Winning the heart of that meeting…!

I recently had a colleague in our firm who sat at a meeting with another lawyer representing the opposite client - to review areas of “disagreement” on a draft Contract. This young lawyer excused himself in exasperation to report to us in the adjoining room that the “opposing” lawyer refused to accept certain clauses in the Contract. When confronted with the question: So how do you intend to convince him to accept your perspective? His answer was simple - “I will not budge”. Here we go again I thought, with another transaction set to give lawyers a bad name as deal killers or impeders. Your client wants to close like yesterday and being adamant is definitely not in your clients’ interest.

So how do I improve my persuasion skills and market my perspective when faced with such situations? Many tend to believe that one’s ability to marshal the facts and law “convincingly” is the main key to success. I think (as you will see shortly) that “influence building” is just as important and this article pays more attention to this soft skill that ranks just as high as oratory.

1.      Starting out well

One critical success factor - a “non negotiable” one - is managing the human relations angle of every integrative transaction. Put simply: meetings are about people and it is your duty to win their hearts. Being late to a meeting is the best way to get on to a bad start by setting your opposite number in a bad mood. It gets worse when you mispronounce peoples’ names or fail to add the right prefixes - Sir, Dr, Pastor, Alhaji or Chief. For some people it really matters! With a female party referring to a Miss as Mrs or vice versa can get you into trouble. Political correctness is another key at this stage. For example, where someone who runs a garbage collection business introduced himself as an “environmental technician”, do not say to him “you mean a “garbage contractor”. Wrong move! Depending on the venue of the meeting offering drinks or other courtesies helps to set the right tone. Some people have a good habit of researching the other party if it is a first meeting and they skilfully use the knowledge in a preliminary discourse before the business proper. I once scored high points with an “adversary” when I told him I read on the Internet that he bagged a 1^st Class in University and I feel extremely privileged negotiating with such a superior mind. We hit it off from there and the meeting was smooth, perhaps because he had nothing to prove thereafter. Finding areas of common ground is another way of building bridges in a pre-meeting chat - alumni links or knowing people in common are usual grounds that set a positive mood for a meeting. They would end this chat by saying - “it’s a small world”. Where you are involved in a cross border deal then in appropriate circumstances it pays to present little keep sakes from Nigeria soon after you arrive the meeting. Please make it light, inexpensive and easy to tuck into a brief case.

2.         During the meeting

As you get down to the meeting proper there are several points worthy of note:

Make your point in style

A skill we must quickly acquire is being able to credit your opposition’s perspective before proceeding to give reasons for holding a contrary view. You should typically start with “I see your point and understand were you are coming from………” Then proceed to “however I will like you to look at it from a different perspective and here are my reasons”.  This seems a better approach than simply saying or implying that what someone has said does not make sense. If you have another lawyer on the other side and his client is present, be assured he can stay on that point and aggressively so if only to prove his mettle to earn his keep. Do not forget to be extremely polite through the entire process.

Make eye contact

Making eye contact is an important aspect of meetings that many of us have had to learn. This all-important gesture shows sincerity and gives confident assurances to people on the other side. If you are negotiating with a group make eye contact with all of them intermittently, but keeping your eyes on the dominant character a bit longer. Sometimes the team you are negotiating with claim to be equals, in which case you must quickly identify the first amongst equals on the team by watching their group collective body language. Who do people look onto constantly? A bit of intuition will also help you here. Good appellate litigators will tell you that you speak to all the learned Justices, but you make eye contact with the one who really needs to be convinced – the dominant judge who the others tend to follow.

Pick your battles carefully

A few days ago Prime Minister Tony Blair said on CNN “One thing I have learnt in politics is that there are battles worth fighting and others are just not worth it.” This profound statement comes into play on the negotiating table. How does it work? If you draw up a list of items for discussion they would fall into one of three categories: Critical terms – without which you would walk out. Non critical terms - those you can concede easily. Amendable terms -those you can amend easily.

If you are drawing the agenda, start with the ones you can easily concede. This helps to build up comfort levels and makes you look less of a gremlin when you are insistent on other issues. Be careful to voice your concessions by acknowledging the good reasons offered by the other party not from a gratuitous or patronizing standpoint. People like to feel that they paid their way, particularly if the other party is represented by a lawyer. After this you may proceed to discuss those that you can amend. It is ultimately rewarding to ask the other party: What will you be comfortable with? This shows concern and helps you understand their issues. It also opens the door to solutions. Chances are that by the time you get to the critical conditions you have a fair amount of miles in influence that you can call upon.

3.         Listen, Listen, Listen

Have you ever been at a meeting where someone painstakingly explains a position and the person across the table promptly disagrees and proceeds to state his own case, only to realise that the second person simply repeated the first but in different choice of words. How can this be? Simple: Mr B was not listening when Mr A was speaking. Many lawyers (and Nigerians generally) are guilty of not listening. I see this happen at an amazingly frequent and frustrating rate. I dare say that a good listener not only seeks to understand but goes a step further to summarize the points made by the other side in a bid to narrow down the issues. Such people would start their speech by saying “My understanding of what you have said is………” It should be noted that the core aspect of listening is body language: constant eye contact, affirmative nods or smiles help our cause. The opposite route is fidgeting, sending text messages or picking up your phone calls to say “I am in a meeting”. Listening is such an easy way to gain influence at a meeting because people naturally gravitate to those who pay listen to them with rapt attention. A good listener also picks up what someone calls “background music” – things that are not directly relevant, but reflect the thinking pattern of the speaker. Such bents invariably affect their decision making. For example, that he or she has had a bad experience in a similar transaction is something worth dealing with sympathetically and seizing the opportunity to assure that this case will be more pleasurable.

I think that every professional should be skilled in this grossly undermined art of listening.

Conclusion

Today the paradigm or experience of many would-be clients is that once a lawyer comes into the picture the transaction stalls or stalemates. As a result many of such people tend to negotiate their terms without legal advice. They draft an “MOU” -Memorandum of Understanding - a typical Nigerian term for one size fits all contracts drafted by “Do It Yourself Lawyers”. Is this not a reasonable attrition in lawyer earnings? I think so!

Can lawyers rise to recapture this market share from these MOU drafters? 

Ayuli Jemide is a partner with DETAIL.