From LinkedIn News, I'm Leah Smart, host of Everyday Better, an award-winning podcast dedicated to personal development.

Join me every week for captivating stories and research to find more fulfillment in your work and personal life.

Listen to Every Day Better on the LinkedIn Podcast Network, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

From LinkedIn News, I'm Jesse Hempel, host of the Hello Monday podcast.

Start your week with the Hello Monday podcast.

We'll navigate career pivots.

We'll learn where happiness fits in.

Listen to Hello Monday with me, Jesse Hempel on the LinkedIn Podcast Network, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to you're or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to our practice session.

In our practice sessions, we invite our featured guests to show off their negotiation and conflict resolution skills in a realistic scenario.

In this session, I want you to pay attention to what our guest does and not to what I do, because while they are trying to show off their skills and teach you, I am trying to frustrate their efforts in different ways through things like aggression, annoyance, emotionality, or awkwardness.

And then after the practice session, we debrief and talk about what worked,

what didn't work, and what you can use in your next difficult conversation.

All right, everybody, welcome to the sparring session. I have Alan here. And Alan wrote the prompt for Dan Oblinger's sparring session. And it was a doozy. So if you want a good laugh, make sure you check out that one. It was a hostage negotiation situation. And so Dan wants to return the favor. His initial simulation was pretty straightforward. But then after he got yours, he said, I need to spice this up.

So here it is. For Allen's practice session, you are hired by a specialized manufacturer who's about to go bankrupt. The company name is Sang Industries. And it makes digital super widgets.

18 months ago, they landed their first huge contract to supply

Oblinger Corporation with their super widget. They ship over 1,000 super widgets a month to Oblinger Corp.

Now here's the crisis. Oblinger Corp has a reputation for being tough, shark-faced negotiators.

I've never heard shark-faced before, but that's what I've been told.

The original negotiation team landed the contract using win-wid methods.

Sang Enterprises thought that by landing the contract at a slight loss, they would be able to

...