it’s our actions or inactions that generate the results we have in our life and career.

And I think the really powerful thing is that when you believe in your worthiness, no matter what the circumstances are in your life, that’s when you show up as a leader. That’s when you show up brave, willing to risk change, willing to risk a brave conversation and be engaged, willing to make change happen.

Now, when you hear me say that you’ll be like, “Ugh! Here’s another coach who’s telling me I gotta believe in myself. Okay, tell me, how is this new?”

It’s not.

But what I will tell you is that you don’t just believe in yourself after you just decide, you just snap a finger and it’s done.

No, no.

You really gotta practice. You gotta put in the work to believe in yourself and I’ll be honest with you, this is the biggest part of my coaching work with clients. It’s not so much the strategy and script. Yes, I mean, I do the strategy and scripts, but at the heart of it, we gotta believe in you.

You gotta believe in you before you can say the words and really mean it and have other people believe in it.

It takes consistent effort to have the thoughts that support the feeling of confidence, the feeling of bravery, the feeling of courage no matter what.

A lot of people, and I make this same mistake, we are waiting for the circumstances in our lives to line up with the results that we desire. We want to wait until the circumstances are lined up with the results that we want for us to think that we are worthy, for us to feel good and confident, for us to be able to take that confident action and get what we want.

It doesn’t work that way, right?

Think about it. The people who really believe in their vision, they take action, they sound confident, they stand tall, they engage, and they get what they want because they are thinking and feeling and acting from a place of worthiness, of self-respect, of self-appreciation.

So, this takes work, like I said. It sounds like, “What?! What do you mean success is an inside job? What do you mean success is 80% mindset? That’s so fluffy and soft and I don’t get it.”

Well, the truth of the matter is this is bloody hard work.

It takes a lot of effort to really believe in yourself, consistently, with practice.

The second thing I want to share with you, the second key principle of collaborative, interest-based negotiation that also happens to be a really powerful leadership principle, is that you want to ask open questions first to better understand your counterpart’s why before you seek to be understood.

I think I am quoting Stephen Covey and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

I did a webinar yesterday on the 7 Elements of Negotiation Framework and I had somebody ask me, “Okay, so when you know your position, when you know what you want, do you start by stating your position, stating what you want?” and my short answer is: No.

You don’t start with what you want. I mean, sure that can be effective in a very specific situation, if they’re asking, “Just tell me what you want!” Okay, you might want to start there, sure. There is a caveat that this advice should be taken with a grain of salt, depending on your situation, on the very specific context of your situation but in terms of overall principle and big picture strategy, first you want to better understand why the other side wants what they want.

So, let’s break it down. First, you want to understand what they want, right? Then you want to understand why they want it. And even better, you want to understand, okay, what are their preferences? What are their goals? What are their fears? What are their desires?

And you do that by asking them open-ended, diagnostic questions.

And this takes courage. It’s a powerful skill to ask really good, open-ended questions. It’s the strategy that the FBI hostage negotiators use, it’s the strategy of the most successful coaches and leaders.

It requires you to be bold and to lead with your ear.

It requires you to manager yourself so well that you can listen more deeply than anyone has ever done for your negotiation counterpart.

This is how you win people over.

And this is not a strategy of being nice. It’s not a strategy of being a pushover because just because you’re asking open-ended questions doesn’t mean that you’re just immediately gonna go do whatever they ask you to do. No. You are gaining really powerful insight and information which is power.

This is a powerful strategy and I’ve given some examples in this podcast and past webinars but asking open-ended, diagnostic questions has the power to turn transactions into transformational conversations.

To give you one example, when I worked as an operations person at a startup, there was a bit of a conflict with the Sales Director around some reporting procedure. And it was very tempting, I was in the meeting, the emotions were kind of running high, it’s a little tense, yeah? And I have the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee in my head and it was very tempting to let my brain run off with the story that Oh, they are mad at me! It’s my fault! I didn’t do a good enough job! This is gonna reflect poorly on my performance review. Everyone thinks I’m a whatever, failure, not good enough, blah, blah, blah.

Boring, boring old story.

But I decided that I’m going to apply some of the strategies to myself, you know, the negotiation strategies I had learned over the years. And I decided, in an instant, that I’m not going to get defensive, I’m just going to get curious. I’m just going to open myself up. Maybe I don’t know what’s going on.

So, I asked, “Okay, Sales Director, I hear that this is the situation. What would be an ideal outcome for you?”

And this completely transformed the nature of the conversation. He visibly relaxed and he said, “Well, actually, the ideal outcome would be that the sales team own this process, end-to-end. That would be the ideal situation.” So I realized, okay, this wasn’t about me at all. And from there, we arrived at a collaborative solution to the problem that we were sharing.

So, ask open-ended questions. Ask them more than you ask leading questions.

Last week, I led a workshop for the Association of Corporate Counsels, and going in, I thought, “What can I teach a room full of high-flying lawyers who negotiate day-in and day-out, every day?”

And it turned out that the strategy of asking open-ended, diagnostic questions to get past impasse, to get past no, to better understand the underlying interests or the underlying why of the other side was something new to them. It was something that they hadn’t really thought about, so it’s a very powerful strategy and a very powerful leadership tool as well.

And finally, be ready to tell a new story.

For me, I started teaching negotiation six years ago because I needed to learn it so badly, and I realized the best way to learn is to teach it. And so, I started learning so that I can teach and apply it to myself.

And I had the story that oh, I can’t negotiate for myself. People will judge me, will call me a bitch - excuse my language - will call me names or think I’m aggressive.

I had the same stories, but then I stopped telling myself that I can’t do it and I started saying I will walk the talk I give.

And that story generated the feelings of bravery. That story generated the feelings of determination, commitment. And from there, I started making bold asks, and now I have the best career.

And so, start telling a new story.

What about you?

What is the story that you’re telling about you in regards to your negotiation and leadership skills?

And is that story serving you? And if not, what’s a better story to tell?

Again, we’re coming back to the mindset because it’s just so important. 80% of your success is mindset. The strategy, the tactics, that’s just 20%. That’s just details.

And so, I just want to wrap this up with: Please let me know. Feel free to reach out to me at jamie@jamieleecoach.com.

I will be hosting more webinars in the Fall. I will be doing more collaboration webinars with other women’s networks, as well. So, if you want to stay up to date, come to jamieleecoach.com and feel free to reach out to me.

I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you next week. Bye bye!

Interview with Kathlyn Hart: Desire More. Earn More. Give More.

My special guest Kathlyn Hart is creator of Be Brave Get Paid, a salary negotiation bootcamp for women. In addition, she hosts The Big Leap Show podcast where she interviews badass women about the journey from dreaming to doing. 

In this episode, she shares the biggest lesson she learned as an "aftermath of a terrible negotiation" in her freelance career and how the biggest hurdle to negotiation success is often our money beliefs. 

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Episode Highlights:

Why do we hold ourselves back? 

Kathlyn shares what she learned from "an aftermath of a terrible negotiation." As a business owner she was once reluctant to raise her rates from $150/hour to $300/hour. When her business partner suggested they negotiate with their clients for a rate increase, she wasn't on board at first. She later realized it was her money beliefs holding her back from feeling confident that she could earn more. 

In the interview, she shares how doubling her consulting rate led to an "ah-ha" moment that eventually inspired her to start teaching women how to negotiate for what they want. 

Why it's all about reframing 

Why do women excel at negotiating on behalf of others, but not for themselves?

Kathlyn suggests reframing negotiation as simply a conversation, where two people with different agendas come together to try to make it work. 

Negotiation is simply:

1. Understanding what you want
2. Having a conversation to find out what the other side wants
3. Finding compromise or middle ground so you can work together with the other side

Leaders negotiate

Leading is not about commanding or controlling people without listening to their needs. Kathlyn says,

When we're being good human beings, we can become better negotiators, and better leaders, along the way. 

Negotiation Advice for Women Who Want to Close Their Wage Gaps

1. Get clear on your money beliefs. 

Do you believe that you have "enough money to get by" or that money won't make you happy? Kathlyn shares how this belief once held her back from desiring more and asking for more.

Truth is money itself won't make you happy. But when you don't have money, you may experience stress, anxiety, fear, and anger because of the money you don't have. When you do have money, you can experience freedom, happiness, growth, and contribution. Money can free you to make a bigger contribution towards the causes, nonprofits, or projects that you stand for. 

2. Desire more.

You can desire more from a place of abundance. You can feel grateful for what you have and desire more at the same time. It's not gross or nasty or greedy or bad to desire more. 

When you desire more, you'll be motivated to negotiate and ask for what you want. When you ask for what you want, you're 100% more likely to get what you want than when you don't ask. 

3. Embrace your ambition. 

Regardless of your culture or background, ultimately there's no shame in having ambition.

So embrace your ambition. Get clear on what your ambition is, and take action on your desires by asking for what you want. 

4. Don't negotiate against yourself before you negotiate. 

Sometimes we negotiate against ourselves by letting fear talk us out of applying for hot jobs, or stretch assignments that pay better. Kathlyn says, 

What's the harm in reaching for the better paying job? The only risk is a bruised ego. 

Remember that 80% of success is psychology. 20% is tactics. 

Be Brave Get Paid 

To learn more about Kathlyn's bootcamp, go to bebravegetpaid.com

To learn more about working with Kathlyn one-on-one, go to kathlynhart.com

Why Do We Suck at Advocating Our Value for Money?

But first a reality check: Is it true that women don't like to negotiate for ourselves?

And why do we still choose to believe that we suck at negotiating for money?

I look at my own career for answers and explanations. 

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But first a reality check: Is it true that women don't like to negotiate for ourselves?

Last week, I gave a keynote on the topic of negotiation for Women in Auto at the NY Auto Show.

Before I went on stage, organizer asked the audience, “How many of you enjoy negotiating?”

To her surprise, half the room raise their hands.

Some women do enjoy negotiating. In October 2017, Wall Street Journal reported that more women are asking for raises than before. Lean In published a similar report.

With Equal Pay Day around the block and the gender wage gap pressing on our minds, it may not seem that the tide is rising fast enough for women, but I believe the tide is changing. Slowly but surely.

Why do we still choose to believe that we suck at negotiating?

I don’t have to look too far for an answer.

When I look back on my own career, I see that I did once dread negotiating my salary.

Mostly because I had no idea...

• What it is (a conversation that leads to an agreement), 
• How to do it (like a human being engaging with another human being through language) and 
• Why I had to do it (because my career is mine to grow and develop, and getting paid my worth feels incredibly good, and when I feel good I do even better work) 

From my personal experience having bungled salary negotiation in epic style, I see that I was once under the spell of Tiara Syndrome.

Have you heard of the Tiara Syndrome?

It’s when you believe that if you just keep your head down and do really good work, some authority figure will come and place a tiara on your head.

You know, like in a fairy tale.

In this fairy tale, it would be unbecoming, or unladylike, to speak up, “ruffle feathers”, or “make waves.” Fairy tale princess (or prince) would never stoop so low to advocate for the value of her contributions.

I’ve certainly fallen under the spell of this Tiara Syndrome.

Early in my career, I once worked as a buyer for a fast growing beauty company. I came up with a plan that had the potential to save the company $100K.

I got to present this plan to the big shots in a boardroom. Everyone in the senior management team was there. After that I was on a high.

I thought, “This is it! This is how I’m going to be promoted and get a big raise. Things are made for me.”

So, I didn’t ask.

Because I thought someone was going to place a tiara on my head. Yes, I was that naive.

Can you guess what actually happened?

No promotion. No raise. Just a pat on the back. “Good job. Keep it up.”

Hey, but I get it. I relate to my clients who seek my help with this stuff. It IS uncomfortable to advocate for our value...especially for more money.

After all, we’re socialized to think that recognition for our value is supposed to come from OUTSIDE of us.

The tiara, the validation, the praise, and the money -- we think it's supposed to come from external forces, or figures to whom we assign power and authority.

Here’s the thing, though:

Owning our value, creating value, and advocating for our value -- it starts from WITHIN us.

It starts with YOU being kind to you.

It starts with YOU investing in your growth.

It starts with YOU honoring what feels good from the inside.

It starts with YOU dreaming of what is possible from that feel-good place.

It starts with YOU creating solutions in your mind that helps other people, and THAT, my friends, is the definition of value that results in money.

Value that generates money is in creating solutions that benefits others.

So how do we get the gumption and the guts to negotiate for money?

Tactically, don't give a range if you want to get something in the middle. The bottom number in your range will become your starting number.

Not because employers are evil, but because it's in there interest to retain the best talent for as little money as possible.

Find your target number, go a step or two higher and anchor there. If you'd be happy with $100K, then ask for $120K. If you want $150K, then ask for $175K.

After all, you'll only be negotiated down from there.

But most importantly, focus first on value, not money.

If you create value for other people, money will follow.

I once heard that it was extremely hard to keep Mother Teresa and Ghandi poor because they generated tremendous value for other people even though they committed their lives to live in poverty.

So to become a powerful negotiator, create value. Create solutions that help others and own your value.

Don't apologize for being awesome. State your unique value. 

Know your target, anchor high, and make your ambitious ask for more money. 

Because if you're creating value in the world, money will follow, like a magnet. 

Three Surprising Negotiation Insights From Women in Auto

What are the negotiation secrets of women leaders in the automobile industry?

I share inspiring insights from the Women in Automobile Networking Breakfast at the New York Auto Show and talk about how you can apply these insights to gain the upper hand in your career negotiations.

Click here to download the free script: How to Ask for a Big Pay Raise. 

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Full Episode Transcript*:

(*This transcript has been edited for accuracy) 

Hello! Welcome to the twelfth episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host, Jamie Lee. I work as a negotiation and leadership coach for women on the rise. 

Yesterday, I got to give a keynote at Women in Auto. This was a networking breakfast held at the Javits Center where the New York Auto Show is happening right now. I got to meet and hear from some really amazing, impressive women leaders in the auto industry, and to provide some context as to how impressive that really is, I’ll share some information with you.

In America, women influence 85% of car buying decisions, and that’s equivalent to $550 billion in car revenues. That’s a lot of money that women influence, and yet only 26% of the jobs in the auto industry are held by women. So, the women leaders, executives in the auto industry, they truly are pioneers in a male-dominated industry. 

Something really interesting that I observed yesterday was that right before I got on the stage, the organizer asked the audience a question. She said, “How many of you enjoy negotiating?” And half of the room raised their hands. That’s admirable and also unusual.

Maybe it’s my stereotype, but a lot of women do say that they don’t like to negotiate, that they don’t enjoy it, but half of the room yesterday at Women in Auto said they do. I think this is indicative of their attitude toward negotiating.

So, women who say they do like negotiating, they are more likely to see it as a fun challenge that will help them grow their skills and help them gain value and engage, connect, collaborate.

Whereas women who say that they don’t like to negotiate, they see negotiation as a “rough” conversation. That it’s a game rigged against them, that they’re going to lose something. That they have to compromise, and they feel sort of let’s say, like they’re already at a disadvantage before they go into the conversation, because they see themselves not as somebody who’s going to learn and grow from the conversation, but somebody who has to give something up.

So, how do you see yourself? Do you enjoy negotiation or do you dread it? And if you dread it, maybe you can start thinking of it in different ways, so that you wouldn’t dread it as much.

So, let me share with you some of the really inspiring insights that I gained from listening to the leading women in auto. There were two speakers in particular who really touched me, who really moved me. 

The first speaker, her name is Suzanne, and she is the GM, she is the General Manager at Helms Brothers Auto, which is one of the biggest Mercedes resellers in New York, and she said she started as a receptionist more than thirty years ago in the auto industry and she worked herself up to become the General Manager.

She emphasized two points. One is the importance of improving yourself every day. She said that she improves herself every day so that she can have a positive influence on others, and I thought that was really inspiring.

The second was the importance of being consistent. Being consistent even when there are so many changes in the industry, and every day there are unknowns and curveballs thrown her way, but every day she is consistent in her effort to add value. I thought that was really inspiring, too.

She was asked, “So, how do you negotiate? What is the secret to your negotiation success?” and that really got my ear and I jotted this down.

She shared three tidbits which I thought were all amazing.

The first is that knowledge is power. The more you know, the more confident you will be. I think that makes total sense because 80% of your negotiation success is your research, is how well you have prepared and what you know going into the conversation.

The second secret to her negotiation success was that she knows her value and she knows how to articulate it. If you’re curious about how to do that, again, you can check out the previous podcast episodes number 8 and number 9, as well as number 10, all around how to articulate your value and how to speak your value without fear and anxiety.

Number three, the third secret to her success, was that you get back what you give. I thought that was really powerful, and that also reminded me of another inspiring quote by motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, who said,

You can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

And I think that is a really great definition of adding value. How do you gain value? You gain value when you have contributed value to others. 

And, finally, there was a speaker, her name was Kathy Gilbert, and she is the Director of Sales and Business Development for this major organization called CDK Global, and she talked about how to define success for yourself, and the importance of integrity, diversity and culture.

She is a black woman, and she rose through the ranks as well to become Director of Sales and Business Development for this major organization that works with the automotive industry, including women dealers, manufacturers, vendor partners, and affiliate organizations. She was very authentic in her speech, and in the middle of the speech she said, “Here’s how I know I am a success. It’s because I am here. I am here with you on a Thursday morning at the Javits Center, celebrating my birthday. I’m speaking at the New York Auto Show, telling my story to women in the automotive industry, and that’s how I know that I am successful. Because I am here.”

I thought that was really powerful, and so did everyone else. We all applauded, because we realized: Oh, yeah! We’re here. We’re right here and we are successful with you, Kathy.

And what she showed us by her example was that you get to define success for yourself, and it’s so powerful to see people do it, because it gives us permission to do it for ourselves. And what that clued me into is that, like success, which we can define for ourselves, we can also define what is valuable or what is value.

Now when you hear me say that, you might be thinking, “No, Jamie, you don’t understand. It’s just about the money!” Yes, money is definitely a yardstick of success that a lot of people agree on.

If you contribute value, money will come your way. However, money is not necessarily success.

Money is not the definition of success, nor is it the definition of value.

So, what is value? We talk about value all the time in negotiation. How do you create value? How do you articulate value? Collaborate to gain value? I’ve been listening to The Life Coach School Podcast by Brooke Castillo and recently she did an episode about money, and it came to a really surprising conclusion that illuminated what value is and where it comes from.

Basically, she says, value is created in the mind. I’ll say it again. Value is created in the mind. That makes a lot of sense to me, because you can have the same object, let’s say a beautiful dress, and the same dress can be of different value to one person and completely no value to another. It’s how we define value in our minds, and even money.

I’m traveling to Asia in the spring, and the currency, the value of a dollar has changed over time because people have decided that a dollar is now less valuable than a Japanese yen. And again, that’s because we made that decision in our minds. Value is created in the mind. 

So, I’ll wrap this up with a helpful tip. How can you apply all of this so that you can negotiate successfully in your life? I think two things.

First, really get clear on what you value. What is important to you? What is worth the effort, what is worth the aggravation of engaging in a negotiation for you? How do you define value?

And also, how will you define success for yourself? In other words, what do you want and why is it important to you?

Secondly, find out what your negotiation counterpart values. This will help you gain the upper hand. If you understand what they value, what this money or this contract or this deal or getting a yes, what it means to them and why it is valuable to them, you will be able to get through, you will be able to influence, and you will be able to get that yes.

So, I wish you great success in your negotiation and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.