Making Lemonade Out of Lemons in Negotiations

All of life is a negotiation, but sometimes those negotiations go sour. Are you the type of person who puckers up when faced with those lemons, or do you make lemonade? We can’t control everything in life, but we can choose how we react to unexpected circumstances. Choosing to show up with equanimity, creativity, and composure will go a long way to ensuring you get better outcomes and more of what you want and deserve.

Preparation is important (as we discussed in our series, The Perils of Failing to Properly Prepare for Negotiations). When we prepare, we’re less likely to face surprises that throw us off track. Having said that, things don’t always go as planned. Sometimes things go sideways in a negotiation and no amount of preparation can have us anticipate every possible eventuality. Being able to handle these situations with grace and ease is key to negotiating your best life. Better yet, being able to find the silver lining and come up with an even better solution in these situations is the goal.

To do that requires a positive mindset. Negative reactivity will almost always interfere with your ability to maintain the required clarity to ‘make lemonade’.

Let me give you a few examples for context.

Almost a decade into my career as a lawyer, I had the opportunity to meet the head honcho of one of my relatively new clients. He was the long-time International President of a large international union and I had just started doing work for one of their locals. I was excited about the opportunity to meet him, as it could open the door to much broader prospects for work within the organization which had been difficult to secure up to that point.

I was visibly pregnant at the time. When I was introduced as the local’s lawyer, the President looked at me in confusion.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

It was immediately apparent that he couldn’t reconcile the idea of this 9-month’s pregnant woman standing before him in the bar where we’d met, as a lawyer at all, let alone for his union.

“Yes, I am,” I responded with a smile. “I’m due any day.”

He looked to my client. “I thought you said she’s the lawyer.”

“Yes, I did,” replied the business rep, his voice wary. “She’s done some great work for us on some really challenging cases recently.”

“Shouldn’t you be at home, getting ready for your baby?” the President asked me without a trace of irony.

I won’t bore you with the play by play after that. Suffice it to say, things got deadly quiet for a moment, and then erupted as everyone talked over each other trying to salvage the situation and it became belatedly apparent to the President that he’d stepped into the proverbial muck.

More importantly for the purposes of this article, instead of becoming irate, defensive, and/or reactive, I was able to capitalize on the moment by touting the benefits of new approaches to old problems as the key to viability of the union’s future. I ended up being appointed as Canadian Counsel to the International, it’s Canadian Council, and most of the provincial locals of the organization – a far more lucrative outcome than I could ever have hoped for. Truckloads of lemonade from that initial pucker-worthy lemon.

Another occasion when negotiations were not going as planned and I was able to turn lemons into lemonade was with an insurance company following a house fire (after our dishwasher had burst into flames one morning due to faulty component parts). The adjustor who’d been appointed by the insurer, kept trying every possible angle to deny us the coverage we were entitled to. When I jumped his head and he’d presumably been directed to ‘play nice’, he ostensibly cooperated, consistently assuring me that a beneficial global settlement was imminent. Yet he still kept balking at multiple line items and stalling the process as the statute of limitations (and with it our right to pursue the matter at all) loomed closer.

Again, rather than sucking on lemons by playing his game and getting mired in the muck (recognizing that he was trying to nickel and dime hoping to gain favour with the insurance company by saving them money) I simply filed a notice of intent to litigate (which would be more costly for the company). Literally the next day, we got a call with a settlement for 100% of the claim we’d submitted with no questions asked (which was more than I had expected to secure in the circumstances as my claim had erred on the generous side to say the least).

Likewise, in another scenario, after successfully bidding on a year-long car lease at a local fundraiser, we faced a series of interminable delays by the car dealership, who seemed to be trying to wiggle out of their commitment to honour the vehicle offered. Rather than getting angry, or demanding, or confrontational, I instead chose to show up with empathy, building rapport and trust, trusting my intuition, and remaining flexible, while still being assertive (my ARE FIT model). In the end, it paid off. I was able to purchase a new luxury version of the car at a steal of a deal – a far better outcome than the initial one-year lease I’d bid on.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that sometimes deals that don’t come together at all can be blessings in disguise (as Garth Brooks reminds us in his “Unanswered Prayers” song). Many times, the deal I thought I wanted (or a client wanted) turned out to be total lemons. Recognizing the blessing of those deals going south, and trusting that another (better) deal is around the corner, is another way to make lemonade in your negotiations.

I invite you to think of a negotiation you’ve had where you were able to make lemonade out of lemons. Think of negotiations you have on the horizon. How might you apply the skills you brought in those cases or lessons learned to be ready to make lemonade no matter what gets thrown your way.