Learning About the Human Elements of Negotiation
Kathryn Menefee, Program Manager for Negotiation Works, interviewed Kris Duncan, who attended the April - June 2020 Negotiation Strategies class at Friends of Guest House.
Kris Duncan had always been good at getting her way. “My argument always stood as: I’m right and you’re wrong. And you’re going to agree with me even if you disagree with me.” Duncan, who is a resident at Friends of Guest House, a re-entry program for the recently incarcerated, was often able to persuade people to take her side. Where she ran into trouble was when the other person couldn’t be persuaded.
“I would force things. I would take things that didn’t belong to me….when I didn’t get my way, I was going to take it anyway. And so, I needed to get that point of learning that there are other ways of going about it.”
Duncan first heard about the Negotiation Strategies course in April when a staff member at Friends of Guest House brought it to her attention. Negotiation Works was going to teach an 8-session course over Zoom for the residents of Friends of Guest House, and the staff member wanted Duncan to attend. “She thought it would be something that I would really enjoy. And the word ‘negotiation’ pinged in my head as maybe something I needed to learn how to do better.”
At this point Duncan saw the concept of negotiation as very similar to a debate. “I see in my mind two kids in a school auditorium behind podiums. One of them makes an argument and the other makes an argument. In my head, it’s the same way with negotiation.”
Duncan was still in this argumentative mindset when she approached her first role play in the course. Duncan was assigned to play a woman who had given up her job, her home, and the last two years of her life to care for her ailing mother. Her mother had since passed and left the bulk of her estate to Duncan. But Duncan’s sister, who had only occasionally visited their mother and was in a much better financial position, didn’t think this division was fair and wanted to discuss it. As Duncan was preparing to act out the role play – opposite Negotiation Works Founder and Executive Director Melissa Reinberg as the sister – she was confident she knew how the negotiation was going to go.
“[I was thinking] I've got this. [The sister] is an a-hole. She's just trying to screw me over. I'm going in there, and I'm going to get what I want.” But during the negotiation something unexpected happened. Reinberg told Duncan that she had a reason for needing the money: her son – Duncan’s nephew – had a rare blood disease, and she didn’t have enough money for his treatment.
“She was transparent about her needs, and it totally wiped my whole plan of action away,” Duncan explained. “I was dead-set determined that this is how it was going to go, and so when she took another direction I really had to scramble to put myself back together. [I had] to figure out: what are my options now? What do I want now?”
Duncan realized that her usual approach to negotiation – arguing her side until she got what she wanted – wasn’t going to work in this situation. She realized that “in negotiation it's not black and white…If I come in here and try to take it all, it's going to affect me in a negative way too”.
In the end, Duncan and Reinberg were able to negotiate a division of the estate in which Duncan still received most of the assets but Reinberg was given enough money to cover the cost of her child’s treatment. Duncan recognized the fairness of this resolution and the importance of listening to the other side’s perspective. “I think for a long time I did have that mentality of when you go to the negotiation it’s to get what you want. But no: you’re actually there to figure something out between two parties.”
The fact that Duncan was an active participant in the role play helped her learn and retain this lesson. “It's one thing to tell somebody: ‘This is how it works’,” she said, comparing the role play to a more standard lecture. “[The lesson] never would have stuck in my mind without the role play… [The role play] didn’t just give me the information, it taught me that I needed the information. I now value that information, especially in negotiations.”
The participatory nature of the course also helped Duncan learn how interpersonal dynamics can affect negotiations. In a later class, Duncan and another resident at Friends of Guest House, who is a friend of Duncan’s, were participating in an activity on trust. The activity allowed participants to gain more points if they “betrayed” the other person. Duncan, wanting to teach her friend the importance of being cautious and not trusting everyone, betrayed her friend two times in a row. But Duncan’s friend didn’t experience the betrayals as only happening within the context of the game – she took them personally.
“I ended up hurting her feelings a lot worse than I intended to,” Duncan explained. “And it struck me that it wasn't my place to [teach her that lesson about trust]. How she reacted is the human element…It ties back into the whole thing of how, in negotiation, it's not a computer.”
Learning to recognize the human element in negotiation and to listen to the other side’s perspective has changed the way that Duncan has addressed disputes in her own life.
One issue Duncan recently contended with was the need for weather-appropriate clothing in the heat of summer. Usually at this point in the Friends of Guest House program, Duncan already would have been employed for some time and have been able to provide her own clothing. But the current pandemic made employment impossible for a long time, and Duncan realized that she only had winter clothing to wear.
Duncan explained that in the past, before taking the Negotiation Strategies course, she would have just complained until she either got her way or didn’t. “[It would have become] a repetitive whine: ‘I feel hot. I need clothes. Oh my God, if someone would just give me some clothes.’”
But, remembering the Negotiation Strategies course, Duncan realized, “I need to stop and just take a breath and think outside of my own wants and needs.” So, she started her conversation with Friends of Guest House by thanking them for everything they had already done for her and by recognizing that everyone had been blindsided by Covid-19. Then she explained her own position: “But clothing is still something I need, so I'd like to know what we can do about getting that for me.”
Not only was Duncan able to get the clothes she needed, she has also been able to successfully negotiate several other problems in her life, including setting a start date for her new job. These experiences and the Negotiation Strategies course have changed the way Duncan thinks about negotiation.
“It’s not just two kids in an auditorium standing on two opposing podiums and arguing with each other…I feel like the most important part is …the basic ability to communicate.” Duncan believes this ability to communicate is especially important for people recently released from prison and that more programs like Negotiation Works should be offered to people in this situation. “They are stuck in a cycle [of recidivism] and it’s painful and it's even more painful to change it from that cycle. I think if people…could learn how to just communicate with other human beings on a human level that would probably change [the] recidivism rate.”
And even beyond communication, Duncan sees effective negotiation as a way to make lasting connections. “You can actually connect with people through negotiation…It opens that connection between you and another person and from there that will help you open more connections with other people…That really is the most important part of it.”
Tragically, Kris died unexpectedly on August 28, 2020, about two weeks after this story was published. She was 37 years old, and she leaves behind two young children. Kris was a vivacious, curious, and deeply introspective woman. She was invested in her relationships and was determined to make them stronger. She will be missed.