Interview with Margaret, February – April 2018
CO: Thank you, Margaret, for agreeing to answer my questions.
I’ve been enjoying your book, Love on the Rocks with a Twist—Delightful Fiction with Lessons on Dealing with Others. Some of my questions come from your stories and the study questions notes you include with each story.
But first, will you remind me how we became acquainted? I believe it was through your blog. Is that your recollection?
MEA: Thank you, Catherine. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the book. I believe that, in one of my blog posts, I cited a reference from the U.S. National Committee for UN Women that drew your attention.
CO: I must ask something that I have wanted to know since I “met” you. How did you become a “Persuasion Coach”?
MEA: In a former job, I negotiated, but never felt comfortable with the competitive system I now call “Number Line Tug-of-War.” How much to exaggerate an opening offer? How to determine a bottom (or top) line? Mostly, it was guess work.
The 1983 publication of Getting to Yes, by Harvard professors Roger Fisher and William Ury, moved me off the number line to an interest-driven system. I liked it so much that I took Dr. Fisher’s continuing ed course in Basic Negotiation at Harvard. We practiced negotiating with partners two or three times a day for a whole week. I realized that trying to use the system from the book had been like trying to learn to drive from a book. The hands-on exercises were like getting in a car and practicing in an empty parking lot. I followed up with Dr. Ury’s course in Advanced Negotiation.
I started getting more of what I wanted from others, often without any compromise, in every area of life. The skills changed my life so profoundly they inspired me to create a second career. I began training groups, and coaching and consulting with individuals on consensus, persuasion and related communication skills. I developed all my own materials, drawing not only on the Harvard sources, but also various types of mediation training, as well as works on factors that affect communication, such as temperament, culture, and brain science.
There’s no common term for what I do. My card reads “Trainer – Author – Consultant.” But the same skill set can look like consensus building, persuasion, negotiation or conflict resolution to different clients and trainees. I wanted something shorter for my web address, even if it didn’t tell the whole story. I came up with “persuasioncoach.com.”
Margaret as Writer
CO: What made you decide to write Love on the Rocks with a Twist? How long did it take you to write all those lovely stories? Was your purpose to teach readers about reaching consensus successfully?
MEA: I wrote most of the stories for my own pleasure. I thought about publishing an anthology, but most people can’t think of someone as having more than one profession. If people thought I was a “Fiction Writer,” they’d forget the unfamiliar term “Persuasion Coach.”
So I didn’t publish the anthology until my sister told me, “You can find a lesson in just about anything.” She inspired me to look for interactional skills lessons in the stories I had already written and to include study notes. My goal evolved to include teaching interactional skills while also entertaining.
CO: One of the stories in the book won an award. Can you tell us more about that?
MEA: Thanks for asking. There are many writers’ contests, from small ones associated with a local conference dedicated to one genre, such as mystery, all the way up to the national contests held by Writers Digest magazine. In 2005, my story “Duet for Flute and Phantom” won First Place in Genre Fiction in the Writers Digest 74th Annual Writing Competition. I can’t remember when I got that excited about anything. I was competing against a huge number of entries in mystery, romance, horror, fantasy—every kind of fiction except mainstream and literary.
Margaret’s Use of a Magic Question
CO: You often include in your study notes the use of a “magic” question. Can you describe that question and its importance?
MEA: In my system, interests replace the positions, demands and offers that characterize Number Line Tug-of-War, forming the foundation on which we build consensus. My first magic question “Why?” helps us discover the interests of both parties, like finding solid stones for that foundation.
For example, a couple, Tess and Johnny, disagree about whether to vacation in a city or camp out. If they tried the usual Number Line Tug-of-War, they’d reach the usual result, a lukewarm compromise—one week in the city and one week camping. Ho hum.
Instead, they ask the First Magic Question. Why does each of them prefer the kind of vacation they requested. Tess wants to sleep in a real bed, near a bathroom, and to visit her aunt and uncle in the city. Johnny, a keen birder, wants to be in the woods from dawn till well after dark to see more species. They discuss ways to satisfy these interests and conclude that they could vacation at a park with a lodge. They could visit Tess’s relatives on the next long weekend or invite the relatives to visit them. No compromise! They’re both satisfied.
How to Develop a Walkaway Solution
CO: I love the term “walkaway solution,” or “walkaway” alternative. Can you explain what this is, and how someone can use it to help in reaching consensus?
MEA: I coined the term “Walkaway Alternative” because few people remember what the “Harvardese” term “BATNA” means. It’s the most misunderstood term in negotiation parlance. Many believe it’s a bottom line or top line.
But just as interests replace opening positions in our system, Walkaways replace the bottom or top line as a better benchmark for whether or not to accept a proposal.
To develop her best Walkaway Alternative, Tess thinks of all the ways she could address her interests, on her own, without any cooperation from Johnny—what she’ll do if she decides to walk away from trying to agree with him. She considers separate vacations, a stay-cation for herself, and other options.
Next, Tess picks one or more items from her list to create her best Walkaway Alternative: going with her sister to visit their aunt and uncle while Johnny goes his own way. This is what she’ll do if she decides to walk away from trying to reach agreement with Johnny, her backup plan.
Tess and Johnny decide staying at a park lodge is the best possible agreement, the one that satisfies both sets of interests as much as possible.
Finally, Tess applies the Walkaway benchmark. She asks which better satisfies her interests, (a) her best Walkaway Alternative, visiting the relatives along with Sis, or (b) the proposed agreement, a park lodge. The lodge plan satisfies her interests better than separate vacations. So she agrees to the lodge plan.
Contrast what would happen if Tess used the conventional bottom line benchmark, let’s say at least 8 days in the city. If Tess abided by this bottom line benchmark, she’d refuse the negotiated lodge plan because it wouldn’t allow 8 days in the city. But assessing interest satisfaction with her Walkaway Alternative as the benchmark, she fully satisfies her interests with the lodge plan, even though she spends no time at all in the city.
CO: Without violating anyone’s privacy or confidentiality, can you share with me and my readers one or two of the most delightful or most enlightening conflict resolution stories from your experience?
A Delightful Solution
MEA: A delightful example is my dad. He was a natural at staying tuned in to his true interests and creating solutions for those interests. Whenever he hit a roadblock, he immediately looked around for things he could use, people who could help, to move toward his interests. He used such resources in creative ways. He was also naturally tactful.
Dad demonstrated these traits many times in the US Navy during WWII. You’d think there’s not much room for negotiation in military service. But I was amazed at how many times he got things most people would think impossible.
For example, he was ordered to take a draft of men from the training center in San Diego to San Francisco. A truck for the last leg of the journey, from the Embarcadero to the receiving ship, didn‘t show up as promised.
By looking around for resources, Dad found a free ride to his destination. There he amazed the Master at Arms by handing over, not only all the men (some usually ran away), not only all their records, but also the cash he’d been given to pay the trucking company.
I’m currently working on a memoir of Dad’s time in the Navy. As with Love on the Rocks, I’ll provide study notes on skills usage. Here’s a page about the memoire on my website: https://persuasioncoach.com/a-different-kind-of-war-memoir/
An Enlightening Case
MEA: In one of my most enlightening cases, I was acting, not as a consultant for one party, but rather as a neutral mediator for two people who had been in business together and parted on bad terms. One sued the other for reasons I won’t mention.
I actually got them to the point where the amount of money the plaintiff would accept was below the amount the defendant was willing to pay. In other words, they were overlapped on the number line.
Yet, they wouldn’t agree to settle on an amount in that overlapped zone. Their emotional interests outweighed their monetary interests. Each felt angry, indignant and betrayed by the other. Each wanted the other labeled “wrong.” Each might have accepted an amount in the overlap zone if the other admitted being wrong. Otherwise, each was determined to proceed to trial so that (they thought) some third party (arbitrator, judge or jury) would declare the other wrong.
The lesson is that you can’t satisfy intangible “feeling” interests with tangible goods, like money. Parties might agree to an amount, but the resentment will linger, and at the first opportunity, rise from the ashes. That’s why I coined a Third[i] Magic Question for consensus-seeking interactions, “How do we want to feel?”
CO: Are there books or readings, besides your own, that you would recommend for readers who want to learn more about reaching consensus in daily interactions?
MEA: Yes, there’s a list on the Resources page of my website: https://persuasioncoach.com/resources/
CO: How can readers find your blog? How often do you blog? Where would readers find Love on the Rocks with a Twist, or your other book Bridges to Consensus?
MEA: My blog is incorporated in my website: https://persuasioncoach.com. Just click on the “Blog” button in the menu. Ideally, I’d like to post every Thurs. I sometimes run late these days because I’m writing some meatier posts that require research.
Bridges to Consensus and Love on the Rocks with a Twist are available on Amazon in both print and Kindle editions.
CO: Thank you, Margaret. Is there anything you would like to add that I’ve forgotten to ask?
MEA: First, thanks again, Catherine. It’s been a delight.
If anyone has follow up questions to this interview, they can reach me from the Contact page of my website: https://persuasioncoach.com/contact/
Thanks again.
[i] There is a Second Magic Question, not discussed here, “What else do we want?”