The Art of Negotiation: Maria Ploumaki (Transcript)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjlPgJ1wBdM

Full text of thought-leader Maria Ploumaki’s talk: The Art of Negotiation at TEDxYouth Zurich
conference.

TRANSCRIPT:

I did math for the first time when I was four years old. I used to see the world with numbers and figures.
And I used to think that everyone else sees the world that I like; I did.

However, I noticed quite soon that every single one of us sees the world through a different lens. It's not
better or worse. It's just different.

Now, spent more than two decades analysing what make people take decisions. And today I will give you
the three elements and three tips. Three pieces of advice that influenced the decision making process and
negotiations.

But first I'll start with a story line. In my family, we used to have some uncommon pets, especially my
grandfather. So that's me with a baby buck. Now bucks, when they grow older, they look a little bit
different and they get some interesting horns.

So my father was asked to take the buck and put him in the barn. Now my father knows absolutely
nothing about such animals. He's an electronics engineer. He's Greece's champion in golf and he's never
dealt with them. So he tries to push the back in the barn and of course the buck is resisting.

So then he thought it would be a brilliant idea. He grabbed him by the horns and tried to push him in. So
the buck resisted. He lowered his head. He overthrew my father on the air and he landed him flat on the
ground.

So then my mother comes in and she takes the buck by the beard and gently leads him in the barn. What
my father did not know is that bucks have one sensitive point and that's a beard. Every negotiation is a
different animal.

It's not the strongest. It's not the smartest or the most experienced one that wins. It always depends. It
depends on the situation, timing and circumstances, as Nye mentioned in his book- Soft Power, in order to
understand who holds a high cards, you need to know what kind of game you're playing and how the
value of this cards may be changing.

Now I see negotiations as a combination log. As a three digit combination lock with rotating dials. The
first rotating dial is logic, then emotions and repetition. Aristotle said 3000 years ago, It's Ethos, Logos
and Pathos.

So let's start with Logic. Logic is the facts, the numbers, the reasoning process. And we think that if we
stick to the facts, it will help make things clearer so that people will be able to understand and accept us
better our position.

However, remember perception can change the way people see things. Now this is a red Apple, it's an
undisputed truth. However, to a Christian, it symbolizes the original sin. To a mother, it is a healthy snack
and to a young girl, it's a fruit snow-white ate before going to magic sleep.
So we no longer see an Apple. We see a scene, a choice and a dream, depending who's looking at it and
what their expectations are.

People tend to make decisions not so much with how, what they think, but based on how they feel. And
going to the emotions part, emotions are made by culture, by gender and by perception

On gender alone, Brizendine wrote on her book, The Female Brain that women have 11% more neurons
in their brain function for language and thinking than men do. However, men respond more physically to
their environment than women do. If you say the word run, the muscles on a man's legs will actually
twitch

Now on Culture, in Finland, you're expected to go to the sounded [ph] together and drink alcohol. By
drinking alcohol, you prove your integrity because it's difficult to pretend when drinking.

Now in Japan, on the other hand, here its [ph] very well-defined. So it's either shown in the way people
are sitting in a train wagon and this is how respect is shown.

This is why it is so important to always understand social context. And there was one man who was
excellent in doing this. Nelson Mandela created a long lasting reputation. He said that “if you speak to a
man in a language he understands you speak to his head. If you speak to him in his language, you speak
to his heart”.

When he was in prison, he did not only study the law, but he also studied Africans, which was the
language of his guards [ph] and white South Africans. And the reason he did this is because he
understood that effect change facts would not be enough. He would need to reach the heart of his
enemies, as well as his followers.

Now, Nelson Mandela created the long-lasting reputation that we all know up to this day. When I was in
Oxford, my professor, Timothy Morris, referred to reputation as the gap between expectations and
experience. And he created their reputation J-curve, which is in essence, a parabola. What that shows is
that more reputation brings more reputation.

So reputation is in essence, a long-term investment with a compounding effect. It starts with a low return.
And by continuing to invest in it, we accumulate a vast amount over time, which we can turn into
Goodwill.

So I will give you three tips of how to invest in negotiations:

The first one is expect the unexpected

As tempting it as it is to rely on past experience, techniques, or even advice. Every negotiation will be
different. There will be surprises. Some months ago, I was facing a very difficult situation and I was
discussing with a friend of mine where I told her, “I can never be sure. Even when things look absolutely
positive this is the most dangerous moment.”

The moment you feel comfortable is the moment you're in trouble because you stopped developing and
you create a blind spot. The reason I pick this image is because reeds are brilliantly made. They have this
elastic structure that helps them bend no matter how hard and in which direction the wind blows. And
when the wind has passed, they're immediately bouncing back.

Them being not rigid helps them not break and always being able to be there and to bounce back. So by
implementing this rule, even though sometimes I have been surprised, I have never been left without
options because I have considered this possibility along with every other.
Now, the second advice is: Be tough to the cause, be kind to the people.
One of my mentors in the U S Jeff says that “if you have one person believing in you, you can change the
world.” And my young Galu, who is a mentor of Oprah, said that “People will forget what you said. They
will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

Let's not confuse facts with people. Many Classical economic theories consider humans are purely logical
decision makers. And what they support is that purely rational self-serving decision-making leads to the
best possible results.

However, as demonstrated by the prisoner's dilemma, in competitive scenarios, this is patently false.
Cooperation and furthermore anticipating cooperation leads to far better results for everyone than
predicted by the Nash equilibrium.

Now I’ll give you a story. It was a coincidence that I heard the similar story last week for the same
problem for two different companies. In the first company, both companies was facing a difficult
problem. In the first company, the manager was treating the employees poorly and he was not
communicating the problems enough and he was giving all the negative sentiments that he had.

And one of his employees left. She went to a different company and she had a brilliant career. Some years
later, this manager lost his job and he went back to her to ask for help, to connect for an opportunity.

Now, in the other company, the manager communicated everything early enough. And he tried to help his
employees go through transition phase and to liaise with everything that he could do to make their life
easier and better.

And the surprising effect was that when one of his employees left to go to another company, he told him,
“You know what? I like you, there is a new position in my new company. And if you'd like, you could also
join.” And that's exactly the beauty of cooperation. It takes us out of our four walls and it gives us
access to more dimensions.

Now every negotiation has evolved into a series of discussions and mediations between the same or
similar stakeholders, which is in essence relationship management, where every action will bring a
reaction.

And this is my third and final bit of advice: Always act, never react.
A friend of mine a couple of years ago, was discussing with an investor about a social entrepreneurship
project that he was leading. And the investor replied that the project was not disruptive.

Now, the moment he heard it, he immediately started defending himself and his projects, and trying to
convince him just how disruptive the project was. When in essence, the selling point was immense social
impact that would generate in a country that lacks entrepreneurship and business development. But the
moment you got one negative reply, he became defensive. He lost his focus . And he wasn’t able to think
clearly.

When you find yourself in a defensive position, always stay calm and reposition yourself. Imagine it like
you're walking towards the destination, we're going there. And someone comes from the side and pushes
you. And immediately you lose balance. And if you continue, you will start going somewhere else.

What you should do is that the moment that this happens, you just stop, stay calm and reposition yourself,
continuing towards your target. It is like you give to someone a remote control and they can push all of
your buttons. And they can show and have one level down in creativity or two levels up in being upset.
Take the remote control away from them. Know all your buttons. So you cannot be pushed.

What people do is their choice, how you react to their actions is your choice. You will be dealing with
negotiations in every aspect of your life, from personnel to professional, from salary and sales, to the
social environment.

Now remember: Expect the unexpected. Be tough to the cause. Be kind to the people. And always
act, never react.

Thank you.