Ask Beatty: You Get What You Negotiate

For more than 50 years, KARRASS has been the go-to company for negotiation training. These seminars were created and designed by Dr. Chester Louis Karrass, who earned his MBA at Columbia University, winning the first Howard Hughes Doctoral Fellowship Award in Business. He spent three years conducting advanced research and experimentation in negotiation techniques and then earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. His powerful seminars were initially designed to help business people master the strategies, tactics and psychological insights of negotiating. In his groundbreaking book, You Don’t Get What You Deserve, You Get What You Negotiate, Dr. Karrass teaches the reader strategies, techniques, tactics, tips and skills to successfully negotiate issues including asking for a raise, buying a car or resolving personal issues with a loved one.

Frequently, people adopt an “I give up” position even before the discussion/negotiation begins. Self-defeating tapes that we play in our heads include: “I can’t do this,” “They won’t listen anyway,” “Arguing always makes things worse,” “Maybe I’m wrong,” “I don’t really deserve.” These all ensure that we won’t get what we want and deserve. Why? Because we’ve already beaten ourselves before the match and negotiations have even begun.

BREAKING THE SELF-DEFEATING CYCLE

Before being able to make changes in our lives, we need to understand why we behave as we do. People who walk through life believing things will never work out and that their needs and wants are unimportant, typically learned these unfortunate, self-destructive and self-sabotaging lessons early on as children. The child who learns that his feelings don’t matter, learns not express them. This unconscious dynamic of not asking for what we want can permeate some, if not all, of our relationships. Saying “yes” when we really mean “no” wreaks havoc with us emotionally and even physically. It becomes impossible to have honest and authentic relationships with anyone, including ourselves.

CASE STUDY

Barbara is a 63 year-old, single, professional woman who I have been treating for several years. She has a history of extreme physical and emotional abuse, beginning in her own family of origin. Virtually every relationship that she has had, both personal and professional, has been one where she has allowed and enabled people to hurt and manipulate her in a variety of ways. She continually second guesses herself and believes that it’s better to be in a toxic relationship than in no relationship at all.

Barbara has recently met a new man online, Mike, and says that she is ready and committed to making changes from her lifelong pattern of allowing people to hurt her. Mike and Barbara have been texting, emailing and talking on the phone non-stop for the last few weeks. They spend hours every day communicating in some form. Barbara has been on vacation and is planning to return home soon. Mike has offered to pick her up at the airport. Barbara told me that she is uncomfortable meeting him for the first time at the airport and would prefer to go home, freshen up, get a good night’s sleep and meet him at another time. However, she is afraid to tell him this, convinced that the relationship would be doomed if she were to antagonize him in any way.

THE POWER OF ROLEPLAY

In a recent session, we roleplayed the conversation she was planning to have with Mike multiple times until Barbara felt comfortable with the position she was taking. Roleplay is a wonderful technique that can help us mentally and emotionally prepare for potentially difficult conversations.

BARBARA AND MIKE’S CONVERSATION

Barbara took a deep breath before calling Mike on the phone. She told him that she appreciated his offer to pick her up at the airport, but that she would prefer meeting him for the first time in a couple of days, since she hadn’t been home in over a month. At first Mike seemed annoyed and disappointed, and had the nerve to ask her whether she had been leading him on. Barbara was taken aback by his reaction. However, she was determined to negotiate and ask for what she wanted. Fortunately, they were able to amiably agree to meet at a midpoint location in a few days. This was a first for Barbara. Moving forward, she now needs to be mindful of expressing her wants and needs regardless of the situation and potential outcome.

It’s vital we discover early on how well or how badly the people in our lives are willing and able to accept our feelings. We need to know whether they care enough about us and are willing to work through challenges and problems. Although not sexy or romantic, discussion, negotiation, compromise, and trade-offs leading to a win/win resolution are the key ingredients that make or break relationships.

Beatty Cohan, MSW, LCSW, AASECT is a nationally recognized psychotherapist, sex therapist, author of For Better for Worse Forever: Discover the Path to Lasting Love, national speaker, national radio and television expert guest and host of the weekly “Ask Beatty Show” on the Progressive Radio Network. She has a private practice in NYC and East Hampton.

Beatty would love to hear from you. You can send your questions and comments to her at BeattyCohan.msw@gmail.com. For more info, go to beattycohan.com.</em