Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently engaged in one of the most consequential negotiations in U.S. history, as NBC News reported her as the one “fanning the flames” who “played a critical role in delicately nudging” President Joe Biden to withdraw his candidacy for reelection. In last week’s column, I listed around 10 of the negotiation strategies and tactics she shared in an interview arising from her new book “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House.”
Here are more, directly from her book, plus my own insights. We can all learn from them.
· “Quite simply, there is no substitute for preparation and doing your homework.”
· “Anticipation is the order of the day. You must immediately be able to articulate your answers to the questions why, what and how. You must demonstrate a plan.”
ML: Fundamental negotiation planning includes anticipating your counterpart’s possible arguments and moves, being able to address the why, what and how, and incorporating this into a strategic plan.
· “You [as Speaker] must know what all the possibilities are, all of the time. Those possibilities include how each member of your caucus will vote, what you are willing to concede in negotiations with the Senate or the White House and what you are not, and what resonates with the American people and why.”
ML: Three lessons: 1) personal leverage for any House Speaker relates to how each of their members will vote (if they can’t count their own votes then they will bring up bills where they will lose – and no Speaker will survive long as a result); 2) knowing what you will or won’t concede is fundamental to my 4th Golden Rule – Design an Offer-Concession Strategy; and 3) what resonates with the public relates to whether the Speaker’s party will maintain its majority – and this is leverage for the entire party (becoming the minority is a bad Plan B).
· In Pelosi’s first conversation with President-elect Donald Trump in 2016 when she called to congratulate him “I tried to swing the conversation to put the campaign behind us and to do what I have done with every new president: seek areas of common ground.”
ML: Building rapport based on common interests is almost always an effective starting strategy, especially when you will be negotiating multiple deals with them over several years).
· “While we had many political differences, working with the George W. Bush administration was made easier because whomever the president tasked to negotiate on behalf of the administration, that person spoke for him. They had the president’s confidence and would not be wasting your time.”
ML: Make sure your counterpart has the authority to do the deal if their boss has delegated the negotiation to them.
· “We understood how the battlefield works in Congress. If you are going to do big things [here reforming health care with the Affordable Care Act], that takes a full understanding of the minute details of policy and congressional processes.”
ML: A great illustration of my 1st Golden Rule: Information is Power-So Get It!
· “For every infrastructure area where the Bush administration turned me down, I was able to find another area where we got something that would support low-income families in return.”
ML: Almost always get something in return for giving something up in the offer-concession stage.
· “[W]hen we begin a discussion [in a meeting/negotiation with the president], we stipulate a fact – budget numbers, for example – before we proceed. If we are going to work together, for instance, on infrastructure, we must start with a number.”
ML: One, strategically consider what to substantively discuss at the start. And two, a major factor in deciding this is how you and others have previously started similar negotiations (precedent and tradition).
· “I told [Secretary of the Treasury] Mnuchin that if we reopened our legislative agreement to include foreign assistance, I needed to add $4 billion for global health … We both got to yes.”
ML: If the other side wants more after a negotiation has concluded – called “nibbling” – renegotiate the deal and get something in return.
· “In Washington, the unwritten rule is that the leader who hosts the meeting controls the agenda. If we were to meet at the White House, members of Congress would mostly speak only when called upon. But in the halls of the Capitol, members would have a stronger voice.”
ML: A great illustration of my 5th Golden Rule: Control the Agenda.
· “Fortunately, I was able to get access to one of the president’s personal notes that had been sent to a senator [with a promise to use an executive order instead of legislation in an effort to keep the Senate from overriding the president’s veto]. We had the text published in the Washington Post. That proof forced the White House to reverse course and protect the Chinese students through an executive order.”
ML: Getting political commitments in writing, and publicly using this leverage, if necessary, can be quite powerful.
· “I learned that if I fed my members, it put everyone in a good mood and made them feel welcome. . . . While I was Speaker, we had breakfasts, lunches and dinners. . . . I saw it [as] a way of saying we care about you, you are special to us, and we want this to be a positive experience. But sometimes, … if the meetings got contentious or long-winded, I’d have to consider: Do I supply food to improve the mood – or deny food to bring the discussion to an end?“
ML: In 1938, psychologist Gregory Razran found that his subjects developed a more favorable view of the people and things they experienced while they were eating – a result Razran coined as the “luncheon technique.”
Latz’s Lesson: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows the negotiation value of: planning; preparation; homework; knowing why, what, and how; leverage; what to concede; levels of authority; written commitments, building rapport; controlling the agenda, process expertise, offer-concession strategies, nibbling, and the luncheon technique.
* Marty Latz is the founder of Latz Negotiation, a national negotiation training and consulting company that helps individuals and organizations achieve better results with best practices based on the experts’ research. He can be reached at 480.951.3222 or Marty@LatzNegotiation.com.