How to Plan for an Upcoming Difficult Conversation (or Negotiation)
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I am currently in the midst of two challenging conversations.
The first is a money conflict that has come up with my beloved son Jack, and the second concerns a development project in my town. There are plenty of opportunities in life to practice dealing with difficult conversations, don’t you think!
I care most about the situation with my son, so I am going to use it (superficially anyway) to map out in this blog the process I use to prepare.
My son has built a cool mountaineering guiding company. I’m very proud of him but, sadly for me, it means he lives on the opposite side of the United States where the big mountains are.
Jack is 28 and not always inclined to check in with his mother. But he and I are close and I was sensing some distance. I asked him in a recent phone call and he affirmed. It was because of an argument we had a month or two ago when I was taking him to the airport. I had forgotten; he had not.
“You said you didn’t want to talk about it anymore”, he told me, “so I have been dealing with it on my own.”
It was not the right time for either of us to have the conversation so we scheduled a date for this upcoming weekend.
This was a good first move on both our parts. Picking the right time and place for a challenging conversation can make all the difference. Time and place is the stuff you can control, and my motto as a conflict facilitator is to control the hell out of what you can control (which is not much) and let go of the rest.
There are plenty of negotiation books full of all the things you can do to undermine the other side as you set things up -- all the dirty tricks you can pull. I'm not into them no matter what type of conflict or negotiation. I'm into relationship-building and, for the most part, looking for collaboration and the growth and creative outcomes that can happen for all parties when conflict is handled well.
Once the conversation got put on the calendar, my brain started to work on it immediately. I woke up early the next morning aware that my subconscious had been mulling it over.
This conflict with Jack originated out of my divorce with his dad -- one of the most high conflict situations both Jack and I have ever lived through. It might sound dramatic to say, but the conflict has deep roots all the way back to the U.S. Civil War between the North and the South, the kind of depth that is true of so many conflicts. My ex came from the rural South and, as he would say, was always trying to “get the shit off his shoes”; I came from the Wall Street/New England industrial North. Conflicts about money are usually not just about money. They are often about identity and respect. I felt ripped off by my ex in a gendered kind of way: I believe my ex was playing out old southern resentment towards the more affluent North that humiliated the South in the Civil War. Like I said, historical reverberations. And Jack, unfortunately, was snagged in the middle.
So how do I proceed? How does one proceed? How does one plan well for a difficult conversation?
For me, there are basically two types of planning that I do: The head work and the emotional stuff.
No matter what the subject matter – intimate to global, preparing for a conflict conversation or negotiation is great idea.
When we react without pause, we tend to do so from our reptilian brain. As family therapist Terry Real loves to say “which part of you is talking”? Good preparation puts us into our pre-frontal cortex – our grown up, more functional adult selves. It takes us away from the ‘positional clash’, where lies the heat of the conflict, and gives us a broader, richer, more creative perspective and response.
There is so much righteous indignation out there in the world. Preparation gets you out of it and helps manage that reactivity.
70% of negotiation success results from good preparation. This is good news; all you need to do to become a better negotiator is to prepare affectively.
(my dear friend and colleague from Bogotá, one of the best negotiation trainers I know)
The academic research is clear: people who prepare get better outcomes and more of what they want. The quote from Pablo above is representative, “70% of good negotiation is good preparation.”
In the interest of brevity and privacy, what follows is just my checklist of things I think about and do. I find I can do it in any order.
(BTW, Jack knows I’m using this example and has given me the OK.)
Analyzing the Conflict. . .
Positions
What are our respective positions? Our positions are our preferred solutions to the conflict, and by definition, they will be in opposition, or there would be no conflict to resolve through negotiation.
Articulating your position helps you get clear about what you really want, which in turn helps you get clear about what you really need — and meeting needs is ultimately what this is all about.
Many women can have a hard time articulating what we want because we are so practiced at taking care of other people, accommodating and deferring.
In Jack's and my situation, I was done with this conversation and he was not. Those are positions.
Underlying Needs and Interests
If our position is what we want, our underlying need or interest is why we want it.
Ask yourself why you are taking the position you are taking. And then, ask yourself again, and then again. . .
This can be like layers of an onion.
Here are some needs/interests for me in this situation:
to be present/future, and not go back to my divorce
to avoid paying taxes to the government before we have to
a great relationship with Jack
It’s good to be thorough. I’m just showing you the process here.
Then I need to do the exact same thing with respect to Jack's needs and interests.
Trying to do this with respect to the other side, always proves very useful. When I sit down to think, even with somebody I know as well as my son, I am often not completely sure what they would say.
Here are some possible interests/needs of Jack which I will have to check out:
that the outcome feel fair
freedom from old family-of-origin dynamics
a great relationship with his Mom, me:)
Emotions
Feelings provide us with a window into the soul and to what is most needed.
I know there is anger on both sides. And leftover grieving. And a lot of love.
My anger is more at my ex than at Jack, but now he's the one in front of me and I am not feeling fully respected or seen by him. “Re-spect” (i.e. regarding perspective) is almost always present when there is anger.
Anger also comes up around a need for justice, and I'm guessing that’s where Jack may be at.
Worldview
Worldview is about identity, culture, personality. It is longer term and not really negotiable.
In this case, I am a Mom with a Mom worldview, I will always be his Mom. And I am 60 something, also part of my worldview.
Jack brings the perspective of a young man, emancipating from his family of origin, making sense of what worked and what didn’t, and making his way in a topsy-turvy world.
Bargaining Chips and Chops
‘Chips” are carrots, ‘chops’ are sticks.
When I look at Jack's needs and interests, what can I offer him, what ‘chips’ to meet them?
What could he offer me, ‘chips’ to meet mine?
What could we each do to the other to obstruct those interests, ‘chops’ — like a karate chop? These things we want to avoid if we want to be collaborative.
Chips and chops give you power to influence the negotiation. So does BATNA.
BATNA
BATNA stands for “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” a term coined in Getting to Yes. What are my alternatives if this ‘negotiation’ doesn’t work out? What are Jack’s?
There is so much interdependence and love here, neither one of us have a very strong BATNA. Walking away from him will never be an option for me. In my value system, in any case, parents generally don’t have the right to walk away from their children; children have the right to walk away from their parents.
That’s it for the head work. It helps me get clear about my side of the equation and the other. Please note that everything you think about the other is an assumption that you must check out when you talk. As the saying goes, you don’t want to ASS/U/ME, make an ‘ass out of you and me’ — . Know that one?
Clearing Your Charge, Calming Your Nervous System
Charge is the emotional stuff alive in us when there is conflict.
When my dog ‘has charge’, her hackles go up. Once the hackles come down, she is much more reasonable.
Here are the main things I regularly do to clear charge and calm my nervous system to prepare for a challenging conversation.
‘Spring-Cleaning’
I have been ‘spring-cleaning’ since 2014. I learned the practice from the School of Womanly Arts and I highly recommend it.
Because my friend and fellow blogger, Sue Jaye Johnson, has described the process so well on her Substack “The Pleasure Report”, I'll refer you there.
Going for a walk
As I mentioned a few weeks ago in my blog on the book POSSIBLE, if I have a tough problem, I go for my favorite walk up “to the chimney” where I get an amazing view of the Hudson Valley. Before I start, I name the issue in my head and then release it for the walk. Almost miraculously, on the way down, I notice how I have new insight. Every time!
Have you ever tried EMDR for trauma healing? (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a powerful therapeutic method for healing trauma-based problems.)
It is based on bilateral stimulation of the brain which going for a walk accomplishes. I believe I am correct that the inventor of EMDR discovered it while she was taking a walk.
Of course, taking a walk with the person with whom you are having the difficult conversation is also excellent tool, but I will save that for another time.
Talking it over with a trusted guide. . .
I have an amazing guide/therapist who is in her 80s. We have known each other for years now and I give her a call to talk things over and gain insight when I have a difficult conversation coming up. She almost always adds another layer that I hadn’t accessed. Conflicts bear such great fruit when they are well processed, understood and worked through during the preparation phase and beyond.
So, Jack and I will talk over the weekend. I look forward to it, clearing the air, increasing our love, and getting us to a new and better place of what is now adult friendship.
With warm regards,
Invitation . . .
If you are in the midst of a challenging conversation, try analyzing it in this way.
And, try out the practice of spring cleaning and/or taking a walk. See what you think.
If I can support you in preparing for an upcoming business or personal conflict negotiation, please each out. I’m sure I can help.
Prefer to listen? Just press the play button above.
p.s. For more on preparing, listen to William Ury, To Negotiate Better, Start with Yourself.