10 Lessons In Negotiating From Watching Nancy Pelosi In Action

“From the Iraq War to the financial crisis, through health-care reform and government shutdowns, through two presidential impeachments, a pandemic and an insurrection attempt, she has been a constant force and consummate operator. No national politician of her era can match her combination of legislative prowess, vote-counting savvy, negotiating skill, and fundraising ability.”

Those are the words of Molly Ball, author of one of the seminal biographies of Pelosi, in her Time magazine column about Pelosi’s passing the torch to new Democratic leadership this week.

At the heart of legislating is negotiation and Pelosi is a master at it. Her record speaks for itself. “Pelosi is a wheeler and dealer, a savvy and results-oriented operator who cares more about getting things done than getting it perfect (or taking the credit); she’s less an idealist than a practical broker who considers calling someone “operational” the highest of praise.” That’s how Jill Filipovic described Pelosi in a review of Susan Page’s biography, “Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power” last year.

Since negotiating can be especially difficult for women, and we all need to do it – to land a new job, a raise or a promotion, to sign a client, manage staff, get legislation passed or an international treaty signed, and even in our families and communities – here are highlights of some of the tools of her negotiating success, based on selected research.

As Filipovic put it, Pelosi’s negotiation style and strategy demonstrates “the work it takes for a woman to harness, maintain and wield authority that was once reserved exclusively for men.”

Here are 10 negotiating tips I can see from how Pelosi has been able to get so much done. It’s all strategy:

1. Understand what the other side wants and what they need: The person or organization you’re negotiating with may not tell you what they need in the deal, but you can tell, as Pelosi has, from what they are and are not willing to trade. The words they use and their tone of their voice give clues too, as does who they talk about in their negotiations.

2. Know your own bottom line: Pelosi goes into any negotiation knowing her bottom line. During negotiations for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), it was provisions for low-income people and children, for example. She would be willing to adapt timelines, it seems (since originally some will eventually sunset), but she was not going let them get cut.

This includes understanding what the other people on your side need, which in her case are the rest of her Democratic caucus. When her caucus bellyached about risking losing their seats over a vote, she said, “We come here to do a job, not keep a job,” and walked that talk when they lost the majority.

3. Over-prepare: Pelosi seems to go into any negotiation or meeting impeccably prepared, really over-prepared, having already taken steps to understand the agenda and needs of who will be across the table from her, and to build relationships with them (with one exception being #45 who she seemed to just have to wrestle most of the time).

4. Identify your leverage in each situation, with each person, and use it, gracefully and respectfully: Speaker Pelosi, from all accounts, is a master of leverage. This skill comes from her combination of mastery over the mechanisms of politics and policymaking, her relationship-building skills, and her communication skills. “She could be incredibly sweet and incredibly tough, depending on what worked best to get their support – a unique combination that ranged outside the traditional narrow arsenal of power levers and often caught members off guard,” Newton-Small wrote.

5. Use mastery of the game to accomplish your goal: During the Obama Administration’s negotiations for the Affordable Care Act, his insistence on achieving a bipartisan deal frustrated her apparently. Molly Ball wrote in her book that Pelosi asked Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, “Does the president not understand the way this game works?” and then, “He wants to get it done and be beloved, and you can’t have both — which does he want?”

6. Have confidence in your value and what you bring to the table: Confidence also flows from the extensive preparation process, and from knowing what she needed to pass the legislation.

7. Stay centered even in the middle of a storm: Especially during January 6^th when she took charge to secure the Capitol and proceed with the election certification, and during all four chaotic years of the Trump administration, the height of the covid pandemic and economic shutdown, as well as during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Pelosi has been the calm inside the storm. She talks forcefully and is intense, but calm, intellectually rigorous and a creative problem-solver and quick decision-maker.

8. Be willing to negotiate and understand that half a loaf is better than none. The childcare tax credit was a big issue for her in the negotiations of what became the Inflation Reduction Act, as she has said repeatedly. But passing the rest of the bill was more important and she wasn’t going to risk the bill dying over it.

9. Partner with “the other side“ when you can, go it alone when you need to - and know when to do which one. This is obvious in the reconciliation packages that the Democrats passed in the first two years of the Biden Administration with control of both houses of Congress, but only by a very slim margin.

10. Be kind, respectful, and grateful. Even former Republican Speaker John Boehner said that he and Pelosi could agree without being disagreeable. Always strong and firm in her positions, but respectful, “neither a screamer nor a bully,” as Jay Newton-Small wrote in her book, “Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing The Way America Works.”

Gratitude is always a good strategy.