The One Book That Should Be Required Reading in Medical School

2023-11-04 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNdPizrVoJI Transcript YouTube English auto-captions. [Music] [Applause] hey guys this is Dr Mike Ming welcome to another edition of bootst MD this is podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs we're going to be continuing our series of books that influenced my life and my career and how it can apply these books can apply to you and what you're currently doing as a clinician or Healthcare entrepreneur and today I'm going to be talking about a book which at from the top I mentioned I feel is essential reading for not only Physicians but physicians in general heck everybody can benefit from this book and it's a topic that we don't get any really training on we probably learn the hard way about why we need to use this particular skill and that's the skill of negotiation it's a skill it's not traditionally T in medical education but as I mention it is increasingly essential when you use negotiation use negotiation when you're talking with patients when you're getting them persuading them to take a a certain medication or perhaps get a special treatment or or a lab or getting them to asking them to get an x-ray um obviously use it in negotiation when selling negotiation you know I think it's a skill that doctors we may be smart but we may not be negotiation negotiable Smart in terms of like well this is a salary and this is what you're going to get and we say yep okay that sounds great so we're going to talk about how Physicians can apply the tenants that learn in this book uh now never split the difference by Chris Vos so they can navigate and apply negotiation skills successfully so the book we're talking about is called Never split the difference negotiating as if your life dependent on it was written by Chris Voss It Was Written came out published 2016 he is a former lead kidnapping negotiator for the FBI he a 30 plus years career and how he negotiates with B people now he negotiates with terrorists um and a key takeaway is that successful negotiations should focus on uncovering shared interests and generating mutually beneficial Solutions rather than treating negotiations as a zero sum game so some of the key principles that you can learn in the book is the importance of emotional intelligence how to be strategically empathic and using what are known as calibrated question questions they talk about how do influence positive outcomes by making the other party negotiate against themselves and just pitfalls negotiation pitfalls how to handle those how to handle objections and to use psychology in your favor um so we use it a lot in business and it's a book that is talked about quite a bit but you don't see talked about in the medical community which you know in my opinion why in Medicine Physicians are at the at the level that we're at is that we have poor negotiation skills we tend to say yes to everything to our own detriment now the title of the book now but the difference what that means it's it's a key principle that you learn after reading the book and it's what we always end up doing is when negotiations we mean in the M we quote split the difference and you want to avoid these compromising Solutions between yourself and uh your the per the other party's offer so let's say for example you want to buy a house you offer uh the seller 500,000 they say a million so you'll split the difference and it'll come up to 750,000 which right sounds fair right I mean we we do this we've learned how to do this since since childhood we we we split the difference why you don't want to do that is really what happens is nobody gets really what they want it's suboptimal it's a suboptimal uh solution and you're leaving money on the table and so what you learn after reading the book is techniques strategies that you can use so it becomes advantageous to your side and um you find the solutions that work for you uh although it sounds like in the when you're doing these negotiation skills um it make it sound like they came up with the solution so let's kind of dig deep on some of the techniques that you learn um from the book so let's talk about principles that you can learn from the book never split the difference so a principle you learn in the book is you don't want to make the first offer so you want to make wait make the other side propose propose something so let's say you're coming in for a raise you know a lot of this can apply to salary negotiation um if you throw at a number first it really puts yourself in a disadvantage you want them to provide the initial proposed raise amount so that gives you more flexibility so um you know I use that often times in when we're hiring somebody I ask them well what do you feel is an important you know what is a rate that you're you'll consider and what's the reason why you want to do that is it gives you valuable information that you can use uh in your negotiation skills it gives you a starting point to negotiate from you know and you often times you might even be surprised for what they propose you know you might say you might think that you know you're getting you know they're coming in for a raise and say well let me know what you what you think is you know a good place to start with you know I'm interesting so some some phes that you can use for this is let's say when you're you know when you're negotiating uh is is just giving a response is like yeah um you thank you for this opportunity I'd be interesting to hear you know your thoughts of what kind of Rise you think would be fair to me or I'm open to considering any offer you feel might be appropriately would be appropriately to compensate me for the additional work that I've taken in and so what that does is the when you ask them that question that your the other party has to fill in that silence and most people don't like awkward silence so they'll put in an amount and this gives you then a Target so you can negotiate upwards so and make you know hey that sounds that sounds awesome I'll take it or make make a a higher counter offer allowing you to argue you know on on the value that you do providing um you know research providing marketed comparisons uh whatever you want um so always make sure that you don't throw a number first let the other party throw it one first another important principle from the book never what the difference is you want to establish emotional connections this is done before negotiating and this is really common Con in common sense is you want to build rapport with them and they can make make you more respective to your requests so again we're going to use salary negotiations you want to build Report with them Um this can be as simple as just making small talk small talk you know break the ice find some type of Common Ground talk about you know hey how was your trip you know um hey how how is you know Maddie doing in school their little one how how she how's she doing how is she liking it you know hey did you watch the game if they're interested into course you want to find some type of common interest first uh it's important you find these shared values it's just going to make things so much easier for it it's it's so interesting is when people you trying to negotiate you really don't know anything about it and so you don't you're not coming with um you know you want to give them shared values you want to give them understanding you want to set a positive tone for the meaning and you know that that's better happen and what that does is it builds momentum so just be friendly just be openminded give you can give compliments but not like so much so that you feel like they're kissing their butt and there's obviously a line to to that that you generally you know um maybe something that you admire about them you know hey you know things are going great in the company you know really you know it's amazing what you how we've grown and uh I just want to kind of be a part of that and you know for a long period of time um it just makes it so much easier to find solutions that you both can agree on smile be uplifting I like to use humor you know in a meeting just have every overall everybody is in a positive State of Mind as a doctor I wasn't used to asking for help espe especially when it came to subjects outside of medicine but then I found physician coaches.com in an instant I found hundreds of experts to help me in all aspects of Life on areas I was afraid to ask dealing with burnout starting a side gig money management even help with my marriage and the best part nearly all experts are Physicians themselves after reading their profile and a quick chat I knew I found the right mentor for me at physician coaches.com help from professional colleagues is just a click [Music] away another important principle from the book is understanding motivations and constraints so what does this mean is you need to answer you need to ask thoughtful questions that you have you have understand their interests um and what this does is it limits opportunities again let's use salary negotiation before asking for a raise or before negotiating you know you want to know like that you've thought about the situation you're just not asking um asking for it you want to make sure that like you have thought about this and that you you have given considerable thought about this so um you know here are some examples um you can first just by asking them direct know you know so I've been with the company a while are there you know how is the company how would you say the company is is doing do you feel that there are any uh constraints or considerations that may impact uh salaries for the employees this year what are you know what what are you think um are the um you know what has um when you're considering an employee what are the key factors you look for when you're considering offering a raise uh you know if budget wasn't a factor what process would you follow to determine an appropriate increase considering these increased duties um you know this is of great look like when you come in they're asking you to do more hey you know that sounds great I'd love to be a part of this I'd love to be part of a growing company so what are you know how are due to this this will add you know increased time you know and and and and more what do you consider would be an appropriate raise for someone in my circumstances this could be affecting and you want to really listen closely to what they say and then you know follow up these these questions these probing questions um so you can you have a better understanding of of this position you want to look at not only how they um the response you want to see kind of what their body language is you want to have their engagement see when doing these kind of things you want to do this face to face you want don't want to do this over phone or even via Zoom if possible the goal is in negotiation you want to understand is like what is you know what is available you want to make sure it makes sense and also be able to give a response to it uh so you have more more um data more knowledge so you can create a targeted solution that works best for both parties another important principle you learned from the book is probably one of my favorites and it's called utilizing the mirroring technique so what mirroring does is you repeat the last few words what the other party is saying to encourage them to give you more information so when you're asking those probing questions um you know you you use certain key phrases that you you pick up on so what it does is it gives you more insight and allow you to demonstrate empathy that hey I really understand what you're doing so let's give an example so let's say you're negotiating for a raise and they're saying that um you know given the you got raise and they say well you know depending right now the budget really doesn't allow it it's going to make giving salary increases to doctor is really challenging and so you follow up with those last few words and you say well what I so what I hear you saying is that you know curing the current budget salaries for doctors is going to be really challenging it's almost as simple as that you you focus on a few words you know um they're saying well I really appreciate that you're taking more work but you know I have to balance rewarding you as well as all the other doctors that are employed with us so what I so what I'm hearing you say is that um that you're trying to be uh fair and not give out salaries because you have to divide it among the money divided among all of the the different doctors so you're just using a few of their their words and you're bringing it back right back to them so um this really makes this Happ when when someone's repeating their words you know when the way that I understand it is people love to hear themselves talk and so by repeating a few of the words that they're doing it shows that you're actually listening to them and they're hearing back what they actually said which give makes them feel a lot better and it gives you it puts you at on the same level and at the same level of understanding which again get you closer to a a possible solution uh that it seems work both for both parties another important technique you use is the word is is the phrase labeling and what this does is it valid labeling means that you're validating somebody's emotions by acknowledging it uh it's a powerful way to show that you're really trying to understand the other person's point of view the other person's perspective without necessarily like agreeing with it I mean and that's the important thing it's like you're not actually agreeing you're just you're just stating like what you're um you know what you're uh feeling and you're saying it so we've all been in a situation where we're dealing with patients and they seem anxious about a procedure and you say hey I you know one of the things I hey you you seem anxious about what happens next and it says oh wow you you are in like my level like you know and you can help the patient feel understood or more open to discussing their fears you know you know I do that all the time when it's like I give them instructions say wow you know I gave you a lot of lot of different instructions really complex feels like you're like a little apprehensive which I totally understand what can I do to um help alleviate some of those fears that you have uh you know let's say you're being asked to Take Along take on more duties without additional pay which often is the happens right so you could say so it sounds like you need a lot more coverage in the clinic so what this does is acknowledges your administration's needs which could be a precursor to discussing hey maybe I should be compensated for this extra work so when you want to use labeling you want to listen actively make attention to any type of emotional cues understanding body language and just call it what it is if the person seems frustrated say hey label it hey you seem really frustrated what I what I see let's let's talk about it you not taking any sides yet you know often times uh we want to say you know no right away and but you want to take emotion out of it you want to be calm you want to be cool remain neutral it's not about agreeing but it's just acknowledging you want to be precise you want don't give vague labels you want to make sure that you're acknowledging the emotion that the party is feeling also use pauses I'm really good at awkward silences but people want to fill in that that silence and you want to give that person a moment to reflect to confirm don't just start talking right away listen to them first and then when you do labeling you want to make sure you follow up by asking questions to elaborate you know better understand their feelings their concerns what labeling does remarkably is it really kind of diffuses any negative emotions and just reinforces uh positive ones this builds trust this builds understanding another important principle from the book never split the difference is embracing the word no right we all since kids we don't like that word right we we we know and most things well I guess that's the end uh if you had kids it's usually not the end of that uh you know and my son is really good at embracing the word no and you need to be as good as he he is so recognize no is really not the end but really A starting point for negotiations so let's say you ask for a raise and you say no well you want to probe the interest behind that word no so okay they say you ask for raise they say no so what are the reasons behind that notes so I I understand that this rise isn't working at this time so what are some ways that we could address this creatively you know what um you know could we revisit this and and when and what needs to happen for it for it to occur um you know you ask for 10% raise and you say okay well I recognize you're saying no to this 10% raise I could be open to a 5% raise we're getting to a partial no you want to frame no as an opportunity to find win-win solutions for both um okay so right what you're saying is the proposal is a no-o at this time but let's see if we can find we can collaborate maybe we can find an option that kind of works for both both of us make sure that it's you know you're not confrontational you're trying to be thoughtful and so what this does is it stars the conversation in a positive direction and makes it sound like hey I want to work with you collaborate with you to help find a a solution that can lead to ferger negotiation without being completely shut down in the first place another important principle that I learned from the book never split the difference is using calibrated questions so what are calibrated questions these are questions that are designed to elicit information that you want from the other party allow you to uncover their motivations and allow you better strategic Insight so well-calibrated questions that we learn are are open-ended they're neutral in tone they're free of any type of assumptions and they use phrases with the word how or what or explain it to me so you know in the book I mentioned the author is a negotiator and the the let's say the the kidnapper wants $20 million in a bank right away and he need wants to talk to the president of the United States and so so we're saying is you want $20 million and you want me to get the president of the United States on the phone how am I going to do that you're not being confrontational you're just saying so how would this all work you know for the you don't want to put them on the defensive you just want to get information to draw the other party out and effective calibrated questions again is using silence you want to wait for the other party to speak versus them jumping in and what this does is pressure them to give you uh more detail so before counter offers are being made proposals skill negotiators use the power of calibrated questions so let's say as a doctor Administration says hey you're going to have a new role you're going have new responsibilities so an example of that would be okay so I understand I'm getting this new role this going to take some new responsibilities so how would my new roles and responsibilities be factored into determining a proper comp compensatory model for me or an appropriate salary increase um you know help me understand what a you know what are what are some key measures that you're looking at that can assess whether uh receiving an increase in pay is Justified you know often times when clinicians are given extra work obviously that puts a lot more pressure that often leads to um you know unfortunately doctors wanting to seek elsewhere what are some in your experience what are some strategies you use to retain physics to continue on again you're trying to be neutral but you're trying un cover information using knowledge that can benefit you uh and benefit you in in the right way they're very subtle but they're very influential they extract Vital Information without being adversor now how do you know you're on the right track in negotiations is when you hear these two words from the other party those two words that's right so let's talk about the that's right framework when you hear the word that's right it's really a pivotal point a turning point in the negotiations this usually this is an affirmation that you hear when they feel know they're understood and that their perspective has been accurately articulated so for example when you're discussing salary negotiations and you talk about you know here's all the different responsibilities you recap all that you've done and the value they add to practice you say you know you hey hey John hopefully you you see in the extra work that I've done I've stayed late um I've really had got that electronic medical record working more efficiently um hopefully that's led to some progress of where we want to be as a company and they say that's right when you hear that sounds like you guys are on the same page this could lead to possible uh salary uh increases when they're when they're doing additional duties you use um you know when they're expecting you to have increased duties you know usually when um a physician is being asked in my experience in my colleague's experience usually that leads to an increase raise in salary if hear the words that's right what that does is it opens the door so these are some things you need need to listen for things that we've talked about previously using mirroring to repeat the last few words using labeling to understand the person's emotions um becoming an an active listener these are all important skills and that's why I say reading the book never split the difference by Chris Voss is essential reading for Premed medical students doctors alike so that's what I learned I was only able ble to capture just a few of the important principles that I learned for the book again I encourage you to pick it up you won't go wrong and hopefully this podcast was of interest to you if it is please share this with any friends uh we could really appreciate it we're continuing to grow and just as you want to grow your business and get accomplished your goals you need to do something every single day to get you closer to those goals and keep moving you forward [Music] I