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How You Can Be More Confident In Tough Situations, Conflicts, and Negotiations with Kwame Christian

Lace Gilger
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Do you feel uncomfortable in conflict with others? Do you experience fear and anxiety when dealing with tough situations? Most negotiation tactics and strategies assume you’re already a master negotiator with nerves of steel - that’s the wrong starting place. In this episode we discuss how you can get comfortable with having tough conversations and build the foundation to become a real master of negotiation - using a simple and easy to apply framework. We discuss how you can deal with tough situations and conflict from a place of poise, curiosity, and confidence with our guest Kwame Christian. 

Kwame Christian is a business lawyer and the Director of the American Negotiation Institute where he puts on workshops designed to make difficult conversations easier. As an attorney and mediator with a bachelors of arts in Psychology, a Master of Public Policy, as well as a law degree, Kwame brings a unique multidisciplinary approach to the topic of conflict management and negotiation. He also hosts the top negotiation podcast in the country, Negotiate Anything.

  • Should we hide from conflict or should we seek it out and embrace it?

  • Avoiding conflict is human, but it’s not healthy

  • Do you lack confidence in tough situations and conflict?

  • Do you experience fear and anxiety when you’re in a situation of conflict?

  • “Giving recipes to people who are afraid to get into the kitchen"

  • Powerful tactics and strategies don’t matter if you’re unable or unwilling to enter conflicting situations in the first place 

  • When people are afraid - their limbic system lights up and their prefrontal cortex is less active - your rational decision-making shuts down and you react more emotionally 

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - an action oriented approach to pushing past phobias, fears, anxieties and more

  • Rejection Therapy & exposure therapy - how to build the skillset of mental toughness 

  • Be intentional about exposing yourself to difficult conversations

  • “Give me the difficult conversations and I will do it"

  • By forcing yourself into difficult and tough situations - your brain actually changes (via neuroplasticity) and it gets easier over time 

  • How do you negotiate with someone and move them out of a negative place / negative emotional state so that you can help get what you want out of a tough situation?

  • 3 Step Framework

  • Step one is to Acknowledge Emotions

    1. Get Curious with Compassionate Curiosity

    2. Engage in Joint Problem Solving / Collaborative Negotiation 

  • It’s not that someone is crazy, it’s that you’re talking to their inner child, even though they are an adult - speak to the that inner two year old, acknowledge their emotions, then help move beyond them

  • How do you use the tool of “Acknowledging Emotions"

  • Put it on YOURSELF, not on you “If I was in this situation, I would feel X (frustrated, etc)"

    1. Tell me more about what you’re experiencing?

    2. The goal is to help them get it out of their system?

  • Then transition to "compassionate curiosity"

  • How can we help you feel more secure?

    1. How can we help you solve this problem / situation?

  • Often times people’s emotions will be hidden under a veil of professionalism - exploring the emotional side first helps to defuse them

  • When exploring emotional issues - use the past tense

  • When you shift to compassionate curiosity - it starts to begin looking to the future

  • With compassionate curiosity - start really broad - then begin narrowing your focus

  • So, what are you looking for?

    1. They will signal what’s important to them, then you get more and more specific 

  • A complex problem doesn’t necessarily require a complex solution 

  • Why is preparation so important?

  • The power of joint problem solving and joint brainstorming to develop a collaborative approach to solving problems 

  • The rule of thumb of when to make the first offer - when you know MORE than the other person - or at least as much as the other person - then you should make the first offer 

  • Above all else an offer is information

  • There is a common misconception that you should never make an offer first 

  • The first offer that goes on the table will have a disproportionate amount of influential power 

  • Your first offer / anchor needs to pass the “because” test - as long as you can justify it in some way, it will impact and frame the negotiations 

  • The “copy machine” experiment

  • False Belief Negotiations is a zero sum game.

  • There is a difference between conflict and combat. Conflict is an opportunity to solve problems and learn more, there is a big difference. 

  • Negotiation isn’t the art of deal making, it’s the art of deal discovery 

  • 3 Pillars of Negotiation

  • Get more of what we want

    1. Get less of what we don’t want

    2. Strengthen relationships 

  • Even if you don’t get a deal, there is still value to be achieved from a negotiation

  • Homework: Take action - don’t avoid conflict, look at it as something to approach and use it as a Tool to strengthen your skills - find and seek out small conflicts 

Thank you so much for listening!

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