Andres Lares of the Shapiro Negotiations Institute: “Place value on relationships to create a fantastic work culture”

Place value on relationships. Build relationships with your employees and encourage them to form them amongst themselves also as well as between them (If possible, depending on the size of your company, team, etc.). I think its worth getting to know each individual personally. I try to meet with everyone on my team outside of the office a couple of times throughout the year. Sometimes formally for a breakfast or lunch review. Sometimes for happy hours with a few colleagues. The activity and frequency depend on the person, role, etc.). There’s some debate about the numbers, but scientifically speaking we can only maintain 5 close personal relationships and up to 150 casual acquaintances. Keeping in mind social lives outside of work, that means it’s critical for leaders to empower managers through all levels of the organization to be just as invested in each other as we are in them. These connections are what keep growing teams strong, even when we can’t all be best friends every single day.

As a part of my series about how leaders can create a “fantastic work culture”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andres Lares, Managing Partner, Shapiro Negotiations Institute (SNI).

Andres is responsible for the day-to-day operations of SNI, a world-leading negotiation training company. He also continues to serve as a negotiation trainer and coach with an emphasis on sports, while leading the organization’s development of advanced interactive negotiation simulations, such as the application of virtual-reality. Andres’ client work includes organizations such as PwC, Boeing, Novo Nordisk, Ryland Homes, and the San Antonio Spurs.

In addition to his work for SNI, Andres has been a guest speaker at conferences and universities across the country on multiple topics, and he currently teaches a highly regarded course, Sports Negotiation, at Johns Hopkins University. He also recently completed the prestigious Bowe Fellows program, a yearlong global business leadership program within the World Trade Center Institute in Baltimore.

Prior to joining SNI, Andres completed a Master of Business Administration and Master of Sports Administration at Ohio University. He also worked for several professional sports teams and consulting firms.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I first bumped into Ron Shapiro a little over ten years ago after receiving the “Case Cup” award for my graduate work at the National Sports Forum. Ron, the founder of Shapiro Negotiations Institute, had been a role model of mine for years, ever since I’d picked up his book The Power of Nice. Waking off the stage that day with my award and bumping into him was serendipitous, and we hit if off right away.

Ron liked my experience (working for the Philadelphia Eagles, long-time background in consulting, two graduate degrees, and more) and just so happened to be looking for some help with all the sports advisory work he was doing. I’ve always been fascinated by maximizing gains for individuals or organizations and wanted to learn from him, so it was a great fit!

One thing led to another, and next thing I knew I had moved to Baltimore to join his team at SNI. After about nine years together, Ron began thinking about taking a step back from the frontlines of the business to tackle a new opportunity — and there was no shortage of offers on the table. Those who know Ron won’t be surprised to discover that he was less focused on the money and more focused on leaving the firm in good hands; I’m very proud to say that after evaluating all his options, he felt it was in the best hands with my partners, Chip Tames, Jeff Cochran and me. We formally took over in July of 2017, with me as the Managing Partner.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

The most memorable situation we have been through since taking over the company was a long RFP process with Boeing. Boeing was looking for an enterprise negotiation training program and had over 20 suppliers competing in the RFP process, many of whom were already doing business with Boeing. It was an all hands-on deck project with everyone pitching in. And, as part of the brainstorming we did as a team, we decided to take a risky strategy and demonstrate the value we would bring to the table during the RFP process by proposing significant changes to the concept requested in the RFP. We felt changes to the curriculum, addition of a second facilitator, video recording of roleplays, and many other suggestions would improve the program. It’s a gamble to say, “Your RFP isn’t quite right,” but we let them know. We believed it would either disqualify us for not providing the answers they were looking for or demonstrate the kind of “partners” (the word they use for their suppliers) we would be if we worked together. I’m happy to say they saw it as the latter, we got the contract, and we’ve been working with them for over a year, receiving some of the top reviews of any training in the entire organization. What made it so interesting and special? The team effort where everyone pitched in, the great idea that bubbled up through that collaborative process (and the culture of trust and safety that made it okay to share), the willingness to risk the opportunity in order to provide the best training possible because it’s what we truly believed in, and the high level of execution during the RFP process. Oh, and the presentation we did on site as a finalist was pretty spectacular, too. A cherry on top.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Absolutely. We are working on quite a few exciting projects. The one I am most excited about is a Virtual Reality Negotiation Simulation that we are developing. It taps into Artificial Intelligence to provide feedback to users on a number of important criteria, including: the sentiment of their responses (e.g. emotions), how much eye contact they had, use of hesitation words, speech pace, etc. It will also tap into a heart rate monitor to provide the physiological responses to tough questions. Finally, it will allow our coaches to provide a layer of feedback on top of that.

We are also updating our mobile app, developing a few new online programs, adding a new simulation to our influencing exercise, and starting to develop apps for various CRMs (we already have one for Salesforce and are starting to work on others). In each case, our new projects are ensuring we provide the best trainings possible and meet the unique needs of each partner we work with. Nothing is more exciting to me than that.

Ok, lets jump to the main part of our interview. According to this study cited in Forbes, more than half of the US workforce is unhappy. Why do you think that number is so high?

Work environments are so complicated. Your satisfaction at work, and your ultimate happiness, is based on the people you work with, people you work for, and people who work for you. And those layers just make up the human-lens. Satisfaction is also based on compensation, commute to work, day to day tasks, autonomy, and overall experience. It’s the forest and the trees. As a result, it’s hard to line all of these up so that one is completely happy at work, and it can be difficult for employees to balance their own expectations, realities, and ambitions.

And, for the people that actually are unhappy, I think they are afraid of making the leap — quitting without another job, starting their own company, or fighting to carve out an identity where they are. A lot of people have ideas but are afraid to make the leap, whatever that might look like. It’s hard work looking for a job when you already have a full-time job. These are all reasonable struggles, but they lead unhappy people to stay unhappy. There’s no easy fix. It’s too bad. I can’t say that I love every single aspect of my job, but I can say I love what I do, I enjoy working with the team we have and am very excited and hopeful about the future. I think happiness needs to start there — knowing what it is you actually love to do — and I think too few people at all levels of business have identified this for themselves.

Based on your experience or research, how do you think an unhappy workforce will impact a) company productivity b) company profitability c) and employee health and wellbeing?

Simply put I think unhappy workers do the minimum needed to get the job done. They don’t go above and beyond, they don’t take extra initiative, they don’t put effort in to develop relationships with others at their organization, and they just don’t bring that spark of new ideas, excitement, or energy. I have certainly seen it from a productivity standpoint (e.g. people taking on a second job that they care about more than their first job and putting more effort into the latter), profitability (sales going down when the sales team grows complacent or lackluster), and health and wellbeing (less happy, less active, etc. clearly affecting them outside of work). It’s all like a game of dominoes — productivity, profitability, health and wellbeing — and it extends to employees’ lives outside of work, too. We have to talk about the problems and solutions from a holistic perspective, because trying to isolate one piece of it can neglect the rest of the picture. If any part of it topples too much, you want the other pieces to be strong and sturdy, otherwise they’ll fall, too.

Can you share 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture? Can you give a personal story or example for each?

1. Place value on relationships. Build relationships with your employees and encourage them to form them amongst themselves also as well as between them (If possible, depending on the size of your company, team, etc.). I think its worth getting to know each individual personally. I try to meet with everyone on my team outside of the office a couple of times throughout the year. Sometimes formally for a breakfast or lunch review. Sometimes for happy hours with a few colleagues. The activity and frequency depend on the person, role, etc.). There’s some debate about the numbers, but scientifically speaking we can only maintain 5 close personal relationships and up to 150 casual acquaintances. Keeping in mind social lives outside of work, that means it’s critical for leaders to empower managers through all levels of the organization to be just as invested in each other as we are in them. These connections are what keep growing teams strong, even when we can’t all be best friends every single day.
2. Treat everyone fairly but, for smaller firms, not the same. I believe it is critical that each person feel they are treated fairly. However, especially in small firms, I believe you can offer a level of individualization so that its fair and equal but not the same. For example, one person values working remotely and has a job where its possible to do so effectively so we let him do that. Another person can’t really do that, so we have provided her with more vacation time and responsibilities that only need to be tended to during office hours.
3. Set clear team and individual goals. Setting clear goals is important, we try to do this individually with and from a team/company perspective so that people are focused on producing both individual and collaborative results. Striving to achieve something gives employees ownership and autonomy that is invaluable to building satisfaction and happiness. One example of this is how we run our Monday morning meetings. We have specific goals for each client, as a company around revenue, average evaluation scores for programs, timelines for customization, etc. We then set individual goals around that. We want our logistics person to answer client emails within 24 hours. Our sales person to be at the first program of every new client. Our marketing person to put an internal recap together of how we landed the client so we can learn from it. And our finance person to turn around an invoice in a specific amount of time. All of these individuals goal work together to help us evaluate and achieve our team goals.
4. Provide and seek two-way feedback consistently. You can’t ever over communicate. This is probably the most important aspect of the list. Having worked at places where communication was lacking and others where it flowed very well, I have seen the difference first hand. Some information is not suitable for everyone, but generally I believe in a policy boasting as much transparency as possible. “Open door” should apply all the time, not just as a saying but really meaning it and inviting it, generally, just communicate as much as possible. At SNI, we started using SharePoint, set up email groups, and meet weekly as a company to share updates, ask questions, and keep everybody connected. There are few challenges (if any) that can’t be tackled with clear communication — at all levels.
5. Recognize and reward contributions. I have learned to realize how important recognizing people is — and not just financially. For example, when a sale comes in, I try to find where each person at the company had an impact and recognize it in our weekly meeting. It emphasizes the team impact. The sales person may have brought it in, but a facilitator ran a pilot to help make it happen, logistics made it seamless, our admin team supported the process all the way through, and only then was a deal made. Everyone should know that their work makes a difference; if it doesn’t, why is there a person in that role?

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but it seems like we have to “change the culture regarding work culture”. What can we do as a society to make a broader change in the US workforce’s work culture?

Having grown up in Venezuela and Canada and having traveled all over the world for either work or pleasure, I have seen several different work cultures. I felt them and experienced them, and then I also studied them during my economics and MBA studies. Each has pros and cons. In Spain and Portugal, people work less hours, start later, and are much more laid back. Some studies have shown they are happier. I personally love visiting the country, but this work culture has drawbacks, too. The economy isn’t the same as others in Western Europe, US, Canada, etc. And that’s okay for them.

In most of South America, people start work and school earlier and get off earlier. They work at a slower pace, consistent with regions of the world that have consistent weather throughout the year. But the US has some of the highest average hours of work per week. Start and end times depend on the region (e.g. NYC, LA, and Miami are very different), but generally there is an expectation that your smart phone is always with you and as a result you are always available. Always connected. I find this is a very philosophical debate.

I love what I do. I want everyone in my company to love what they do. As such I hope they go above and beyond and think about work outside of the office. I need our logistics person to be available if something gets screwed up with one of our facilitator’s travels, even if it’s in the middle of the night. It’s rare, but it happens. I need our sales person to wake up every day thinking about generating more sales and going through his/her every day life gathering prospects and ideas from everywhere. But we also provide a very generous PTO policy for a small company — in fact, we increased it by about 40% when we took over. And we actively push our people to take every day they have available to them. Policies aren’t enough if employees don’t believe they can safely, freely take advantage of them.

Ultimately, I believe in a work hard, play hard mentality that can sometimes have a grey area within the work life balance but that focuses on treating people the right way at any level of the organization. It focuses on developing great personal and/or working relationships throughout the entire organization, and creating an environment where people are truly invested in what they do and appreciated for their work — I think that combination changes the perception at our company from a work culture of “uggh, I have to go to work” to “I am excited to go to work today.” Everyone wants to feel proud of what they do, respected, appreciated, and cared about — carve that into your company culture and I think an organization will be just fine. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach, and one company’s model shouldn’t be copied exactly by another. It’s like any human relationships — you have to listen, be respectful, and actively work to continue improving.

How would you describe your leadership or management style? Can you give us a few examples?

I try to provide specific high-level direction, offer to provide as much additional direction and support as they need, and then give people a lot of room. For example, I felt the way we managed workbooks was sub-optimal. We were paying too much money, waiting too long for online companies to print and ship them, the quality control was inconsistent, and the online platforms we used were not built for users like ours where we swap out pages and logos all the time. I shared the problem with our logistics coordinator, she asked a few questions, did some research, asked a few more, and eventually the result was her suggesting 3 companies we could try out. Long story short, she did a heck of a job and our workbooks are now done faster, look better, and cost less. My job is to make others look good. If I can’t trust them to do good work, they are either not in the right role or not in the right company. It’s that simple.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

The list is too long, but I’d be remiss if I did not start with my family. My wife is an incredible support system and makes me feel like I or we can do anything. My brother is brilliant and one of the smartest people I know — has been a great person to go to when I need to make a tough decision. My dad, who showed me to believe that I can do anything. And, my mom, who passed 10 years ago, was the most special person I’ve ever met — she was super smart but it’s her off-the-charts empathy that I aspire to emulate.

Ron Shapiro, the founder of our company, has been and continues to be a mentor of mine. I have learned so much from him, not just from a negotiation and sports standpoint, but about management and life. He gave me a chance 10 years ago to start working at SNI and then 8 years later he gave me another one to take over his company. Hard to list someone else who has had more impact.

But there are many others. There are people who have been gracious enough to let me pick their brains from time to time from Brian Cooper, one of the top sports marketing executives in Canada; to Paul Beeston, the former President of the Blue Jays; to an incredible philosophy teacher I had in high school, the professor of my microeconomics course in undergrad, Jim Kahler the director of the program and reason I went to Ohio University for my MBA and Master of Sports Administration.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I have tried. I always want to do more, but I do believe we have a responsibility. I’ve done a little bit of everything — from coaching youth basketball at my former grade school, to serving as an executive mentor for students going through my graduate program, to working with Habitat for Humanity, to driving cancer patients around during the holidays for the Canadian Cancer Society, to my wife and I raising, after matching, $200,000 for cancer (asking for donations in lieu of gifts as part of our wedding). I recently have started to look into joining a non-profit board and hope to continue to be active in my community.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“You can do anything you put your mind to.”

My dad used to share that concept with me in many ways when I was young. Today, I say it to my kids almost every day. I remind my wife and friends. I share it with the students in the Johns Hopkins Class I teach every year. It sounds corny but I get so much satisfaction when I hear friends and family say they are going to try something — go after their dream job, go back to school, write a book, start a company — whatever they have done because of me. And what makes me proud isn’t just that I inspired them to do it with the mentality of “you can do anything you put your mind to,” it’s that they know that saying means you need to take that leap of faith but you also need to put you mind to it — meaning, work relentlessly to achieve your goal.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Taking a moment every day to do something for someone else. We tried something at our company a few years ago where everyone received $20 to give away in any way they wanted. My wife and I decided that during our drive from my family to hers on Christmas Day, we would use it to pay for people’s bus fare. We are typically in Toronto over the holidays, so December 25th is often cold and snowy. I have volunteered and donated before, but until that experience, I never realized how immediately satisfying it is to do something for someone else. Pulling over in 25-degree weather when it’s snowing hard and seeing the face of a mom when we paid for her, who we guessed was her elderly mother, and two teenage kids was priceless. It’s even more impactful because at first, she had doubt or even a slight bit of fear about strangers pulling over by a bus stop as she waited for the bus, what looked like a long time. An experience like that can be addictive and countless studies have shown that those experiences make YOU happier. They also give a little boost to the people around you — even a stranger who just sees you doing something kind for someone else. It makes them feel good, like they want to do something nice, too. It ripples. So, do it every day and we would have a better world. Pay for the coffee of the person behind you. Compliment a stranger if you like their attire or hairdo. Offer the other person to go before you when you both get to a door at the same time, and hold it for them, regardless of gender and age. Give half of your sandwich to a homeless person. Imagine everyone doing this?

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you continued success!

Thank you!