Negotiation is a way of life. essence In all aspects of life, from the personal to the professional, whether you're trying to get promoted at work or become a CEO, knowing your voice or how to assert yourself is crucial.
Ana Dutra knows the art of negotiation. She has served as a global CEO, agent and P&L leader at companies such as IBM, CSC, Marsh & McLennan, Accenture and Korn Ferry International. Over the past 20 years, Dutra has served on the boards of directors of seven global public companies, eleven private companies and several non-profit organizations. She currently serves on the boards of directors of Carparts.com and Pembina Pipeline.
Dutra said, Leadership lessons: Workplace detoxwill be participating in our next Women’s Leadership Online Discussion, “Mastering the Art of Negotiation,” on September 24th (join us!) to discuss challenging types of leadership, how to negotiate with them, and the special issues women deal with in the field. She spoke to StrategicCHRO360 ahead of the event.
What does “workplace detox” mean, and how bad is the situation?
About 10 years ago, I was teaching and speaking publicly about leadership. A few publishers approached me about writing a book on the subject. There are literally thousands of books on leadership: great leader behaviors, biographies, best practices, you name it. So I lost interest, and I stopped there. I was one book away. And the publishers asked me, what are you interested in?
It's funny, I just got off a conversation with a colleague where I was very unhappy with the company I was at at the time. I said, “What pisses me off is that we spend our lives telling leaders how to be better and great, and yet the only crap we talk about leaders is in our own company.” And he looked at me and was like, you just made that up. I said, “Yeah, maybe it's just our way of thinking as non-native English speakers, but to me, 'ship' and 'shit' are close.”
I found a way to contribute something new.
Yes, I wanted it to be science-based.
So I used all of Hogan's research and databases and did 80 interviews. Then a friend of mine who teaches leadership at the University of California allowed me to do the stories for the final assignment of her class. The students basically created case studies. I thought I was going to find mundane behaviors, but the patterns boiled down to pretty well-defined things. And that's what you'll find in the book: angry tyrants, chameleons, manipulators, etc.
Specifically, how do you deal with these types during negotiations?
So what happens when you're negotiating with a client who uses every threat weapon in the negotiation process? What happens when you're negotiating with someone who is indecisive? Who never commits, or who is a poor communicator and very unclear? So I wrote this book about the different types of bad leaders and how they show up in negotiations.
It starts with awareness.
Yes, it's about identifying who is actually putting in the time and effort to develop themselves as leaders and as people. As you go through that journey, it will expose the bad leaders around you. But you have to be careful because not everyone is interested in that journey.
Not everyone realizes how they are perceived. You have to be careful not to criticize the whole world. Do your part and don't get too upset about things that aren't positive. Deal with it, resolve it, and then move on to the next thing. Don't be arrogant, okay?
Yes, but I think emotional intelligence, empathy and behavioral observation are more prevalent in the business world today than they were, say, 10 years ago. Don't you agree?
Yes, but there's a flip side to everything. You wonder if the workplace is more toxic now? Yes, it is. There have been two big movements that have made the workplace more real, but potentially more toxic depending on where people stand. One was #MeToo, which reached out to women directly. Now that the lid has been lifted and everything is out there, on the one hand it's liberating because we're talking about these things and dealing with them. On the other hand it's difficult because it's right in front of you. You can't gloss over it anymore. That's one thing. And the second thing is the political division around social justice issues that have been brought into the workplace.
Some companies have decided not to allow anyone to talk about it. Others have launched campaigns. And I think as a result, people are more aware of whether there is a fit between themselves and the values, motivations, and principles of the company, and the values, motivations, and principles that the company upholds in its culture. Because when this is no longer hidden, everyone knows where each other stands.
And I think that as a result, it's become more obvious to people who aren't a good cultural fit with the organization that they have to decide whether to try to change it with other people or to just say, “This isn't the place for me.” That's a good thing in terms of openness, but it's also created difficulties in the workplace and a lot of stress and anxiety.
Let's say you decide to stay, but think specifically about women. Women are generally considered to be better communicators than men and are often encouraged to use their emotional intelligence. But something happens in a toxic work environment that women have a harder time with than men. What makes it different for women?
A barrier for women is imposter syndrome, or the assumption that the person across the table is stronger, more experienced, or more influential than you. This isn't always the case, but we find ourselves in these situations. There are two main types of negotiations: professional (negotiating for a job, retirement, or promotion) and M&A. What I see most often is women holding themselves back in professional negotiations. And then when it comes to negotiating M&A deals, they take second place to someone else. And frankly, it's about how imposter syndrome impacts how women behave and succeed when negotiating.
What are the specific steps you can take to address a toxic environment or toxic personality?
First of all, be realistic about your position in the company. If you don't have support or your position is the polar opposite of the authority figures above you, you have no chance of winning. You'll feel very exhausted and stressed.
But let's assume you have a fighting chance and you're willing to fight. The next step is to look around and see who are your personal allies or people who support the same values and create coalitions. We see this a lot with this new generation. They're really good at building coalitions in the workplace.
I always tell the story of a board I served on. They were planning to relocate. They were buying a building, renovating it, and moving their headquarters there. They had an ESG report and they often said they were very environmentally conscious. Then the employees found out that they were going to have Keurig coffee machines on every floor. You know, Keurig coffee pods are not recyclable. So the employees sat down and said, we don't need this, we're going to put in something else. And the management said, we're not going to return hundreds of coffee makers.
Here's what happened: This group found similar situations at other businesses in the same city. They got together and complained to the media. Think about how uncomfortable it would be for you as a board member to hear this movement happening at multiple businesses.
In the end, all of the companies did the right thing. So find allies, find personal advocates, people that will support you personally, because there is power in numbers. And, especially for women, be strategic about how we respond so that it doesn't seem like we're whining. Have a business case.
Isn’t it unfair to characterize women like that?
One of my leadership archetypes is the land grabber. And I have found that in that archetype, there is no difference between women and men. There are women who are big land grabbers, and there are men who are big land grabbers. The difference is how the victim deals with the problem depending on their gender. Men will confront the other person and ask who the heck is stealing from my account, my employees, my budget. Women often, and I am careful not to generalize too much, but they often let it go and then complain to their boss.
But that doesn't work, because what your boss is going to look at is, number one, why didn't you point that out when it started happening? Number two, look, your boss is really putting those resources to good use, and you're spending your time here complaining. Right. So be proactive on that front.
Okay, find allies. And even if you're the CEO, you might be the most powerful person in the company, but you have to report to the board, so you have to get people's buy-in.
Often times, your greatest allies and support network are not necessarily your boss, but the people who report to you.
If you're a female CEO, it's really important to know that your employees support you and that they're on your side on certain controversial issues, because what every board is looking at and what gets quickly forgotten when you have sensitive issues and tough decisions to make is, what is this person's support network like? Or, who's going to care if I fire this person? Understanding other people's followers, not just your own, is really important.
Another negotiating tip?
In any negotiation, first understand who has the final say and what is their motivation. A man came to my house today to talk about installing turf. He was a very good salesman. He told me that the owner of his company doesn't want to give anything extra, but the sales manager has a quota, so he gives it to them, and it was the sales manager who spoke to him about the quote. In other words, he is already fighting for me. I'm saying, don't worry, I've got your back.
It's important to have those intuitions. And he did something really interesting. My husband and I were talking to him, and I noticed midway through the conversation he started addressing all of my husband's technical concerns. But every time we talked about budget or price, he looked at me. I looked at this guy and I thought, you didn't even go to college, but your intuition as a negotiator is spot on. So pay attention to that as well.
Is it better to negotiate with a poor negotiator?
I think it's much better to deal with someone who knows how to negotiate than someone who doesn't, because a bad negotiator is out of place. A good negotiator knows how to do it on both sides.
Kids are great at negotiating when they're young, but the world suppresses that, so they have to relearn it. When you want to achieve something in life, remember what personality traits you had. Make sure you balance the intellectual skills with the social skills you learned first, which will help you achieve your goals now.
