Transcript: Negotiation Is Communication: A Masterclass for Product Managers with Neta Luxenburg Naamani

Intro & getting acquainted

Eyal David: [00:00] Hey everyone, this is Eyal. This time we have a special and super-practical episode, even a kind of short masterclass, with Neta Luxenburg Naamani. Neta is VP of Business Development at Ashtrom Properties, and she's an expert in complex negotiations and building strategic partnerships. Besides that — and that's actually how we met — she also gives lectures on negotiation and effective communication at nonprofits, and she coaches managers through negotiation processes, difficult conversations, and positioning. Alright, let's get started. Hi Neta, how are you? Great, how about you? I'm wonderful — it's so great to have you here, we're a bit under the weather, right?

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [00:39] Right, totally. Like, perfect — we both have a bit of a cold, but... I'm hoarse too. And you're hoarse too. Right, but maybe it'll come through okay.

Eyal David: [00:47] I hope so, I'll talk with the guest. Okay, so with me is Neta Luxenburg Naamani, who comes to us quite surprisingly from the Ashtrom company. From the real-estate world. Right? Indeed, from the real-estate world. So Neta, would you like to tell us about yourself in a few words? Yes, gladly.

Who is Neta — 13 years at Ashtrom, land deals worth hundreds of millions

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [01:03] So as you said, I've been at Ashtrom Properties for 13 years now. VP of Business Development, which in the real-estate world mainly means, acquiring land, buildings, financing, negotiations — we'll talk more about that. But that's mostly the job: trying to identify the right deals for the company. Essentially executing the company's strategy — the company's growth strategy — through expansion, because that's what you can do in real estate.

Eyal David: [01:28] In a bit you'll tell us a little about real estate too, shine a spotlight on it, and a bit about Ashtrom as well. I'll just say that you're actually here because I was at your lecture, about negotiation, and a lightbulb went off and I said, wow, this is super interesting for product managers. So we basically rolled with it.

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [01:43] An audience I hadn't thought about before, before you said that 'wow,'

Eyal David: [01:50] about the kind of deals you actually negotiate. So what interests us is that it's big.

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [01:57] Yes. Looking at the deals we've done in recent years, we buy the land and develop on it — plots worth around 200–250 million in land value, and that's not even the big money.

Eyal David: [02:09] And that's the kind of deals you do, right. And those are the deals I do. Okay, so Neta, can you focus us — what are the best skills, the ones you value most, that are actually important in your negotiation ability?

Negotiation is first of all goal-based communication

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [02:25] Look, negotiation — you have to understand, first of all, negotiation is communication. Above all, negotiation is goal-based communication. We also have ordinary communication day-to-day, but I think what people miss is that most of the day we're negotiating. Because we have some desired outcome, we enter a conversation — it doesn't matter if it's with the kids, the boss, colleagues, customers, with... who? With potential partners — we enter a conversation, we have a desired goal, or they have a desired goal and enter a conversation with us, we're in a negotiation. So we'll really talk about this — it's communication, communication. Yes. It's the beginning and the end. Negotiation, like other kinds of communication, requires trust, requires a relationship. It requires nonstop work, right? All the time. It requires nonstop awareness. I don't know about 'work' — if we have to work at it, that's a sign we haven't yet managed to bring the necessary things to a level of awareness where we can do them naturally — or, on the other hand, it means we're not authentic. But it does require staying — the hard work is staying in awareness the whole time, of what I'm actually receiving from the environment. To understand that the negotiation is actually taking place in the other side's head. What signals am I getting? Everything. We enter a conversation with a person, and we only know half of the event. I think in the field too, in high-tech too — if I were to give someone something to develop right now, if you get half the code you can't do anything with it. Get half the product, half the software, half the spec — you can't do anything with it. So in negotiation that's what happens. We only have half the picture. And that's what we think. We need to discover the other half of the picture. That's why we conduct the negotiation. We need to conduct the negotiation — ultimately, it's about understanding where the other side stands, what information they have that I don't, in order to create the right solution. We're mistaken to think that if we just sit down really well and prepare on our own, we'll also end up knowing what's good for him, what he wants, what he thinks — and that's not true.

You only have half the picture

Eyal David: [04:24] So tell us how it's really most effective to prepare, or most effective to take it forward. Let me give you a scenario that seems right to me — this is what I thought about when I heard the lecture, I thought about tons of negotiations — I thought about the negotiations I do at home, the negotiations I do with company managers, with clients, but there's one negotiation that I think would be very practical for the listeners — that delicate interface between the product manager and the development team working with him, it's a bit similar to construction too — I think we talked about that as well — and that's really where it takes shape, it's basically the place where you talk through your case at our stage. With the engineer. Yes, where you plan the designs. Someone who at every point has to do this whole thing. Exactly, so it's very similar, so let's give you a scenario, and let's try to approach it, okay? Great, great. And I think you'll start right from the beginning, from how you'd approach it, okay? So for the sake of it, I identified — I'm the product manager, I identified in my company some opportunity I can go after, some problem my users have, and I defined exactly what I want to do, I researched the thing, and now I know what the solution is, I present it to the development team in order to get feedback, to get their agreement, to get them on board, to get... and ultimately, what I'm aiming for, what I want to walk out of this meeting with, is basically zero questions, to minimize as much as possible the question marks, so that we all basically agree that this is the best solution,

Why 'zero questions' is a mistake — Always Be Curious

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [05:51] this is the scope of this solution, and now let's figure out how much it costs. So I would ask, first of all — and maybe product managers won't like this — why do you want there to be zero questions? Why do we assume in the first place that the whole truth lies with us?

Eyal David: [06:08] Because there's so much uncertainty, we want to try to catch all the risks, or all the problems, or all the things you can catch at the planning stage, and by 'zero questions' I mean that we managed to reach agreement, or that I left the meeting with questions that I know how to solve,

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [06:24] because then I'll actually have a better version and solution. Excellent. I say this because when we tell ourselves, in our heads, that the goal of this conversation is for there to be no questions in the end, we lose the most important thing, the ABC of the event: Always Be Curious. You need to enter the meeting curious, because otherwise you already know everything in your own head. And it could really be that you deliver the pitch of your life and it lands, and they'll just say, that was amazing, give it to us, we want to do it. Give it to us and we'll even deliver early — we'll do it for you in half the time. But it might not happen. So, first, we need to come prepared for that. First, because if we don't come prepared for it — if we convince ourselves in our heads that we've brought the amazing solution and everyone just needs to get on this train and move forward — then first of all we'll be disappointed. Right. We'll go in, and suddenly questions come up and doubts come up, and what does it say about me that they don't see how amazing this solution is and how amazing I am? So first I say: come on, take a deep breath. We have an excellent idea. At what stage do we get people on board with the idea?

Eyal David: [07:26] I know how to send a teaser in advance, to say, listen, I'm starting to work on something here, this is the direction, I'll come to you when it's fully cooked, I can ask some question along the way, where I already know where the answer is going, and then I recruit that question — they're already part of the event. That's a really good point. I do it all the time, from the very first stage. Maybe it's also because I come from a development background too.

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [07:48] You know what drives you, you know how to overcome it. I know how to handle that aspect, yes. It sounds a bit naive, but you can't take every task and turn it into an adventure. But you can try — you can try, at least at the basic level, to think about what would work on me, what would get me on board, how I would feel if someone came now and dropped the solution of the century on me and expected only applause. So first, as a start, I think you should always come with the appropriate humility, but also, mainly, to understand that in the end, on the other side — you call them developers, I'll call them human beings. Absolutely. Absolutely. And they need to hear a rational story that basically... first of all, they're not rational. It's true they're high-tech developers. And we think these are people who came with a certain background and bring a lot of knowledge and experience, but in the end they're human. Humans are emotional people. And they... the message is very, very important. But it's not even half the event. In the other half of the event we have other things. We have you, first of all. The person who walks into the room. What was the last thing that happened before you entered the room. For them, and for you. What was your last interaction with them and how did it end. Last time you left the room were there no questions, or was there shouting. When you left, did they say, ugh, good that it's over. Or, when you walk into the room does everyone immediately perk up.

Eyal David: [09:07] And that's an excellent point. Because I really never think about it. Okay, how did people arrive at the situation. Right? What happened to them a moment before.

What happened to the other side a moment before you walked in

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [09:15] So let's take that. So how do you actually... so let's say, first, understand that the most dangerous negotiation is the one we don't even know is taking place. For the simple reason that when we're inside a relationship, and certainly at work — most, most of the communication is, ultimately. Beyond the coffee-break chatter about what's going on and what you heard and what you saw and what you have to share — a great deal of the communication is, ultimately, negotiation. We need to treat it as one long event, with occasional peaks of decisions, of meetings. They can't be isolated peaks. So I think about that person who's supposed to be a product manager within an organization. I imagine him as the most connected person in the organization. He should be a person who sweeps people along with him — it'll make things easier for him. The pitch can be less good, the deal can be less precise. Trust. He'll think first about the person standing across from him. So starting from what you just said, trying to understand — a moment before I walked into the room. I came all prepared, I'm on a high, I don't even notice that the guys aren't with me at all. Something just happened there, someone, they got upset. I don't even walk in to the CEO before going through the secretary and asking her, what? No — what meeting did he just have. Okay, thanks. Can you push me back half an hour, an hour? Or I'll go grab something tasty, or — what happened in the room? To ask for a moment what... so how do you manage that? I asked what's going on in the room, I don't know, but... no, but you can ask what's going on in the room. Because when we even walk into a meeting, we say, hey, what's up, you listening? No. Hey — eye contact, a big smile. How are you? Wait a second. I know we scheduled you for now, but is this a good time? If you're under pressure, if you need a few more minutes, I can come back in a bit. And this way, to understand that even though we scheduled it, and even though I'm staying, and despite everything, I got a real yes — I gave them a real choice. And also to pay attention along the way — we're very busy with our own speech, if we prepared well and really got ready. Maybe we prepared a presentation — maybe before the presentation, put the presentation aside for a moment, sit down, talk with the person in front of you, tell him a bit about the thinking process in general, how you got to this, what went through your mind, tell the story, I assume that's a tool product managers use all the time, storytelling. I think anyone who gives a presentation uses it, but yes, okay, fair enough. But even before that, you asked — there's a current situation, even before we entered the room, to sit for a moment with ourselves, not about preparing the pitch, not about preparing the presentation, about preparing for the situation. To think for a second, as if we're encountering it for the first time, who do I need to sit with now, what's the forum, is this the right forum — maybe there's a whole team there and it's better to sit first with one of them, and see how to get him on board, and then with everyone — maybe there's someone there I know is going to object, and it's better to see how I bring him on board in advance, maybe I need to bring someone else with me. And a question — I usually do this stage while creating the invite, do you actually do it right before the meeting, before you go in? No, definitely not — we want the invite itself to already reflect this. I don't know how much room there is, I try to create maximum room around timing, including the time of day — meaning, what's convenient for me? What's right for me? I want them — I don't want them half an hour before they want to go out to eat, stressed, and I don't want them at hours when they're not focused, so there are those things too, 11 a.m. — everyone — 11 a.m. people are most alert, it's the best time, 10, 11 a.m., look at when they started, and that's the good time if I want to get something across, sometimes I'll actually want a brief — I want to get into something short, I don't want to open a long discussion now, I want to create that, maybe it can be moved to another room, maybe I want to do it in a different atmosphere, so yes, to think about everything in advance — I said awareness, it's first of all just thinking at all, if we didn't think, then we got some default — we told the secretary, schedule it for us, at best, or we grabbed someone in the hallway, and we didn't understand why it suddenly turns against us — we just didn't think it through to the end. So I did the prep, I walked into the room, right? One more stage in the prep. One more stage. It's about seeing how I enter the room with the right mindset, because ultimately in a negotiation, I can still bring to the table, besides the story and besides myself, an attitude. The mindset I bring to the negotiation is very, very important. Now, you gave the example of a product manager and development, I don't know, maybe the relationship there is amazing and they live happily ever after, maybe there's a bit of tension, how does that create, in advance, a certain way of entering the event, with the thought, I know how this is going to go. So what do you suggest,

Prepare the situation, not just the pitch

Eyal David: [13:42] okay, come on — assuming there's tension, and I'm now walking into the meeting, how do you suggest managing that tension in the meeting,

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [13:49] if I didn't manage it in other ways beforehand? So I'll split this into two. First, at the mindset level, and this is very hard — to let go of it for a moment. Not to make assumptions. If I come into an event knowing exactly how it's going to go, I'll drift, and it unfolds exactly as I thought it would, for the simple reason that I'm just not attentive to anything else. I also bring a certain energy with me, I also react to everything the same way, because I already knew this is what would happen, and I'm not open at all to seeing what my part is. So even though I know about this tension, for a moment don't make assumptions. And see how I break it down, how I try right now to understand from the other side, that in the end this is a side I need to work with for a very long time — what his needs are. Whether I know how to explain my needs. Whether I know how to connect this whole event to interface points, to places where it comes together. Whether I remind myself that even though I want to jump in now, and tell them, listen, I need this, and I also have backing from management, and... I need to meet you again tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, and we're not in this event, we're in the next one. You have to remember that all the time. We're here for tomorrow. This event — let's say we walked into the room, it already happened. I love that line, okay. We're here for tomorrow. We're here today for tomorrow. Because today we're here, it'll come out a certain way. But we're also here for the next event. We're building something gradual. And the other side of that is to understand that I can't allow myself — because in the end, negotiation, it's about saving resources. Because if we had all the time in the world, and all the money in the world, and weren't driven by emotion, I wouldn't... we'd do this, and then this, and then this, take however long it takes — but we're not in that situation. In the end, negotiation isn't about achieving the outcome. It's about saving resources — time, money, and above all emotion. Emotion simply takes more time and money to fix. So when we want to save the emotion, we need to understand that, first, within this event, we want to know that you can't enter a single negotiation event, certainly within an organization, and ignore the fact that there's a relationship here that we've been part of, and that we're obligated to be very, very aware of its importance. That doesn't mean product managers need to show up every morning with gifts and flowers for everyone and be the nicest, but yes — they need to be the person who understands that in order to do their job, their relationships within the organization

We're here for tomorrow

Negotiation is about saving resources — above all, emotion

Eyal David: [16:15] are critical, and if that means, for example, setting a weekly meeting with someone from the development team just to talk about things and maintain that,

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [16:24] it can work — it can be in other respects. First of all, it's great to set the meeting — actually, not not to maintain the relationship, not to set the meeting — to know when to grab coffee, to get to know the people — in the end we want to get to know the people. If it sounds this way, then I'll say upfront: the goal is not manipulation. Never manipulation. We want to come authentically, genuinely, into the depths of the organization, to do things the short way, pleasant for everyone, but in the end we want to influence people — not influence people like magicians, but yes, to influence people so that the message comes across better, and for that we need to know them. All the research has shown to this day that people tend to be more influenced, more persuaded, by people they like, who are similar to them, or who know people similar to them. It's completely so. Now, what does 'similar' mean? Come on, I'm not like him — what do you mean, not like him? There's some point of connection, maybe you grew up in a similar area, maybe you have a similar hobby, maybe you watched the same show — it's not that because you watched the same show yesterday he now agrees to everything you want, it's because his brain reads you and him as a little more similar, so he just got an indication of that, that you're probably a good guy, you think smart — because he thinks smart, because he's a good guy — and anyone similar to us, so we already have a relationship with him. It serves that, and I'll say one more thing — it also serves this: if we talked about wanting to constantly share about my idea and not drop it on people — the moment I have something regular like that, it's much easier to bring people in earlier and tell them about the thing, and it's also easier to speak their language, because you understand how they think, you know where it's going, you manage to hear them, and you also manage to use that connection to simply put on the table — the ground on which those tensions land is simply a softer ground. But it can't really be an isolated behavior — in the end it has to be what drives you. Influence, in the end, is an overall attitude. They won't buy it if I'm that person scowling in the hallway and now I walked into the room and said, hey, listen, what an idea I have — that doesn't sell. That's exactly what I said: it's constantly being in awareness. It's basically being in awareness both outward and inward. And I assume that every product manager — everyone's human — even if people have good days and bad days, but now we want to persuade a person, you want to influence a person, you want him to feel comfortable around you — you'd better be a person who's warm, kind, curious, interesting, interested, caring. What are the odds that we'll receive the same message and be persuaded to the same degree if the person across from us is arrogant and critical and grumpy and impatient? So first, ask who am I, what's my positioning in the organization, what would they say about me — if someone had to describe me in the organization, what would they say? And if — now, I don't need to be liked — I need to know whether this person they describe is someone you'd listen to tomorrow from a genuine place and give the credit, that he knows what he's saying, that he can be relied on, that people want to work with him — in the end we want people to want to work with him, for it to feel pleasant. We aim for efficiency — you work efficiently with people who... We aim for efficiency, and sometimes it can actually seem wasteful — like, do I have time now for a cup of coffee with everyone? But it's not efficient for him to do that — aiming for efficiency also means understanding that in the end people want to get things done. Look, one of the simplest and most technical things in influence, one that's been proven, is the matter of reciprocity — many people are very grateful to whoever did something for them, and people don't like to be indebted. A person does something for us — whether we asked or not, small or big — we feel a need to do something in return. That's how we were raised, that's how everything works. We want to create that relationship, and it's a relationship you want — a one-way relationship can't survive over time. In the end everyone needs everyone — they sometimes need you, development, to understand it. It's always a wheel — after all, ultimately, after the planning stage, when you move to execution, then you're actually the one who comes and asks, okay, what about this?

Why we're influenced by those similar to us and whom we like

Eyal David: [20:47] And suddenly the wheel kind of turns. And what can be done on your side? Let's talk about what can be done, because I like it both in the planning aspect and in the execution aspect.

What to do when you get a 'no'

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [20:57] Yes, our goal ultimately is to see how we stay in awareness when we get a no, we get a refusal — now it happens, we get refusals all the time, we get refusals at home, we get refusals at work, we get refusals throughout our lives, we know first of all that it's unpleasant for us, and we very much want to avoid it. Certainly at work, when it touches components of my identity — because what does it say about me? Like that, they'll shoot down my idea, which maybe took me 80 years to say once, and also a bit from the place of, what am I doing? Now, if I walk into the room and tell them and they say, no, can't do that, it'll take longer, impossible, impossible — why not, impossible, you don't understand, it'll take so long, impossible, not in this timeframe, no, don't cut it down, no — I know this from our side, like you said with engineering: you come in, you ask for the whole world because you want the big beautiful building with the balconies next to Platinum and everything, and then you get a bill for how much, another few million and an endless schedule, and you say no, no, no, no. Impossible, it's not in the budget, come on, come on, let's start scaling it down — it's impossible, it won't work, it can't be — that's people's first instinct. We want to understand why — no doubt. But when a person says something, we ask why... ...So first of all, we want to understand it doesn't really matter to us why — we want to understand, as I said earlier, what will allow us to get what we want, because if we know what we want, and we know why it matters, then we're here now to find out what we're getting and see what needs to change so that we get what we want, because the person is currently explaining to us that we're not going to get what we want, and we want the dialogue, and in that dialogue, if we put him in the position of being wrong, he'll just fight for his rightness, because that's what a person who's 'wrong' does — you're wrong — now he has a new goal, it's no longer the project, it's to prove to you that he's not wrong, that he's right. We want — and that's why I come back to the topic of relationships and of trust — because if there's an eye-level dialogue, and if there's a relationship built on it, where history has shown that when you sat together and tried to sharpen the needs of both sides and not stay in what we call the position — I want this, I can't give you that, but I can't give you that — okay, how long do you do this ping-pong? Let's figure it out. I understand — can you break it down for me a bit, what's inside it, where do you see what can be done, what could ease it — maybe it's a matter of priorities that can be solved with management. If we didn't stop and listen, then we didn't understand it — maybe there's a certain component we didn't realize he meant, lots of things — but if we don't stay in that same curious attitude and also a trusting attitude, because trust is mutual — the person sits there, he wants to do a good job, he's not lazy, he earned his place — so what else is going on here? So let's try for a second to understand it, to talk about it, and our ability to understand it, if we don't grasp this 'no' now as a kind of resistance, as a kind of battle, of war to see who won, of 'I came in from the start afraid they'd tell me no.' I need to hold the 'no,' I need to understand what's called the thickness of the no. I tend, for example, to ask, where are the big rocks in terms of development — maybe there's something that's really not that cardinal and important, that's going to take a lot of effort, and then you can pinpoint it, or genuinely scale it down, or simplify it, which is the same thing — but that's a good question. Maybe even to ask them again — I don't think every product manager needs to learn now how to do the development, but 'can you explain to me for a moment how you approach this,' so I understand for a second how you even build it — that's a capability, it's something at the abstraction level of the work, where maybe you can move a certain part earlier, that can be done, and he thinks in a certain way — sometimes maybe linearly, because that's what he's used to — and you think, you don't even understand what he's thinking about, you don't even understand where it fell — and he maybe doesn't fully understand your needs either. Meaning, if he didn't know to offer you this, it's a sign that he too didn't fully understand your needs. Or he has a set of considerations that probably genuinely require it, from some risk management or something like that — because it's a much more complex system than you understand, probably. And you too... you came with... you come with marketing. And you come with the customers, and you come with everyone, with the baggage. And you also come with the feeling of, you don't understand what I've got on my plate. And I think on the other side too, everyone feels... Exactly like that. You came with the full baggage — you don't know what pressures I'm under, and you don't understand the implications — but wait, maybe not.

Eyal David: [25:44] And if we get down to the practice here for a second — in such a situation, would you recommend — I'm now sitting in the room with people, the head of development or the lead developer, basically in this respect, starting this discussion — would you take this discussion to a one-on-one, again because our relationship is supposedly better, or would you keep it in the wider forum, because it usually sounds much more threatening to me in the room?

The combination-deal story — from battle to shared brainstorm

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [26:06] Look, it depends how you define it. I can go into a situation — we had a very big deal where we knew there was built-in tension there — basically a combination deal, with tons and tons of risks on one side, far fewer risks on the other — we knew we'd offered a solution that his lawyers attacked from all directions — we won't have to get out of it — I brought everyone into the room, including those above them, not the ones I had to, also the seniors above them, and I said, guys, we're not here to discuss the agreement, I brought the best minds — let's brainstorm. At first they thought I'd gone crazy, because it's also a lot of people's time. I said, listen, we have a real problem, there's a real problem here — I put it on the table, it really is a real problem, I don't know how to approach it. Now, I could pull out the agreement — we could go at each other here for three hours over this, and that's just the opening, we'd be fools to proceed from the agreement — this is a really hard problem, let's solve it together, let's think about it now for two hours, I don't want to see agreements, let's talk about it through this — it really came together, it was amazing. At first they said I was naive, someone there said, really sharply, this is very apropos of listening to things, it's very sweet that you come in like this — and after two hours we scheduled more meetings like this, and we realized we could stop for a moment and think and talk, because we actually have the same goal — we came to solve it, we want to do it. Now, if you assume both sides want it — we didn't come to see who won.

Eyal David: [27:39] and we came to talk — development comes in, you know it's going to be more complex — listen, we have a real problem here, I'm going to present you something now, that if I had to say, I'd say it'll take you a month and a half, two months — I'm going to ask for two weeks. You can tell me I've gone crazy, that's clear to me,

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [27:54] I'll present it to you — I think we'll sit and think together about how it can be done from both sides, we can succeed from both sides, let's see — not to convince each other that one side bends — let's try to look at this as problem solving, how we take this event and turn it into a shared event — the problem is always a shared problem. After all, the schedule problem is a shared problem. The tension is supposedly built-in — development will never say, no, please let me deliver this a week early, no no no, no way, I'm not taking on anything — I said this week, next week — we know that. But the issue is that the product needs to go to market at a certain time — it's a shared problem, everyone wants it to be wonderful. On our side, the contractor was dying to deliver it, to finish early, ahead of schedule — let's think about how we do this thing together. So I think the very and thinking beforehand — I very much agree with what you're saying — we call it, suddenly: forum, timing, atmosphere, and place. First, to think about the forum, who's supposed to sit there, who can help, who contributes — but for that, we needed to understand what the goal of this specific meeting is, and then understand what contributes to this meeting, what forum contributes to this meeting, what place contributes to this meeting, which questions, am I coming with a presentation, coming with a question, coming with open imagination — that's probably never good,

Eyal David: [29:09] I don't know — you always need a guiding line, in my opinion, otherwise a meeting without a goal, or a meeting without a line — the goal has to be very clear.

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [29:15] But you — we opened our conversation like this, with you saying, I come having already sat, thought, I came with a finished solution, wanting zero questions — so between that and coming in blank — it's clear we don't come in blank, but to come and leave something for the other side, so they feel like a partner and are a partner, so people want to do it together — and it could even be that

Eyal David: [29:36] if we'd presented them the idea in stages, sending them each time something small that says, look, this — that's what I really always try to do, really — to involve them very early and in stages, and it happens, it's something that... and more than that, in many organizations too, there's a connection between the product and some — between, basically, the lead, the owner on the development side, now, how the relationship between them is, that's already another matter, but on the face of it you can take that relationship — and that's what I always try to do, I really always have these weekly meetings — no matter what, even if there's nothing to talk about, then we'll cancel, but the meetings are there, really to maintain that relationship, so that also... maybe don't cancel — how nice that there's nothing to talk about and we can just sit for a moment and talk. Yes, it doesn't always depend only on me,

Consistency & commitment — why a small 'yes' changes everything

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [30:17] but true — but yes, it brings a huge change. More than that, what we call that sharing and buy-in — the reason it works, among other things, is because we also know that people, in the end, are consistent. The moment they create some initial commitment, they want to keep working on it. If he now sat and heard, once, this whole thing and decided it doesn't work, then that's currently the line he has to hold. If he was a partner to the process, and you already managed to get from him some small yes, some small thing, then he's invested — you asked — he's invested, he's in, he's committed, and he tends to stay consistent, because people tend to stay consistent — it's a trait where we value people and they cooperate. Right.

Practical tips to apply tomorrow

Eyal David: [31:00] Okay, Neta, super interesting — but let's dive into something a bit practical. Give us some really concrete tips

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [31:07] that you can use tomorrow. First of all, I think everything we did here was concrete tips you can use tomorrow, both in getting up in the morning and deciding to be the person everyone wants to work with and who comes to persuade, and in being aware of the negotiation, and first of all in understanding that it can't just work out for me,

Eyal David: [31:26] or can't work out for me — it's real, it's methodical. I'll take something simple — I just ask for one small thing first, okay — so going from 0 to 100 is really hard. Do you have some daily goal, or something I can measure to know I've improved at negotiation? Look, 'I improved at negotiation' —

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [31:45] that's a big question, because we don't always have something to compare to. I want to be able to save, as we said, time, money, emotion. I look at it like this: the more I had to have conversations that are — how to say — damage control, that don't advance the event, the difficult conversations, the conversations of 'because, because, no, you didn't understand me, and that's not what I meant, like that,' and 'what, is that what he said, no, no way' — all this time that gets wasted on the message not coming across properly — now, often there's a tendency to say, come on, you can't talk to him, you know, you can't talk to him, that's just who he is, he's immediately against it, he immediately reacts, and he wasn't nice either — it's all fine, but first of all we want to know — at home, at work, everywhere — if we're in this situation, then probably, first of all, with ourselves there's still something to work on. I won't get into the how — whole methodologies, books have been written on how to conduct a difficult conversation, by the way, the complete opposite of what we think — but even in the small things — after all, I assume a product manager too

Eyal David: [32:52] sometimes has to say no, right? Right, he can't only say yes — no to development — but let's leave that as a topic for another episode. So here too, you say, I need to learn to say no, I need to learn to conduct a difficult conversation. I know what it is to conduct a difficult conversation — I'll sit down, I'll think, I'll come and tell him exactly what I think of him, or I'll come and tell him no — so, not for everything like that

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [33:11] is there the right, short, emotional way — and ultimately, in order to conduct the negotiation, to do it — there's a method for how you say no, a method for how you conduct difficult conversations, a method for how you deliver news, a method for what to do when you run into a commitment cast in language — he said yes, but it's not going to be a yes, that's clear

Eyal David: [33:32] to me that it's not going to be a yes, and it's also clear to me that I'll have to eat that porridge later — so what do I say,

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [33:38] what do I do — so all these situations we run into with people, they've happened a million times, and people have sat and thought and researched and built a whole profession that talks about how you do things right. I can tell you, as someone who's been studying this for many years, reading a lot, going to courses, to long programs — we didn't even say where you studied — look, there are, there aren't many frameworks where you can study this. The most comprehensive and best framework in the country, where I studied, is a school for the negotiation professions — it's called Shakla veTarya — an amazing school, ten months, a day and a half a week, nine in the morning to six in the evening, Friday until two in the afternoon, all day studying negotiation. I thought it was absurd — I got there thinking I already knew negotiation the best there was, I thought, when I finished there, not only did I not say I didn't need it, I immediately signed up for a negotiation course at Harvard, and from there I continue, because I keep realizing how much more there is to delve into and understand. And I can say — it'll sound a bit exaggerated maybe — it's like in The Matrix, where suddenly you see everything, until now you just saw lines of code and suddenly you see everything — you sit in a situation, you hear people, and suddenly it's so clear, when people speak from a place of ego, when people speak from a place of vulnerability, of frustration. That's the awareness you talked about — that's this awareness — and it's also easier to respond, but also easier to contain, because suddenly you look and you say,

Where to learn this — from Shakla veTarya to Harvard

Eyal David: [35:11] I understand why, everything is so clear — it's also so clear to me how I manage this event, it's also so clear to me the mistakes being made here, suddenly you see everything. That's how I got to the lecture with you, that's how I got to the podcast — so I have to ask, I have to touch on this, because you said, okay, at Harvard — so how much difference is there between us Israelis and the Americans, for that matter? Look, we're much more straightforward, although it's possible that in high-tech you'll find an American or European approach.

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [35:39] No, no, no, in many places not. You do need to learn to crack that code when you're actually talking with stakeholders from abroad. But I also think that, actually, everything we talked about is much easier in Israel, because relationships in Israel are close, they're direct — it's not just in emails, people buddy up, and it's possible. I can tell you that we did certain exercises there — 470 students from all over the world, it's not just the United States — they sign up for it, doing it from all over the world, and in the end people, people, people — it doesn't matter where they are — in the end it all rests on the most human things. On truth, on ego, on the emotional. Everyone's human — at least until they replace us. Until they replace us — no, and it won't replace us.

Eyal David: [36:32] Not so fast. Okay, I hope not by the next episode. Alright, so let's move on to wrap up the episode. Neta, do you have any recommendations — reading, podcasts, whatever you'd like? Yes, there's quite a lot out there, also touching on this, because I hope I managed to convey that everything related to communication,

Book recommendations for negotiation

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [36:53] to persuasion, to influence, works right. A great many books are now also translated into Hebrew. The latest among them, Chris Voss, was translated as 'Without Compromises' — in English, Never Split the Difference. That was the most recent one, and a very, very recommended book. Influence, by Robert Cialdini, which talks about, I mentioned some of the things he says here at the end, about how we reach people, how you can reach people the right way. An excellent book. It's called 'Good for You, Great for Me.' Honestly. Because in the end, in a negotiation, both sides can't come out satisfied to the same degree. We want both sides to come out satisfied, but it'll never be to the same degree. This one is by Lawrence Susskind, Getting to Yes. So that's on the book level — I don't know how much time and energy there is to sit and read books. There are short courses, you can listen to books, there are short courses both online and, of just a few days. Today at university, in master's degrees, even the most basic ones teach a negotiation course. It's becoming a skill that's very clear to everyone, and there are people who are experts in it. Meaning, in the end you can also learn to understand a bit of taxes, but when you enter an event, you need to be objective. So it may be that if all you want to do is get your daughter to take a shower, you won't bring a negotiator along,

Eyal David: [38:16] but certainly for the big things. So, apropos of people who understand — how can people get in touch with you? You can reach me, first of all, by email. You'll give it and I'll add it to the show notes. Do you maybe have LinkedIn too? There's LinkedIn too. We'll add that as well.

נטע לוקסנבורג נעמני: [38:32] Get in touch with me, talk to me, invite me, we'll think together about what can be done. I think today it's a skill that, in every field, you can simply give people the language to speak right. And certainly within an organization, since we said, that we said it's not tricks — so it's not — he knew that — if everyone speaks the language, then everyone will be much more comfortable. And everything will be much more efficient, really. And everything will be much calmer. We want calm, certainly in days like these. Right. Okay, so what a pleasure.

Eyal David: [39:02] Yes, me too. It was a pleasure for me. Me too, very much. So, alright, see you again next time. Bye. Bye bye.