Florence Kennedy Rolland - The Persuasive Negotiator

Sometimes you are blessed to meet someone who has a profound effect on your life, someone who teaches you and mentors you and inspires you to learn and grow as a person. Someone who shapes the focus of your career and willingly gives you opportunities to develop your own career path with that knowledge. I have been extremely fortunate to have that person with me my entire life, until recently, my father.

Professor Gavin Kennedy, as he is known the world over, has been a leading figure in the world of negotiation since he first started researching for his PhD in 1972, the year I was born. Hed created his four-phase model by the time I was a toddler. I suppose you could say that I was always fascinated, even as a young child, in what he was doing. It seemed incredibly cool that he would travel the world to teach people about negotiation. He would come home with foreign trinkets and endless stories. Im sure I didnt listen to them all, but the extraordinary enthusiasm he always had somehow contaminated me.

Id always worked for him (cleaning, filing, printing course materials, packaging courses, mailing, database entry, etc.) as I was always keen to make money but it wasnt until I was 16 or 17 that I actually realized that the subject was so interesting and that Dad was really an expert. It was during the summer holiday from school and, as usual, I was working in his office. He wanted an old book of his, Superdeal: How to Negotiate Anything!, to be typed into the new computer. He didnt have it on file, as when he had written it originally he had done so on a typewriter. Initially I was annoyed at the task as it seemed incredibly dull to a teenager to retype an entire book, but as soon as I started I was gripped. It was a brilliant book about dealmaking around the globe, and I wanted to learn more.

I then read one of his other best-selling books, Everything is Negotiable, and thought I knew everything there was to know about negotiation. I was still at school, though, so all thoughts of becoming the next international globetrotting negotiator had to be put on hold. After completing a degree in Business Studies at university, I opened my own small business using all the negotiation skills I had learnt. Dealing with landlords, suppliers and customers wasnt quite so easy as it appeared in the books, but I enjoyed every interaction, celebrating the victories and learning from the failures. Dad was working on another project with a few of his colleagues at Heriot Watt University they started the Edinburgh Business School with the aim of teaching an MBA by distance learning. It became one of the most successful MBA programmes in the UK.

It was then my father had his first stroke. Everything changed. He didnt want to travel so much, and teaching tired him. I had sold my business, and he asked me to help him at work for a few months, until he was back on his feet. That was 21 years ago. I have never looked back or regretted the decision, though sometimes it is hard. My first time teaching was terrifying, but his advice got me through. I asked him how long it would take to get over the nerves before the days teaching started, and he said, If you ever stop being nervous, you should stop teaching. I understand now what he meant, though at the time I was really frustrated that his advice seemed so useless!

Through his guidance and help I have taught over 20,000 students, from all kinds of businesses, from all corners of the world. Through it all the lessons of negotiation have helped me not only in my teaching, but in running my business. Im not going to say it helps negotiate with my son because, as with all children, his natural ability to get his own way in any situation is utterly remarkable.