Negotiation, mindset, connecting & learning from people

💡 JC's Newsletter #164- 2023-03-28

Dear friends,

In JC’s Newsletter, I share the articles, documentaries, and books I enjoyed the most in the last week, with some comments on how we relate to them at Alan. I do not endorse all the articles I share, they are up for debate. 

I’m doing it because a) I love reading, it is the way that I get most of my ideas, b) I’m already sharing those ideas with my team, and c) I would love to get your perspective on those. 

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If you like it, please share it on social networks!

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🔎 Some topics we will cover this week:

• Must-read tips on better ways to negotiate

• The importance of creating daily habits, stop reading the news, and focus on building knowledge instead

• What is the mindset for success? When you focus on what you can control, there is always an action you can take to put yourself in a better position

• Good tips about how to connect with people, to ask meaningful questions (mostly about them) and to listen intently 

• Amazing tips about writing executive summaries, with some Star Wars examples

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Negotiation & ideas

👉 A Better Way to Negotiate from Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• Focus on win-win negotiations with long-term partners

• All the tips are must-read for people willing to negotiate. 

How to create a win-win situation:

• How does principled negotiation differ from the traditional kind? It’s an attempt to create a win-win in a situation that doesn’t obviously offer one. And as we know, of the four kinds of possible relationships, win-win is the only sustainable one over time.

• There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft, but rather hard and soft.

• Look for mutual gains whenever possible, and that where your interests conflict, you should insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side. 

  • The method of principled negotiation shows you how to obtain what you are entitled to and still be decent. 

  • It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.

• Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: 

  • It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. 

  • It should be efficient. 

  • And it should improve or at least not damage the relationship between the parties.

• Viewing a negotiation as something to be “won” is the best way to lose.

• Invent Options for Mutual Gain

Separate the people from the problem:

• The first step of the process is to separate the people from the problem. People are emotional creatures. 

  • In order to deal with each other fairly, we must do our best to move from personal attack into the realm of reason and merit, even when our every fiber is telling us to attack. If we don’t, we miss a chance to build the exact sort of win-win relationship we’d love to have. We fail to understand people.

  • People’s desire to feel good about themselves, and their concern for what others will think of them, can often make them more sensitive to another negotiator’s interests.

  • On the other hand, people get angry, depressed, fearful, hostile, frustrated, and offended. They have egos that are easily threatened. 

    • They see the world from their own personal vantage point, and they frequently confuse their perceptions with reality. 

    • Routinely, they fail to interpret what you say in the way you intend and do not mean what you understand them to say. 

    • Misunderstanding can reinforce prejudice and lead to reactions that produce counteractions in a vicious circle; rational exploration of possible solutions becomes impossible and a negotiation fails.

    •  The purpose of the game becomes scoring points, confirming negative impressions, and apportioning blame at the expense of the substantive interest of both parties.

• There are major transmission errors in a negotiating process. What’s heard is frequently not what’s said or intended. And once a negative feedback loop has been initiated, it can be very hard to pull out.

Perception, Emotion, and Communication:

• There are three areas to manage: Perception, Emotion, and Communication.

• Our biggest problem with perception seems to be successfully putting ourselves in the shoes of our adversary, or even seeing them as an adversary to start with.

  • It’s almost impossible to influence somebody who you don’t empathetically understand.

  • Just because you understand someone’s position doesn’t mean you agree with it.

• The emotional side is fairly simple: How do you feel during a negotiation and how does the other side feel? 

  • Fisher makes a great point in the book that we don’t need to be afraid to make our own emotions or theirs explicit: I feel like you have not been fair with me thus far, and in order for us to make progress, we will need to establish mutual fairness as a goal. Otherwise, I think we will run into a stalemate.

• The communication problem is when we’re in a contentious negotiation and both sides feel like they’re not being heard. 

  • Focus on Interests, Not Positions: What do I really want? And what does the other guy really want? It’s the difference between saying you want an open window when what you really want is fresh air.

The four obstacles:

• In most negotiations there are four obstacles that inhibit the inventing of an abundance of options: 

  • (1) Premature judgment;

  • (2) searching for the single answer;

  • (3) the assumption of a fixed pie;

  • (4) thinking that “solving their problem is their problem”.

Focus on interests:

• Any negotiation can get pretty complex when all relevant interests are brought to the table, but the principle to heed is pretty simple: Where do our interests overlap, and where do they not? In the cases where they don’t, what is a mutually satisfying solution? This takes some creative thinking, of course.

Insist on Using Objective Criteria

• The idea is to stick to principles over back-and-forth wagering. 

  • Refuse to trade tit for tat without setting some standards upon which the decision can be made. 

  • Are there a set of precedent transactions? Is there a market for the item? Is there an agreed upon method somewhere? 

  • Fisher refers to the sound parenting idea of having one child cut the piece of cake and the other choose the piece. No one can cry foul.

• And so there are three main principles to abide by: 

  • Frame each issue as a joint search for objective criteria. 

  • Reason and be open to reason as to which standards are most appropriate and how they should be applied. 

  • Never yield to pressure, only to principle.

What if they Won’t Play? 

• Sometimes the other side simply takes a position and stubbornly (often irrationally) holds their ground.

• The first tactic Fisher argues for is Negotiation Jujitsu. In other words, using their own forcefulness against them.

• You can’t react emotionally to forceful negotiation.

  • Let them criticize, let them attack if they must. 

  • But your job is to keep asking objective questions. “You say you won’t accept less than $2,000 — where do you get that figure from? What makes you say that this is a fair number?” Keep things in the realm of objectivity and don’t get them further entrenched by “attacking back.”

• Another part of the jujitsu is to explain to them the consequences of adopting an extreme position. 

  • Ask them, hypothetically, what would happen if things went the way they preferred. 

  • Fisher gives the example of an Arab-Israeli negotiation where an American was able to get the Arab contingent to understand that if the Israelis gave in entirely, their people would castigate them back home. It was enough to end that line of negotiation.

• The last jujitsu tactic is to take criticism unusually well — not allowing the discussion to get personal, even if the other side wants to make it so. 

  • I understand you don’t want to be taken advantage of, neither do I — can you explain how your proposal is fair to me as well as you? Can you explain how my position could be altered to be more fair? What would you do if you were in my position? Soliciting an adversary for advice can be disarming if used wisely. All it takes is tamping down your ego. 

  • Good lines of inquiry don’t criticize, they probe and try to be helpful. 

• Use silence to your advantage if you’re making sense and they’re reacting emotionally.

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👉 Useful Not Accurate (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• Often, it is more important to focus on the direction of the idea than the details. 

• A lot of people miss useful ideas hiding in plain sight because they search for accuracy.

• If you dismiss an idea because it is not 100% correct, you miss many ideas that are perfectly useful.

• The real test for an idea, theory, or advice is utility. The more useful, the better.

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The mindset for success

👉 Brain Food: Every Day (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• I very much agree with creating daily habits and stop reading the news, and focus on building knowledge instead.

• Stop reading the news: Our obsession with being informed makes it hard to think long-term. We spend hours consuming news because we want to be informed. The problem is, the news doesn't make us informed - quite the opposite. The more news we consume, the more misinformed we become. — Source

• It's easier to do something daily rather than a few times a week.

  • Doing something every day turns desired behavior into default behavior. When willpower is lacking, routine takes over.

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👉 Brain Food: 500 (Farnam Street)

• "The other thing exceptional people seem to have is a special talent for converting life’s setbacks into future successes." – Source

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👉 Brain Food: The Mindset Gap (Farnam Street)

• Everything comes down to mindset.

• When you focus on what you can control, there is always an action you can take to put yourself in a better position. 

• When you focus on things you can't control you tend to freeze, unsure of what to do, and you wait.

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👉 Brain Food: Less but Better (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• It has been something I have been doing for a long time and a life-changing decision. I hope I can install this to other Alaners for more happiness :) 

• "Rarely do we stop to ask ourselves questions about the media we consume: Is this good for me? Is this dense with detailed information? Is this important? Is this going to stand the test of time? Is the person writing someone who is well informed on the issue? 

• Asking those questions makes it clear the news isn’t good for you."

• Why You Should Stop Reading the News

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👉 Boredom & Impatience (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• My advice is to kill notifications (for everything) and define the time you want to go check something and interact. It gives you back the control on your time and life. 

• In our efforts to connect across our organizations, we’re drowning in real-time virtual interaction technology, from Zoom to Slack to Teams, plus group texting, WeChat, WhatsApp, and everything in between. 

• There’s seemingly no excuse to not collaborate. The problem? Interacting is easier than ever, but true, productive, value-creating collaboration is not. 

• And what’s more, where engagement is occurring, its quality is deteriorating. 

• This wastes valuable resources, because every minute spent on a low-value interaction eats into time that could be used for important, creative, and powerful activities.

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Connecting with people

👉 Robert Greene: Alive Time vs Dead Time (The Knowledge Project) (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• Good tips about how to connect with people, to ask meaningful questions (mostly about them) and to listen intently 

• People love to talk about themselves. 

  • I mean, that’s law number one of human psychology. 

  • The favorite subject for anybody, myself included, is myself, because we never really get to talk about it enough, we never get to be the star in our own show. 

  • People are dying to talk. 

• So there’s an art to asking the kinds of questions. 

  • What is it that they want to talk about? 

  • It changes with each individual. 

  • Some people, I’m always fascinated, want to know about their childhood and their parents, because to me, that holds keys to their psychology, and it’s endlessly fascinating to hear about people’s peculiar backgrounds, often so very different from my own. 

  • Getting people to talk about the things they don’t normally get to talk about—their desires, their ambitions, their experiences, their childhood—it’s really not difficult to do it.

• And I want people to have the Socratic idea that this person that you now are having coffee with, that you’ve known for several years, start with the assumption that you don’t know them. 

  • Throw out all the things that you’ve assumed about them. 

  • Like Socrates says, “The only thing I know is that I don’t know anything.” And so, when you’re asking a question, you’re like a child, you don’t know. 

  • You feel weak and vulnerable, and you don’t know, and you’re curious.

  • So you ask a question to understand them, and you listen deeply, and you ponder what that could mean. 

  • It’s a great way to make people feel connected, when they get to open up to you

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👉 Positive Asymmetry (Farnam Street)

• Not only does a low-trust approach eliminate the upside, but you spend your time looking over your shoulder worrying about how someone might take advantage of you.

➡️ High-trust people want to be around other high-trust people.

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👉 Carolyn Coughlin: Become A Better Listener (The Knowledge Project - Episode #157)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• I agree that most of the work to win the battle against a big problem is being intentional about working hard on it, how to approach it, also giving yourself some unstructured time to think about it.

• At some point, you have to take that first step. And that first step is not going to be at the base of that mountain. That first step may be going to buy mountain gear for the first time. It's going to be the training that goes into it. So earning winning the battle is really somehow engineering, designing your calendar in an intentional matter, where each day you can focus on getting to the mountaintop, but the mountaintops not going to be earned on that day, but there is a mountaintop for that day.

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Learning & write well

👉 Ten principles for taking notes that actually help you learn, think, and remember (Farnam Street)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• I take a lot of notes, write summaries, and use flashcards to remember things properly. 

• I don’t think people are intentional enough about remembering things. 

• Taking notes is beneficial in two ways. First, it means you have a record of what you learn to revise or consult later on. Memory mastery comes from repeated exposure to the same material.

• Second, the mere act of writing knowledge down reveals the gaps in your understanding and requires active engagement with the material, making you more likely to remember it.

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👉 Thread by Aaron Berman: “tips I learned editing the President's Daily Brief” (PingThread)

❓ Why am I sharing this article?

• Amazing tips about writing executive summaries, with some Star Wars examples. We can learn from it!

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF).

• The title (5-7 words) and first sentence (2-3 lines) should have ALL THE INFORMATION to understand the issue and, if needed, make a decision.

• GOOD:

  • "Death Star Vulnerability Discovered"

  • "Death Star plans that Princess Leia obtained show it has a fatal flaw, which our X-Wing force is well-positioned to exploit."

  • ➡️ This conveys the main point and key opportunity for Rebel leadership.

• NOT GOOD:

  • "New Information About Death Star"

  • "Princess Leia sent us the Death Star plans, which will help with our military planning."

  • ➡️ This is boring. Rebel leadership won't read the rest of the paper. And then maybe this never happens:

• This could be EVEN BETTER though:

  • "Death Star plans showing it has a fatal flaw suggests a massed X-Wing assault would have the best chance of destroying it."

Be simple and format clearly, so a busy reader can quickly skim and understand.

• GOOD: "The Trade Federation has new raw materials it could use to construct a droid army."

• NOT GOOD: "The Trade Federation has recently been receiving an influx of materials like steel, transparent aluminum, and positronic neural nets that could possibly used in droid construction to create an army."

BOLD OR HIGHLIGHT MAIN POINTS

• And, use bullets to visually offset supporting evidence

• Also, make liberal use of white space

No value-laden language.

• GOOD: "We do not know how large the faction is in the Klingon military that seeks to sabotage the peace negotiations and maintain Klingon-Federation hostilities."

• ➡️ This is neutral, and can prompt a constructive conversation on what steps the Federation should take.

Convey uncertainty clearly.

• This might be the most important point on the list.

• But basically, be very careful about terms like "probably", "likely", "may", "could", etc. Why? These terms are ambiguous.

• "The Sith will likely wipe out the Jedi within a week."

• How confident are you the Jedi will be gone in a week? 50%, 80%, 99%? What should you do if you're 50% confident, vs. 99% confident?

• The problem is, alternatives suck too.

  • "The Sith may wipe out the Jedi within a week." Ok, but will they or won't they?

  • "There's an 80% chance the Sith will wipe out the Jedi within a week." Ok, but how did you calculate that?

• There's a lot more written on this, and every case is different.

• My go-to here is focus on the RISK and what to do about it.

  • "We don't know how quickly the Sith will wipe the Jedi out, but their forces are stronger and we need to plan for a rout in the near-term.

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