Shermin Kruse is a woman of many talents. A professor, author, writer, lawyer, storyteller, negotiation consultant and curator of ideas, she is currently teaching at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago on the topics of tactical empathy & complex negotiation, leadership, and global transactions.
Her recent TEDx talk “Negotiating from a Place of Weakness Using Cognitive Empathy” has sparked a new conversation around the traditional ways of bargaining and how to ‘get a seat at the table’ regardless of race, gender, position in society, economic status or employment position. Her book Butterfly Stitching is a critically acclaimed, best-selling novel that was inspired by the true experiences she and the women in her family endured before and after the Iranian revolution. And prior to all of the above… Shermin was a partner at the law firm of Barack Ferrazzano where she represented international and Fortune 500 companies for seventeen years.
Shermin spent most of her childhood in Iran, through the 1980s amidst mortality guards and during the war. When her family managed to escape, they left everything behind – friends, family, connections, and financial assets. This is when she learned that powerlessness is not just about bombs and brutal governments but also in being a minority, being a woman, being poor, being an immigrant. These circumstances weakened Shermin’s bargaining position in nearly every negotiation until she used the skills of tactical cognitive empathy which helped to raise her positions in her academic, professional, and personal life.
FWM: Share your background.
My life began in Iran amidst the revolutionary guard and during a bloody war, up to 6 rockets a day in my city and long bread lines. The trauma from those days is real, and a lot of it resurfaces every time there’s another war. Most recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, watching videos of kids and families held up in bunkers, the thuds of missiles and screeches of alert sirens mixed in with distant sounds of screams, that was my childhood from the age of 3 to 11. Just add to it, an oppressive theocratic regime, morality police at every corner, and intermittent electricity. I didn’t have enough running hot water to take a shower until I was a preteen.
When I was 11, we left Iran and immigrated to Canada, and then eventually to the United States. Moving meant no more rocket attacks, or ladies with guns stopping you in the street to adjust your headscarf. But it also meant losing my home, my dolls, my Uncle Mostafa who always came over with a box of fruit, my Uncle Mamad who gave me cheese puffs every time he saw me. It meant I would never again see Samaneh, my favorite cousin and partner in crime, or get wet kisses from my Aunt Shamsi. Gone were my best friends, neighbors, rugs, and our black-market record collection. I would never again be packed with other family members like sardines into the rooms of my uncle’s villa near the Caspian Sea, or hike the Alborz mountains with my dad. Leaving Iran also meant leaving behind most of our financial assets – a restart on the poverty spectrum for my family. On top of that, this new land I was now in did not understand my language and so many assumed I was not intelligent and friends were impossible to make. These were real losses, and recovery from them was enormously challenging, despite the fact that our immigration was the best thing to happen to me.
Through it all, I always knew nothing would stop me from reaching my potential. Partly, because of all my parents had sacrificed, partly because of survivors guilt, and partly because of my innate comfort with failure. I worked really hard. Threw myself into anything that involved giving back to my new community by founding, serving on boards, and otherwise volunteering for various non-profits. I fell on my face over and over again but always got back up. I eventually made it to University of Michigan Law School, then a partnership at a premier law firm where I practiced for 17 years while having four kids and writing a novel. Eventually, I decided also that I wanted to contribute to the world of ideas by teaching (online and to higher education schools) and becoming a producer of TED and TEDx talks. I now teach courses such as “Negotiating with Tactical Empathy” and “Global Transactions” at Northwestern University Law School, offer a “Tactical Empathy Masterclass” online at SherminKruse.com, and have produced 50 TEDx talks in the last three years.
FWM: There was a time when you felt all odds were against you, tell us about this time and a pivotal moment that changed your trajectory.
I’ve found that overall, failure changes our trajectory just as much as success does. While I was balancing a legal career with four kids and writing my novel, I was also running a charity, serving on three non-profit boards, and enrolled as a MFA student at the School of the Art Institute for creative writing. More than anything, Time was my enemy. Just not enough hours in the day, and my focus suffered as a result. I stepped away from the MFA program (with only 3 credits to go! Urgh it still hurts to think about it!) and one of my non-profit boards. It helped, but not enough. I was doing great at the law firm and really enjoyed practicing law. I liked my colleagues and my clients. But my legal career wasn’t moving forward as fast as I wanted it to, and it also wasn’t filling me with the purpose I really needed. Meanwhile, it took far longer than it should have to finish the book and my non-profits weren’t getting my full attention. Every spare second was spent with my children who were always my top priority, and trying to justify my bifurcated (trifurcated? Quadrifurcated? Is that a word?) life to those I answered to! This period of my life was the definition of the “odds are against” me, but it was also glorious and in many ways necessary. I needed to experience the extent of the tension between where I was (perfectly content at a great law firm with likeable colleagues and clients I enjoyed representing) and where I wanted to be (changing the world with my ideas), to have the courage to finally leave my practice. It wasn’t so much a precise moment, as a transitional phase of hardship and intense intellectual exploration that led me to pivot to my current world of teaching (online and in some of the most elite institutions while producing TED and TEDx talks.
FWM: Tell us about your critically acclaimed book Butterfly Stitching.
I just love talking about this book because it was such a labor of love for me! It took four years to write, and then was held up in publication and editing for three years until the final product was one I’m proud to call mine. The true stories of the women of my family, before and after the Iranian revolution, were so extraordinary that in some instances I had to tone down the scope of the events to make it seem more believable, so telling those stories through “Butterfly Stitching” was a heart expanding pulse pounding tear causing hope sprouting whirlwind. In the book, I paint with words a visual picture of the Iran of my youth where I lived until 1988 (I was 11 years old). But I also go back to the pre-revolutionary era by telling the remarkable story of my grandma and the unbelievable life she led. The novel portrays the lifelong interaction and conversation with the incredible women in my life. It also experiments with pacing, perspective, and format – so just from a pure writer’s perspective it was massive fun to write! I was honestly surprised at the positive critical and audience reaction it received! All I wanted was to tell the stories, though at times fictionalized, in a way that presented the core truths of Iran and its people. The journey of writing and the reaction of readers has been truly a gift!
FWM: Your recent TEDx talk “Negotiating from a Place of Weakness Using Cognitive Empathy” has sparked a new conversation around the traditional ways of bargaining and how to ‘get a seat at the table’ regardless of race, gender, position in society, economic status or employment position. Share key elements from your talk.
I was about 9 years old, living in Iran not too long after the Islamic revolution and amidst the Iran-Iraq war (we were in out of bunkers with up to 6 rocket a day), when I first saw someone tactically use empathy to negotiate. It was masterfully modeled for me by my mom, actually. We were in a marketplace in central Tehran – and I remember that I didn’t have my headscarf on. In Iran, wearing a headscarf isn’t optional for girls ages 9 and over. You have to cover your hair. But I didn’t have my headscarf on, and I was in the marketplace with my mom, and I remember this really massive female guard coming our way. Maybe she seemed massive because I was a child, even small for a 9-year-old. Or maybe it was the big Russian style assault rifle hanging across her chest. I was terrified. The TEDx talk takes listeners through three simple tools that my mom used that day to negotiate our way out of getting arrested, extrapolating those tools for any use in any context. I am so passionate about helping those who are in positions of relative powerlessness get a leg up in their bargains, whether it’s negotiating against your boss or your landlord, the landscape is different when the power-levels are imbalanced. That’s what tactical empathy can do for you, what my TEDx talks discussed, and the Masterclass online teaches!
FWM: What is tactical empathy?
Imagine walking into a negotiation room as an alien empath. Your out-of-this-world powers let you discern whether someone is telling a lie or the truth. Imagine the power and influence these powers would bring. This, is empathic potential. As Tactical Empathy will explain and contrary to popular misinformation, empathy isn’t sympathy or pity. Rather, empathy is a deeper understanding of other people, what drives and motivates them, their perspectives and biases, and what their weaknesses are. More specifically, there is a distinction between “cognitive empathy” and “emotional empathy.” Emotional empathy describes one person feeling the emotions of the other, while cognitive empathy has no such requirement. With cognitive empathy, you’re only trying to understand the emotions of the other and understanding that is easily weaponized in negotiations. Tactical Empathy teaches you to hone and use this influence to increase their odds of success and do it in a way that doesn’t threaten long-standing relationships.
FWM: You will be launching a virtual Tactical Empathy Master Class starting Saturday June 4th that will showcase how cognitive empathy works. What will the class feature?
My Tactical Empathy Masterclass takes you through the empathic negotiation journey by teaching 7 basic cognitive empathy tools to increase the odds in every negotiation, discussion, and conflict context, from your annual bonus at your job to whose turn it is to do the dishes. The course also has a section on advanced tactical empathy method of lie spotting and body language reading, so you can better judge when your counterpart is telling the truth and when they’re lying! The practice and implementation of simple cognitive empathy tools really can even flip the power-switch in the negotiation, helping students succeed in negotiations in nearly every aspect of their lives while still preserving their overall relationships. The course also has a section on advanced tactical empathy method of lie spotting and body language reading. The practice and implementation of easy cognitive empathy tools can even flip the power-switch in the negotiation, helping students succeed in negotiations in nearly every aspect of their personal and professional lives while still preserving their overall relationships.
Here is a link for more information
Here is a link to purchase the course
FWM: You are a highly-coveted speaker, tell us about the topics for 2022.
I’m going to continue to give a lot of talks on tactical empathy, but I’m increasingly fascinated by the intersection between stoicism and empathy! So you can look for that in the coming year!
FWM: You have received many awards including “Woman Extraordinaire” for your humanitarian work by the International Women Associates in 2018. What does this mean to you?
The amazing thing about awards is that they bring attention to the cause, the work itself. For me, any award is just another opportunity to highlight the work that needs to be done and recruit allies to do it!
FWM: What is the greatest lesson that you have learned?
To be humbly confident and always curious. When I approach a room looking to prove myself, there’s always an element of loss that comes with that. But when I approach a room looking to improve what I’ve already created within myself, a goal that requires me to listen and learn from the others in the room while still believing in myself, I win every single time.
