Need skills similar to negotiation and making a convincing appeal.

February 15, 2018 12:34 PM

I feel like I come across the type of situation where I am on opposite sides of a situation where both people are legitimately right. I'm wondering how to develop the soft skills of negotiation, collaboration and winning someone over in the face of opposition. I want to position us on the same side or at lease appeal to someone's better judgement so that they understand the urgency. And I mean this in the most genuine way for when it seems both parties (me & them) are right.

Today I had a conversation with my parent's doctor. Both my parents have been sick for the last week (dad with the flu & mom caught a cough). We have been frustrated & nervous about the care because my Dad was very sick and my Mom has a heart condition that could be affected by her cough. With both of them down and out in bed for the majority of the day, I had been taking care of them for the last few day. I am slated to fly out tomorrow for a week & wanted to get a note from their doctor stating that I am their primary care giver right now & that I should not travel. Doctor refused & said I would need to get a note from my doctor. It didn't make sense to me that my doctor would be able to vouch for me being their caregiver and that they are sick. I was trying to covey this to the nursing staff who was, I felt, on the other side. They said that because I wasn't a patient, the doctor could not give me the note. We went around this for a bit. I felt they were a curt out of protectiveness of the doctor's wishes. After the conversation, I felt badly because I spoke from a place of "oh my god, are you serious". And I felt like they spoke to me like they were speaking to a madwoman who they were trying to calm down. Nothing good got accomplished.

While I've seen many people with this skill, I often feel Southerners have this as part of their culture. They can be sweet and ease the tensions while making their point. When I watch other people do this, it feels like magic but I can't identify how to get there. It seems part creative and part be savvy. For example, when you know what it takes for a doctor to write a note, you know how to make the ask. When I find myself in this position, I usually just relent to the other person because I don't know how else to keep the relationship or conversation in tact. But with this, I don't think people are aware of my intention.

While I've read books like The Art of War & have attended a negotiation training, I wan't able to use that information in my everyday life. I am interested in conventional and non-conventional ways to learn this and incorporate it into my life. I really just want to shadow people who are good at this and take notes (like that guy who negotiates lower bills for people) but many times you don't know you'll be in this situation until you're in it.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (8 answers total)

One important part of this kind of soft-negotiation is asking questions. Lots of questions. Upon being refused initially you should follow up by asking things like:
- Why can't you do this?
- What are the concerns you have about doing this?
- What do the rules of your institution have to say about this?
- Who else would you recommend me speaking to here at this institution to help resolve this issue?
- What other information would I need to provide you with in order to fulfill this request?
- What would your recommend I do in this particular situation where I need assistance with some urgency?

And then doing a little research to see if there is someone like an ombudsman or patient advocate who you can go to, if you need to go up the chain to get your request.

I've spent a lot of time on the east coast, so don't go for that sweetness approach. I prefer to calmly and respectfully push to get my needs met and to escalate up the chain of command as needed.

All that said, it seems like your issues is actually one that needs to be solved by a lawyer specializing in elder law and not a doctor. After this immediate situation is over, you might want to get some documentation and agreements signed that spell out exactly what you do for your parents and what decisions you are entrusted to make on their behalf.
posted by brookeb at 12:55 PM on February 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've found Ury's "Getting Past No" (ISBN-10: 0553371312) to be very helpful.
posted by bonehead at 1:03 PM on February 15, 2018

Agreed asking questions. Finding out exactly why they don't agree with you, and how you'd have to change your request so that it would be one they could agree to, basically if you're running into a wall you need to know exactly the size of that wall (ok, he can only write notes for a patient, what would we have to do to make me one of his patients?)
The "sweetness" would come into play in a situation when you're working with an employee - explicitly separating the personal interaction from the professional. You're sympathizing with the fact that they deal with customers all day, that questions like yours aren't making their day any easier, that they aren't the ones to make the rules, but they're really the expert in what those rules are and how to apply them, and making sure that when you're frustrated at the rules, you're not getting frustrated with the employee. A baseline assumption that the employee would help you if the employer allowed it, so you're going to work together to find a way.
posted by aimedwander at 1:08 PM on February 15, 2018

I always recommend Elgin's Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series, which are all out of print but available used. While most of her techniques are focused on openly hostile people, they also work on people who are "just following procedure" and refusing to acknowledge that a situation might fall outside of the standard protocols. Specifically, How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable may be useful.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:17 PM on February 15, 2018

If you're able to access mediation and/or active listening training, that might also be helpful, in terms of systematic training about interpersonal communications.
posted by ITheCosmos at 2:53 PM on February 15, 2018

I took Stuart Diamond’s class at Penn. If I didn’t need the credit, his book pretty much follows the syllabus exactly and is less than 1% of the cost. Bonus: no negotiation exercises against undergrads. Good for thinking about adversarial situations as collaborative ones for sure.
posted by supercres at 3:51 PM on February 15, 2018

Try to think of it from their point of view. Can you ask them to write a letter stating that your parents require significant n-home care, and that care from a family member is the best or only option because for just a week or 2, a home health aid or visiting nurse is unavailable. You aren't their patient, so while I think they're being unhelpful in not trying to work it out, I can see why they don't want to make statements about you.
posted by theora55 at 4:25 PM on February 15, 2018

My technique in a situation like this is to step away from what you want to ask the person to do and ask for their help with the problem you're trying to solve. You want a note, but the problem you're trying to solve is needing proof (for your employer? your travel insurance? the airline?) that you are needed by your parents. So what other ways besides the note you want are there to solve that problem? The person you're talking to might have ideas; even if they don't, they will have a better understanding of your needs and possibly be more sympathetic and cooperative, even if you can't help.

It makes sense that your parents' doctor can't attest to anything about you; he can say they need care, but he is not the authority on who needs to be doing that care. theora55's suggestion is good--ask for something they should be able to give.

I get this at work a lot. I ask for a widget that does A and get pushback, but when I explain problem Z, someone else comes up with an idea for a B widget that can solve the problem in another way. Or sometimes the person who originally said widget A was possible but not worth the resources sees my problem more clearly and realizes that problem Z really is significant and maybe we can make A work after all.
posted by gideonfrog at 4:46 AM on February 16, 2018