1. Negotiation Isn''t the Same for Everyone Why One-Size-Fits-All Negotiation Fails It happened again. I needed to buy a new car and was prepared-and expected-to get the best deal possible. I had learned the secrets from top-selling negotiation books: William Ury and Roger Fisher told me I can "get to yes" by "getting past no," Alexandra Carter reminded me to "ask for more," and Chris Voss told me to "never split the difference," even giving me a specific script to use for my car-buying scenario. I''d completed an eight-week online Negotiation Mastery course at Harvard Business School. Plus, I had a successful career as a lawyer and a mediator, using my own hard-won negotiation skills day in and day out to get the best results for my clients. I walked into the dealership confident, informed, and excited. I knew what I wanted, I knew what price I needed, and I had the tools to succeed.
What could go wrong? Everything. When the salesman quoted a too-high price, I mirrored Voss''s tactical empathy strategy, pursed my lips, lowered my voice, and replied, "That sounds great, but I''m sorry I can''t do that." The salesman froze. "OK," he said. And that was it. Nothing followed-no counteroffer, no further conversation. (And this was well before car shortages and supply-chain issues caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic emboldened car dealers to stick to the manufacturer''s suggested retail price because supply and demand was in their favor. Old-fashioned haggling over numbers was still the norm.
) But he refused to negotiate with me. He wasn''t even giving me a "Let me see what I can do" type of OK. It was just a resigned shrug. It was the same shrug I saw him exchange with another salesman when I walked in, as if he had drawn the short straw to have to attend to me. I was dressed quite nicely, but not over the top. I''d walked into the dealership that day ready to buy. What could he possibly be thinking? Why wouldn''t he negotiate with me? Wait. Did he actually believe that I couldn''t afford this car? Voss''s book didn''t quite anticipate that scenario.
So I persisted, feeding him the lines I had expected to hear from him. "Why don''t you talk to your manager and see what he can do," I suggested, "because I really like this car." A few minutes later the nonplussed salesman came back with his offer: "My manager is feeling generous today. He''s going to take off . $250." Two hundred and fifty dollars off a new car? That''s it? The shoes I was wearing that day cost more than that discount. Still following my script, I replied, "I''m happy your manager is in a generous mood today, but that isn''t the price I had in mind. Is there anything else you can do?" He did the obligatory walk to the back office and returned with a "That''s the best we can do.
" There was no negotiation. No engagement. He never even asked me what I wanted to pay. Our conversation was over. With that, he let me, or rather encouraged me, to leave the lot empty handed. So I did. As I thought about it later, I realized he had truly believed me when I said I couldn''t meet his price. It was one of the most confusing conversations I''d ever had, and I have conducted negotiations everywhere from rainforests in Heredia, hostels in Vienna, and clothing manufacturers in Shanghai to markets in Accra, boardrooms in Mexico City, and universities in Ahmedabad.
As CEO and founder of BreakthroughADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), a global conflict resolution company, I find myself smack in the middle of conflict daily. I know how to negotiate. But somehow, when it came to this kind of real-world, everyday negotiation, I abandoned my instincts and followed someone else''s script. Why didn''t it work for me? Because at the end of the day, when I step into a negotiation, there are different forces at work than there are for people like Chris Voss, Roger Fisher, William Ury, Alexandra Carter, and many of the other smart, accomplished, and well-respected voices in the negotiation space. Of course this plan didn''t work! Why? Because I was negotiating while Black. And as a woman. And as a young(ish!) person. And as a whole bunch of other characteristics that are specific to me.
For as much wisdom and insight as those books offered, I was facing a kind of implicit bias that the scripts in the other negotiation books just didn''t consider. Those strategies failed me because they didn''t address the additional hurdle (or several) that I have to overcome before I can even show up as my authentic self at the negotiating table. I needed a different game plan. Why One-Size-Fits-All Negotiation Fails Of course, this isn''t a situation that''s unique to me. If you''ve ever gone into a car dealership-or sought to lease or buy a property, discussed your salary, or attempted to buy anything from a street vendor-and tried to negotiate with some standardized bag of tricks (only to come out with subpar results), you are not alone. And that''s not just my opinion-it''s been proven time and time again in various industries. In a 1995 Yale University study, Professor Ian Ayres trained thirty-six participants-some Black, some white; some male, some female-to negotiate in a similar manner for a new car. They visited more than two hundred car dealerships in Chicago, armed with a script they had to recite as they negotiated with the salespeople to buy a vehicle.
What do you think happened? Across the board, Black and female buyers received higher initial offers . and the salespeople were less willing to budge on that number during negotiation. Ayres speculated that many salespeople were operating with a predetermined stereotype that Black people and women are less knowledgeable and are unskilled negotiators, so they would be more willing to say yes to a higher price-that is, if the dealers believed they could afford the car to begin with. The prospective buyers all used the same script, but the same script doesn''t work for everyone . because negotiation is not the same for everyone. That was my experience, too. The basic negotiation scripts I tried out that day in the car dealership fell flat when they came out of my mouth because those scripts were not written with me or people who look like me in mind. For instance, one popular book tells readers to adopt a "late-night FM DJ" voice during tense moments in a negotiation-in other words, to sound vulnerable and deferential, even in a high-stakes conversation.
I can see how this approach might work for a white man, and perhaps all other men, because let''s face it, this is a disarming, radically different approach than the blustering, brash negotiating stance that we are used to seeing in a patriarchal society. But for a woman, the late-night FM DJ voice risks sounding . well, seductive. For a Black woman, it risks feeding directly into stereotypes of the "oversexualized" jezebel. By speaking like this, I felt like I was putting myself in a precarious and weakened position. It wasn''t me. And it just felt wrong. Another popular negotiation book suggests using "negotiation jujitsu" to redirect positional statements and attacks against you.
As the martial art in the technique''s name implies, the authors tell you that when the person on the other side of the negotiation announces a firm position, criticizes you, and-wait for it-even attacks you, you are not supposed to engage. Rather, you should redirect. In theory, maybe that''s valid. In practice, it equates to doing . nothing. The guidance in the book says do not push back, do not defend yourself, and do not counterattack. But here''s the truth of the matter: marginalized people have never accomplished anything without pushing back, defending themselves, and strategically counterattacking with boycotts, marches, lobbying, and other methods. Lack of engagement in any context, to me, doesn''t feel natural or authentic.
What if Black homeowners Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin had tried employing negotiation jujitsu when a real estate appraiser undervalued their home based on their race? In a widely covered story in early 2023, the Austins sought an appraisal of their Californian home to help them refinance their mortgage. When their appraisal came back well below market value, they were flabbergasted. Doing nothing would have cost them the opportunity to secure the loan for the upgrades they intended to make. "Not engaging" sounds great in theory, but in practice, negotiation jujitsu fails when there is bias embedded in the system. The Austins took a different approach. Instead of employing negotiation jujitsu, Paul and Tenisha pushed back, and pushed back hard. They removed all family photos from the home and had a white family pretend that the house was theirs when the new appraiser came. The result? The new appraisal for their family home came in approximately $500,000 higher than their initial one-just as they knew it should.
You can''t look behind positions if there is a smoke screen. You have to defend who you are and your ideas, especially when you are being gaslit. You can''t always assume that people are being genuine. You have to trust your instincts. Negotiation advice has to reflect the multicultural society that we live in and suggest nuanced techniques that are applicable to everyone, especially those of us who were overlooked in prior negotiation books. I don''t know about you, but I was tired of following negotiation scripts that were not designed with me in mind. Wasn''t there a way I could be authentically myself-a calm, funny, occasionally inappropriate, but.