05/06/2025
HOW TO GO FROM WIN OR LOSE TO WIN WIN
You may have heard of Chris Voss, a former hostage FBI Negotiator who wrote a book that sold 2 million copies, Never Split the Difference. He changed the world of negotiating after the FBI experienced some terrible failures through unsuccessful negotiations. If you are negotiating with a terrorist that has your child, or twenty hostages, you can’t say, ok I’ll have half and you have half. You need the outcome to be wholly satisfactory to save the life of your child or all the hostages. With stakes this high, negotiating had to do better.
What has negotiating with terrorists holding hostages got to do with your daily life?! You may not realise it, but you spend your life negotiating. Voss says, it all boils down to the simple point “I want”. It may be regarding a contract, salary or purchase or a child to go to bed on time. Your want may become a need. In daily life, you may have an “I want” that says to another, I need you to stop that behaviour because it is making my life a misery, I’m not interested”. The poorest, most unsuccessful way to negotiate are fear based threats. If it worked, authoritarian countries that use this would be crime free. Even countries are negotiating with their people. So, to get what you are asking for, you have to ask it right, says Chris Voss.
In a hostage negotiation, stakes are so high it can be win or lose, so how do you persuade a terrorist to release their hostages and not feel like he has lost? In daily living, stakes are not this high! But, the difficulties and stress resulting from tensions, conflict and lack of resolution can be seriously life changing. Most of us don’t realise that we mediate our daily situations well. Think of a parent teaching and balancing the needs of a family. You do it every day. But when it get's stuck and people are suffering, that is usually the time to find a way forward.
The crossover between negotiation and mediation is enormous. Why? It is always about the people and human nature. Feelings, emotions, wants and needs do not change. Conflict in life is inevitable and it is often as the stakes get higher and we are unable to move on with our lives, we find it becomes intolerable. Conflict is a true manifestation of not being heard.
Sometimes, we can forsee risks and we are in fear of relationships fracturing, reactions and consequences and agreements not being found. The choices we can be left with are pushing ahead and accepting the risks or avoidance. What can be done about that? There is so little support in this area, this is precisely why Empowered To Talk was created as solution to address this.
Listening intensely is a skill a negotiator or mediator must develop and demonstrate. In negotiation, you must have empathy, be sincere and show your desire to better understand what the person is experiencing. Hearing without judgement. This is listening as a martial art, listening on steroids says Voss. At this point, the difference between the skills required for negotiation and mediation is negligible. In a group situation such as Empowered To Talk or Mediation, the listening skill must stretch further because you are not there to listen and support only one side. The mediator must remain neutral and genuinely supportive of each participant. We work to provide a space for each to speak and listen. Most of us have learnt to be formulating our answers and opinions whilst another is speaking, this is not listening properly. True listening means a mediator cannot do that. The response can only come after the listening is over. This means spaces, pauses and time are good and part of the process. This process teaches us to communicate differently.
Listening can be a superpower that has a transformative effect. Often a person who feels listened to, becomes more willing to listen. Participants using the structure of this process, usually discover the answers and solutions they need but also are empowered to reach an agreement that can be put in place. The structured process and neutral space allows each to speak and each to listen safely which in turn empowers mutual agreement to be the way forward. This allows for a win win situation.
You can be reassured, that whoever is requesting the resolution service, a powerful organisation or institution, your boss or a family member, that they have no powers of persuasion, direction or control. They have no rights to know what happens within the meeting so you can be safe in the knowledge the mediation is entirely yours. This position gives the person wishing to refer, or the person being asked to participate, absolute knowledge that the focus is on the people participating and facilitating resolution.
These structures within Empowered To Talk or Mediation have the power to both protect your relationships or to rapidly end difficult circumstances.
By the time it is with me, sometimes a person no longer gives a care what the other person thinks or feels, such is the frustration, pain, stress or anger. The secret is to simply to begin the process, sit around the table. For example. I have one case where three attempts have been made to get this person around a table. It is not an easy situation as it involves contentious probate and likely some illegal activity. Each time resolution is sought, avoidance tactics have been used and then it has been finally agreed and a date fixed, then a no show. Legal proceedings are under way but the party is still trying to avoid court with the support of a barrister. The avoidant person clearly knows resolution solutions will be tackled which they must address, purely by sitting at the table, and thus the battle would end. The battle in this case will now need to be decided by a Judge. I call this the King Solomon’s baby syndrome. If I can’t have it all, you can’t have anything. Court therefore is often a lose lose situation. A "winner" rarely walks away feeling like there is a win. When faced with a Judge who is not happy to be hearing a case that should not have been brought, where all parties have been “dragged” into their court because of uncooperation, the Judge will use their powers to react in way not favourable to the refuser. The stakes get higher without cooperation and indeed may yet bring this person to the table. A person can only be offered solutions, be reminded of the stakes, and left to weigh up the consequences of their choices. This is another topic of human behaviour entirely, which is well studied, and is often not as rational as we would like. However, for this article, a person or all parties, can reach a point where it can no longer be avoided and are faced with tackling a situation. Now, they are at the table and have been reminded of the stakes but are still caught up in the emotions and past events. That is ok, it is all held in the space but with a different focus. None of this can be moved through until the structured listening begins. All is not lost.
Other factors can contribute to a successful outcome. When we are taken out of the space we are caught up in inside our emotions, and faced with making a choice publicly, we often internally weigh up emotions and rational choices in a different way. So, even where circumstances can seem to make a situation intractable, a person, or all parties, can shift and like a domino effect, can ultimately reach agreement. We have now approached a win win situation. Agreements usually hold some degree of accountability between all the stakeholders involved and sometimes can form a court order. An agreement is a powerful thing particularly when it is drawn up by the parties themselves.
Our range of resolution skills offered, can provide for a broad range of circumstances. They can support and protect relationships within a family or organisation, for example where difficult decisions or situations need resolving as amicably and stress free as possible, or they can address a situation where conflict or dispute has taken over your life.
Contact me today for a free discussion on how I may be able to facilitate you moving to win win solutions. I look forward to hearing from you.
Patricia
