211. How To Get Anything You Want At Work (The BATNA Method), with Richard Birke

0:00Al Elliott:What if I told you that the reason you're not getting what you want at work has nothing to do with your performance, your qualifications, or even how much your boss likes you? Research by Francesca Gino and Deepak Malhorta from Harvard Business School shows that having strong alternatives changes how you negotiate. You become more confident and willing to take risks. But here's the thing. Most of us negotiate from the worst possible position. Desperation. Well, if I have another job offer, if I have somebody in the background who said, Rich, the moment you leave your current industry, I'll give you a million dollars a day to work for me.

0:34I'm going to negotiate a lot harder with you because I can afford to walk away. Now, if I have nothing and I lose what I have, I might lose my apartment. I might lose everything. My walk away alternative is terrible. And so I'm not going to have a lot of power negotiating with you.

0:53Al Elliott:That was Richard Burke, who's our mediator, negotiation expert, and one of the most experienced dealmakers in the world. He's a Harvard Law graduate who went on to lead research at Stanford, taught business decision-making for 25 years, and now handles billion-dollar disputes, including cases like Enron and Trump University. But today, he's here to talk to you about something much more personal, your career. What if the key to getting what you want at work isn't how you ask, but how easy it is to walk away? You are listening to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture.

1:29We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist.

1:37Al Elliott:My name is Al. I'm a business owner. And we are here to help you simplify the science of work. And as you would have heard already, we're joined by Richard Burke, who spent 40 years mastering the art of negotiation. He's a Harvard Law graduate who became associate director of Stanford's Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, then spent 25 years as a law professor teaching decision making. Now at JAMS, he handles billion dollar disputes such as Enron, Trump University and massive corporate settlements. And what he's discovered will genuinely surprise you. You know how we always think negotiation is about being persuasive or charming or even having the right arguments.

2:12Al Elliott:Well, it turns out that's completely backwards. the most powerful negotiators don't win because they're great talkers. They win because they have something called a BATNA. BATNA stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. And the psychology behind it is really interesting. When you have a strong alternative, your brain literally operates differently. You're more creative, more confident, and paradoxically, more generous in negotiations. So today, we're going to show you how to create your own BATNA so you can negotiate like a pro. We're also going to look at why most people negotiate badly.

2:45We're also going to give you a step-by-step system for getting anything you want at work, not through manipulation or aggression, but through preparation and strategic thinking.

2:55Al Elliott:So, are you ready to discover the secret that world-class negotiators have been using all along? Let's find out after this very short message from our lovely sponsors. Does your experience with AI sound a little like this? You prompt for 20 minutes, the output is polished, is confident and is completely flipping useless. Well, that's what happens when AI doesn't know anything about your business. But you know what does know something about your business? HubSpot. HubSpot's AI. It works with your actual customer data. Every interaction, every signal your team has generated over time. So instead of prompting and hoping, you ask once and ship it.

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3:41Al Elliott:Welcome back. So here's the thing. Before you can negotiate for anything, you need to know what you actually want. And Richard has this brilliant technique for figuring that out because our wants change depending on our mood, maybe even the time of day, whether we've had coffee. One of the basic questions in negotiation is what do I want? And, you know, because it's hard to get things if you don't know if you can't articulate them to at least to yourself and the privacy of your own. Um, so you have to be able to think, what do I care about? What do I want? And yet, um, I know that wants are very transient.

4:15Um, there are things that I might want 10 o 'clock at night when I'm getting ready to go to sleep. And then I wake up in the morning and think, yeah, maybe not. You know, I try to, um, there, there's a, a wonderful social scientist who says the me that makes my breakfast, my lunch in the morning is a different person than the me that opens my lunch at noon. And sometimes the me at noon says, who packed this? And why did they think I would want, you know, four lettuce leaves? It was like, you know, so the me in the morning was thinking about a healthy lunch and the me at lunchtime wanted something more substantial.

4:57So knowing that wants are transitory, that some of them change, that they're dynamic, not static. when I'm thinking about any kind of decision or negotiation, um, I usually take out my phone and I have a little note section as we all do in our wonderful little computers in our pockets. Um, and I'll just make a caption of whatever it is I'm thinking about. Where do I want to go on vacation? Um, which car do I want to buy? Should I leave my job? Um, you know, um, what will I do next? It could be anything. And I might have a thought when I'm commuting to work and think, oh, open my phone note, put that in.

5:46I might have a thought later when I'm at lunch. I might have a thought when I'm at dinner. And I will just sort of keep that list of phone notes until I start to see that I'm not adding anything new.

6:01Because I will notice that there may be basic conflicts on there. Like, you know, I want to lose weight and I love to eat pints of Ben and Jerry's. And so what I will have to first admit to myself, and this is a tough one, is it's hard to know what you want. because sometimes you want things that are mutually exclusive. What Rich is describing there is actually backed by psychological research from Barry Schwartz, link in the show notes. When we make decisions under emotional stress, like when we hate our job, our cognitive load increases and we start to limit our own options. It's called choice overload and it makes us worse negotiators before we even start.

6:41Al Elliott:And this is where most people make their first mistake. They decide they only want one thing and refuse to consider alternatives. Richard calls this bargaining against yourself. A mistake that many people make is they bargain against themselves and they reduce the bargaining range before they've ever found out what's available. So if I say, do I want a red car or do I want a blue car? And I decide I only want a red car and I will not even consider blue cars. And so then I go to the car dealership and I started asking for cars and they say, would you consider another color? And I say, no, I never find out that there was a blue car that they were willing to sell me for a dollar.

7:26That would have been the perfect car. And it would have made me very happy, but I've already limited the bargaining range by negotiating against myself in advance. So when I am taking those phone notes, when I'm writing things in there, I expect that there will be contradictions because I know, like Walt Whitman said, I am large, I contain multitudes. Some of those multitudes don't exist in the same universe as some of the others. I want to lay in bed all day. I want to go get exercise. prioritize. Um, so once I start to see that the notes, um, are kind of coming to an end, I can tell that, um, you know, I've tried to, well, I'm going to take a note when I'm hungry.

8:14I'll take a note when I'm full. I'll take one when I'm tired. I'll take one when I've just had a cup of coffee. Um, when I start to see that nothing new is happening, then I can look at those notes and I can start to prioritize what are the main themes that I'm seeing. And I try to look at it as an objective third party.

8:30Al Elliott:So that's the first problem. We don't know what we want. And the second problem is we limit our option before we explore them. The third problem is that most people just don't prepare properly. They think negotiation is about being clever in the moment. But Richard says it's actually about the work you do beforehand. First thing I would ask you is, well, tell me about your discontent. What is it? Was it, were you happy once and now you're not? Because that could be your interests have changed. Uh, you've gotten bored. Um, something has changed at work, but I want to find out what happened. What do you care about?

9:06Because your discontent is going to be highly revealing about the things you want more of and less of. So I want us to be a hundred percent clear on that. Um, is it just money? Is it something else? Right. What's, what's the issue there. Then I'm going to ask you questions about your relationship with your boss. Say, okay, so can you have an exploratory conversation without it leading going to a bad place? You know, can you say, I'd like to talk about making a change? Is your boss going to say, well, the change could be, we'll just remove your name from the door and you'll be, you know, or do you socialize and say, yeah, I think that they'd be open to that.

9:52So I'm going to first start thinking about what do I want? And then I'm going to think, how do you inquire about what's available? Right. Can that be a collaborative conversation with your boss? So we've established that most people negotiate poorly because they don't prepare, don't know what they want and limit their own options.

10:11Al Elliott:Now, this is where we get to this Batna idea. and honestly, when Richard first explained it to me, it completely changed the way I think about every conversation I've ever had at work. Let's learn more about this ban after this very, very short break. Welcome to the break. Yes, my favourite part of the show. These two idiots have stopped talking. Yes, I want to tell you about my new favourite podcast. No, that's a lie. It's my old favourite podcast. I've been on this one for a while. Didn't know where that was going. It is called I Digress. It is hosted by Troy Sandidge and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

10:45Al Elliott:Yes, it's got shows that are under 30 minutes and I Digress helps eliminate complexity, complications and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies that achieve scalable and sustainable success. At least that's what it says here. And if you do want to hear a really personal story, go to episode 136. This is Troy's honest account of fatherhood, killing hustle culture and what really matters when you stop performing and start living with intention. Listen to I Digress wherever you get your podcasts. That concludes the break. Let's return to the scheduled programming. Back to the studio.

11:22Welcome back. Here's where it all gets interesting. Richard has a framework that solves all of these problems. It's built around three questions. And the third one is where the real power lies. But firstly, let's just remind ourselves what BATNA is.

11:38Al Elliott:Can you just tell us what the BATNA was? Is that, that was an acronym, was it? Best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It's what you walk away to. I like to boil things down to simple, easy to remember rubrics. And I think in every decision and every negotiation, you want to ask yourself three hard but basic, simple questions. And the first one is, what do I want? And like we say, that one's hard. So if you're thinking, you know, do I want to leave my job? Do I want to make my job better? Well, what does better mean? Because better is going to be eclectic. It's going to be better to you. You need to separate out the means to an end from the end.

12:25It's like, well, I'd like to get a raise. Well, why? Well, because I want a nicer car. Well, maybe the company can lease you a car. right there may be other options there may be way that so so the interest versus the way to achieve that interest are different so the question the first question everybody should ask themselves is what do i want the second question that they should ask is what's available because many people in decision making become attached to things that would never in a million years happen so you need to think what's available because it's no use getting attached to things that are never going to happen.

13:03And when I say what's available, part of what makes that complex is let's say we're in a negotiation, you're my employer and I'm looking for a change of status. Um, what's available is going to be a product of what you're going to say yes to. So that second question is a question that requires exploration of a world outside of you. So if you're interacting with others, um, I'd like to get a job as a movie star. Okay. Is that available? Have you explored that? You know, how realistic is that? And the third question is, well, what happens if there's no deal? In other words, how well does the status quo serve my interests?

13:48That third question, what happens if there's no deal? That's your BATNA. And the psychology here is brilliant. Research by Adam Galinsky at Columbia Business School shows that people who have strong alternatives feel more confident, take more risks, and achieve better outcomes in negotiations. It's not just strategy, it's neurological.

14:07Al Elliott:So let's go back to Richard explaining how he used a BATNA when he was negotiating for his current position at JAMS. In the negotiation literature, the best-selling book in our field of all time is Getting to Yes. The authors talked about something called the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, and they created the acronym BATNA. What's my BATNA? For folks around the world, they can just think, what do I walk away to if the deal falls apart? Now, the better your BATNA, the more power you have at the negotiation table. When I was negotiating with JAMS about, am I going to join? I was a tenured law professor.

14:49I didn't have to take a deal in order to keep feeding my family or enjoying what I was doing. So I had a really good walk away. And I brought that right to the table and said, look, you know, it's going to be hard for you to persuade me to leave because I kind of like where I am. But I'm open to listening. And of course, they succeeded. And here I am. So if I'm sitting down with you and you're my employer and I say, you know, Al, I want to be wearing the headphones and doing the interviews sometimes. And you say, well, maybe I don't think you're quite, you know, I make it look easy because I'm a pro, but, you know, there may be some things that you could develop and we could think about that.

15:37Well, how hard am I going to bargain with you? If I say, no, if I don't get a podcast in a week, I'm out of here. Well, if I have another job offer, if I have somebody in the background who said, rich. The moment you leave your current industry, I'll give you a million dollars a day to work for me. Um, I'm going to negotiate a lot harder with you about how soon I'm going to get a podcast because I can afford to walk away. Now, if I have nothing and if I say, gosh, if I jeopardize my relationship with Al and I lose what I have, I might lose my apartment. I might lose everything. Um, my walkaway alternative is terrible.

16:19And so I'm not going to have a lot of power negotiating with you about a change in duties. So the, one of the first things a savvy negotiator will do before they sit down at the table and think about what's available is they will make their walkaway better. You know, it's, it's kind of like, um, if you're negotiating for a new car and your car is broken. Um, maybe you want to see if maybe a little small fix to your car is available because when you're negotiating with the car dealer, if you have a car that doesn't work, you're gonna, the dealer's going to have the upper hand. If you have a car that you can at least drive for a little while, you bought yourself some time.

17:05And so some of what might need to happen is before you sit down and negotiate with your boss about different terms, you might want to ask, well, what happens if the negotiation goes south? And can I prepare better? Can I have a better walk away alternative? That's going to make a huge difference in negotiation. I love that car analogy because it shows how your batonet isn't just about having options. It's about your psychological state. When you know you can walk away, you literally negotiate differently. your posture changes, your voice changes, your confidence changes.

17:40Al Elliott:So it's not about being manipulative or aggressive. It's just about being prepared. For example, you should never go into a client pitch without knowing exactly what you'll do if they say no. It's going to make you much more relaxed, which makes you better at the actual conversation because you can concentrate on what people are saying. Now, to be fair, this does raise an interesting question. Imagine you're negotiating for a raise at work. If having a strong BATNA gives you power, should you go out and get job offers just to use as leverage? I asked Richard about this because, honestly, it felt a bit weird to me.

18:11That doesn't really feel that ethical to me. I mean, if you're just using a job as leverage, right, you have to go back to the what do I want, and maybe you say, well, geez, I don't want to have bad relationships in the industry, and so I'm kind of poisoning the well if I go and, let's just say, flirt with a lot of people with no intention of ever taking a next step, that'll quickly become known. And I don't think that'll feel good to you as well. But I don't think there's anything wrong with being open to exploring. When Jams was talking with me about joining, I didn't really ask them. They asked me.

18:56Um, and so, you know, I was, uh, I guess I was in a little bit of a privileged position that way. Um, had I really desperately wanted out of my job, it might've looked a little bit different. Um, but I wasn't going to go try to, um, get another offer that I wasn't going to accept just as leverage on my own job. because then I have to turn back to that person and say, um, thanks for the job offer, but no. Um, and if they say why, um, it's like some level of, well, I was just using you as a tool and maybe some people feel fine about that. And, uh, but, but I wouldn't now exploring, seeing what's available, talking to friends in other industries or adjacent industries, you know, a lawyer talking to another lawyer at another firm saying, how are things over in your shop?

20:04Are you looking for people? What kind of qualifications? How do mine match up? There's a lot that you can do short of applying for a job strategically just as leverage. What Rich is touching on there is something psychologists call authentic self-presentation. Basically, being genuine about your interests rather than playing games. And there's research from the China-Europe Business School showing that people can actually sense when you're being strategic versus when you're being honest, and it affects their willingness to cooperate.

20:33Al Elliott:Now there's another question, something I read about, and it's about whether you should pretend to want something you don't actually want just to get something you do want. Rich has got some quite strong views on this. I read somewhere, I think it was in Bo Burlingham's book, that there was an entrepreneur and he used to negotiate very hard on certain, when he was buying real estate, on certain terms, like the price, for example. And I should get really hard on the price knowing that actually what he wanted was more square footage or something, or he wanted something else. So he sort of like negotiated really hard on the price and then went, all right, tell you what, I'll go to your price, but you have to throw this in.

21:10Al Elliott:And the point was he was prepared to pay the price and all he wanted was the thing that he asked them to throw in at the very end, like a sort of offhand comment. is that just a nice story is that is there a lesson there perhaps for someone who is doing a bit negotiating at work yeah and i don't know that i uh agree with that lesson entirely because we uh we categorize that as strategic misrepresentation of interests be careful what you ask for because the other side might say yes um you know if uh if in the real estate negotiation somebody just you know exceeds to the price well now all of a sudden you say oh but i really want square footage well so you're saying okay so you want everything you wanted the best price and you want more square footage or you were lying to me about price and you only care about square footage now all of a sudden the deal is in a whole new place and the negotiation the party on the other side might say, I'm not really sure I want to work with you.

22:11So if we're talking about employment and you're talking about a continuing relationship with an employer, that strategic misrepresentation of interest, like asking for a job duty you don't want because, you know, you think that it'll go to somebody else and then they'll owe you a favor because they said no. Um, Ooh, that could, you know, that could be a big problem, but now I have reason not to trust you or anything you say, because I know you're asking for things you don't want and you're not bargaining in good faith. And in an employment context, that could be terrible. But at least if you go forward and you talk about your interests as opposed to the positions, and the same is true with your employer.

22:55To say, you know, I want more responsibility. I want more money over time. I want to feel excited about my job. I want to maybe, you can point at somebody in the organization and say, I eventually want to be them when they retire. So if you talk about your interests, as opposed to turning them into concrete positions, there may be many ways to achieve your interests that the other person knows about. And they could start to reveal, well, we're thinking about starting a new project and we weren't sure who was going to do that. we were thinking about expanding this division or opening a new branch over here.