Say Less, Get More

Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want

Fotini Iconomopoulos

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781443459532
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Negotiation

Negotiation without fear, for everyone, everywhere

Nicknamed "the negotiator" as a child, Fotini Iconomopoulos has been honing her skills her entire life. As a sought-after expert, for more than a decade she's been empowering Fortune 500 executives and their teams to achieve their objectives, guiding them through high-stakes scenarios in industries such as consumer packaged goods, retail, professional services, energy, telecommunications, tech and finance. Now for the first time, Iconomopoulos shares her simple and innovative strategies, debunks common negotiation myths and explains why effective negotiation does not follow a one-size fits all/art of the deal approach. In Say Less, Get More you'll find out how to:

• Assess where your situation falls on the negotiation spectrum so you can adjust your tactics accordingly
• Understand who you are negotiating with, their background and their goals, in order to develop your approach
• Determine your starting position, your final outcome and a strategy to get there
• Manage the negotiation process, overcome obstacles and find common ground
• Communicate effectively in any scenario, including learning what to say and when to say it if you can't reach a deal
• Develop and foster excellent client relationships and networks

Once you are armed with Iconomopoulos's sensible strategies and proven advice, you'll be able to confidently get what you want in business and in life.

Section 1

Breaking Down the Basics

Chapter 1

Finding the On-Ramp

I’VE BEEN NEGOTIATING MY ENTIRE LIFE—JUST ASK MY parents—but it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that it finally clicked that I was surrounded by negotiation all the time. Often, we don’t realize that we’re in the middle of a negotiation until we stop to wonder what the hell just happened. The everyday situations we find ourselves in don’t immediately fit our preconceived notions of negotiation. Another important insight, one that escapes many self-proclaimed experts, is that negotiating looks a little different depending on who is involved.

Whether I was working in consulting, manufacturing or retail, my colleagues were often tall, white, older men, and I was usually the youngest in the room, often by more than a decade. For a long time, I also happened to be the only one with a non-anglophone name, one that was so hard to pronounce, it wasn’t unusual for me to be assigned an email address that was the only one in the company to follow the format [email protected]. I was like the Cher or Madonna of the company. Even in high school, if I got called over the PA system it was “Fotini . . . you know who you are . . . please report to the main office.” I was different.

When I started consulting for and training high-level managers and executives, I would shadow my tall, male peers and mimic them word for word. I even dressed like them to ensure that the clients would have a consistent experience.

After a rigorous bootcamp of training, I was finally ready to run my own workshop. I was all alone, in a Marriott hotel in the Midwest, wearing the business-formal uniform—in my case a black suit with my hair tied back in a severe bun, in an attempt to look as polished and authoritative as I could, given that I was twenty to thirty years younger than my clients. I walked up to the seven men and one woman and said my first words: “Are you the negotiators?” To which everyone (who was, of course, there to attend a negotiation training) was expected to answer in the affirmative. When they did, I mimicked my peers with my next line, which was “We’ll see.”

You should know that every time I watched my tall, white, male peers say this, the unanimous response from the clients was . . . nothing. Perhaps a look of puzzlement or surprise, with an undertone of “This is going to be interesting,” but that was it; people were put off just enough to be intrigued but not enough to rebel. On my first time out, I, the five-foot-five, ethnic-looking young woman, got a very different response. As the clients and I were walking down the hall to our meeting room, one gentleman shouted to his colleagues, “Did that fucking bitch just say, ‘We’ll see?’”

In that moment, I realized we were having our first negotiation of the week. My trainees would either follow me to the meeting room and compliantly continue with the program or begin a rebellion that would escalate after every instruction. I had no clue what to expect. I had never experienced this in my training. No one had prepared me for this kind of pushback. Every other tutor I’d watched had had the group following them like sheep. I thought someone was playing a trick on me, as a rookie hazing prank, but no one popped up from around the corner to say, “Got you!” That’s when I knew it was on: the “fucking bitch” versus the [insert expletive] client.

I knew my next action would dictate how successful the rest of this week would be. My reaction could trigger a chain reaction, escalating the situation, or it could keep the training moving productively forward. My head was spinning with doubt and anger—which I knew was the name-caller’s intention—but I managed to press my mental pause button to maintain my composure and carry on unrattled for the next three days.

I could have met fire with fire. I’m not one to shy away from a witty comeback, and I certainly don’t hesitate to defend myself. But this situation felt different. As I played through the outcomes of various possible scenarios in my head (at record speed), I could see that none of them would end well. Reactive behavior breeds reactive behavior. It reminded me of when my big sister would try to annoy me to get under my skin. She’d hold her hand inches from my face and say, “I’m not touching you!” If I reacted, she’d laugh and then do it again—worse. If I maintained my composure, she’d grow tired and move on. When I paused to reflect on this experience, it made it easy to choose the most effective path. I refused to acknowledge what went down in any way because doing so would have given the name-caller just enough momentum to push further. So, I was stoic—unflinching in my expression even though my mind was racing. As the session went on, I adjusted my language and navigated a few more challenging moments, the participants fell in line, and I carried on the workshop on my own terms—literally. I even ended up building such great relationships with the clients that they insisted on helping me pack up my things and taking me to the airport. In hindsight, they could have just been making sure I was getting the hell out of their country, but I’d like to remember it fondly as the situation that I managed to turn around with my behavior and charms. You decide.

Comfortably settled into the airport bar, I called a colleague to recount the story with all of the appropriate shock of being called those dreadful words. I told him I didn’t think I would say “we’ll see” again. That phrase wasn’t being received in the same way when I delivered it as when my peers did. We wondered if the issue might be merely a flaw in my delivery, that I was being patronizing and condescending in some way. Duh. That cheeky line was intended to be exactly that. And my delivery in this situation was exactly the same as the ones I had observed before me.

What I knew in that moment, that others who hadn’t been in my shoes had yet to grasp, was that the techniques used, the arrogance and haughtiness, did not work for everyone in every circumstance. Those words, which worked as intended when delivered by white, middle-aged males to a white male audience, did not play out the same way when you changed the players. When the presenter is a young Canadian woman of ethnic descent, and the audience is in Middle America, an area known to expect niceness, you’ve got a double whammy! The message was no longer received the way it was intended. It’s something I’d known on a subconscious level for years. I had been surrounded by male negotiators and mentors throughout my childhood and career, but I was never so compelled to mimic their style, and when I finally did it backfired. In this instance, even in a professional corporate environment with a history of success, it blew up in my face.

I knew from then on that my approach needed to change, ever so subtly. I had to find my own voice and make modifications accordingly.

I never again said “we’ll see” (in that context), even though I ran a lot of workshops during the next few years. My client evaluations only got better after I started to make tiny modifications to find my own voice, one that had a much more significant effect on those I was training. I started to pick up on all sorts of phrases and mannerisms that got different reactions than when men delivered them. It’s important to note that, for many of us, emulating our negotiation role models doesn’t always work. Most of the time, our role models belong to a privileged group who aren’t subjected to the same repercussions; thus, they operate with no fear. I became acutely aware that, whatever the context, the script that works for a privileged group doesn’t work for everyone. However, the advice given to those in a not-so-privileged minority works for the majority as well.

I started digging for clues and found some great resources in two books by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever: Women Don’t Ask and its follow-up, Ask for It. In the second book, the authors cite research that demonstrates clearly that male and female negotiators are perceived differently. When women exhibit aggressive behavior, it does not go over well, even though men are forgiven for it or even expected to behave that way (well, that explains my “we’ll see” moment). As I started sharpening my skills, through study as well as trial and error, I was more considered in my advice to people who looked like me, and I noticed that the same advice worked just as well for my more privileged audiences. It was as if the advice I started giving myself and other women like me became the on-ramp, while the advice and instruction given to us by male peers was the stairs. Sure, most people can take the stairs, but everyone can use the ramp.

Chapter 2

The Power of Pause

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TEACH ME, LITTLE GIRL?” asked the burly white-haired man.

Another gem in my treasure trove of stories from my early consulting days in the heart of the male-dominated Texas oil and gas industry (either I’ve developed a more credible vibe or I don’t look as young as I used to, because I haven’t heard that one in a while—I prefer to think it’s the years of honing my craft and not my new wrinkles).

Knowing that a client can lob a doozy like that at any time can be intimidating. That’s why I’m not surprised when I hear questions like “But what if they rescind the offer?” “But what if they think I’m greedy?” “But what if I ruin the relationship? How am I going to be able to face them again?” These “but whats” are so common, I can see them coming a mile away, whether from students I meet with during my office hours, or clients negotiating high-stakes scenarios. “But what if it rains while you’re out and about?” You carry an umbrella to keep your hair intact. “But what if you get into a car accident?” You wear a seatbelt to prevent serious damage. You can’t stay inside forever. You take precautions to mitigate the risks.

I had learned some great lessons from the “fucking bitch” trials, so knowing there was a probability I was going to get harassed or insulted, I had a plan to pause before reacting, take a deep breath and stay calm no matter what. In this “little girl” case, I advised the gentleman caller to “sit tight and you’ll find out” (you’ll note I refrained from adding “old man”—that was a challenge), and he did. We even had a few laughs together later.

The differences in the way men and women are perceived or treated, even when they say the same things, may explain why so many more of the women in my audiences consistently tell me they’re afraid to negotiate. It could also explain why, in Linda Babcock’s 2003 study, she found that only 7 percent of women surveyed negotiated their salary for their first job after school. Men clocked in at 57 percent, so it seems that many men are also afraid to negotiate.¹

What’s behind all this fear? Why is negotiating so difficult? Let me count the ways:

• perceived threats to our well-being, sense of pride or self-image;
• fear of rejection, or that we might not get what we ask for;
• belief that negotiation has to be a battle, combined with a preference to avoid conflict;
• concern that, instead of being met with rationality, attempts to negotiate will be trampled by the other party’s emotions;
• ignorance about the different types of negotiation, and/or an inability to identify what type is being conducted and which strategies are suited to that type;
• failure to charge our negotiation batteries so that we have the power we need;
• lack of understanding of where power comes from and how best to wield it (and when not to wield it);
• inability to adapt our tactics or styles in accordance with who we are and whom we’re dealing with (women and men, parents and children, different cultures, etc.);
• ignorance about how to effectively prepare for negotiations;
• poor communication skills.

Thinking your brain might explode? The good news is that we’re going to cover solutions for all of the above in the sections to come!

Here’s the thing: When the brain senses some type of threat, a lot of stuff happens that makes your heart rate increase, causes your palms to get sweaty and triggers all sorts of other reactions. Going back to our primitive years, perhaps our bodies were bracing us to outrun a predator; today we’re running from other threats to our well-being. If you feel that your pride or self-image are being threatened, that could be reason enough to get the blood pumping a little. Fear of rejection? That’s a biggie—one of those threats to our well-being. And there is a possibility you won’t get your desired outcome if you step outside of your comfort zone and actually ask for something you want. Why do so many romantic comedies depict the male lead as a bumbling fool when he’s about to ask the object of his affection out on a date? Fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of looking stupid. That potential rejection, or bruised ego, is looming large, and all rational thought goes out the window! Have you ever had those moments where you’re in a situation that makes you nervous and you walk away wondering, “Why did I do that!?” or “I should have said . . .” Of course, all common sense returns as soon as you get away from the stressful stimulus.

Why does that even happen? In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt describes the emotional, unconscious part of the brain as a large, temperamental elephant, representing our deep emotions, beliefs and desires. It’s instinctual. An elephant is freaking strong and goes wherever it wants. The rider sitting on top of the elephant represents the rational side of our brain, the conscious part that analyzes and calculates consequences and outcomes. The rider is positioned to steer the elephant in the most rational or efficient direction to get to the desired destination. But if the rider and elephant disagree, who’s going to win that fight: the tiny rider or the six-ton elephant? You experience this all the time when you do things that you know are bad for you—that extra slap of the snooze button, the extra bite of dessert. When rider and elephant are in agreement, life is good, but when they’re not, the emotional elephant wins and the rational rider loses—or, even worse, tries to rationalize the less-than-desirable decisions the elephant made. It’s the only way to save face when losing the battle to the elephant.

Why am I telling you this? Because I encounter so many people who make the mistake of assuming that negotiating is a rational, unemotional event that is ...