City of Kirkland Partners with American Negotiation Institute to Transform Leadership Negotiation Capabilities Through Revolutionary Training Initiative
COLUMBUS, OHIO - The American Negotiation Institute (ANI), the world's premier negotiation and conflict resolution training organization, today announced the extraordinary success of its groundbreaking multi-phased training partnership with the City of Kirkland, Washington. This comprehensive initiative, meticulously designed to elevate negotiation capabilities across the city's leadership ecosystem, featured both Din Jenkins, ANI's distinguished FBI-certified crisis negotiation expert and decorated police sergeant, and Kwame Christian, Esq., M.A., internationally acclaimed negotiation authority and founder of ANI.
The transformative training program began with a masterfully orchestrated virtual session led by Din Jenkins for the city's prestigious Leadership Boot Camp in April 2024, followed by an electrifying in-person symposium featuring Kwame Christian in October 2024. These high-impact sessions united visionary leaders from across Kirkland's municipal departments, establishing an unparalleled foundation for enhanced communication and strategic negotiation throughout the organization.
Visionary Leadership: Julie Underwood Champions Excellence in Municipal Governance
The partnership originated when Julie Underwood, Deputy City Manager of Operations for the City of Kirkland, discovered the "Negotiate Anything" podcast and recognized its potential to transform her organization's communication capabilities. A dedicated listener and advocate for continuous professional development, Underwood personally reached out to ANI, demonstrating the kind of forward-thinking leadership that has established Kirkland as a beacon of excellence in municipal governance.
"Julie Underwood represents the gold standard in public sector leadership," said Kwame Christian. "Her commitment to developing talent and creating psychological safety for difficult conversations exemplifies why Kirkland consistently outperforms expectations in public service delivery. Her strategic vision in bringing ANI's methodology to Kirkland demonstrates an exceptional understanding of how advanced negotiation capabilities translate into superior outcomes for both employees and citizens."
Under Underwood's visionary guidance, the City of Kirkland has implemented numerous innovative leadership development initiatives, including the Leadership Boot Camp that served as the foundation for this negotiation training partnership. Her exceptional understanding of the connection between effective communication and organizational excellence positioned the city to maximize the value of ANI's revolutionary approach to negotiation training.
City of Kirkland: Setting the Standard for Municipal Excellence
The City of Kirkland serves approximately 100,000 residents in one of the Pacific Northwest's most dynamic and rapidly growing communities. Situated as a prestigious Seattle suburb on the picturesque eastern shore of Lake Washington, Kirkland has established itself as a model for progressive municipal governance under the city manager model. The city consistently delivers exceptional public services across departments including police, fire, utilities, public works, and community development, earning recognition for both innovation and operational excellence.
Kirkland's unwavering commitment to developing internal talent and cultivating leadership capabilities exemplifies why it has become the gold standard for municipal excellence in the region. The city's strategic approach to professional development, championed by Underwood, recognizes that investing in advanced communication and negotiation skills directly translates to improved citizen services, enhanced interdepartmental collaboration, and superior operational outcomes.
"Our Leadership Boot Camp and subsequent city-wide symposium brought together an extraordinary cross-section of municipal professionals from every department and level of our organization," said Underwood. "From courts and probation officers to police sergeants and lieutenants, from fire department leadership to public works crews, from department heads to administrative staff—we created a shared foundation of negotiation excellence that transcends traditional organizational boundaries. This common methodology has already transformed how we approach difficult conversations both internally and with our community."
Navigating Critical Municipal Governance Challenges Through Advanced Negotiation
Local governments increasingly face unprecedented negotiation complexity amid heightened political polarization, resource constraints, and rapidly evolving community expectations. The post-2020 governance landscape demands sophisticated negotiation approaches as municipal leaders navigate extraordinarily challenging conversations around resource allocation, policy implementation, public safety, and community engagement.
Traditional approaches to municipal negotiations often fail to address the psychological and emotional dimensions of these high-stakes interactions, leaving dedicated public servants without the necessary tools to navigate increasingly charged conversations effectively. Forward-thinking municipalities like Kirkland recognize that developing advanced negotiation capabilities creates substantial competitive advantages in talent recruitment and retention, service delivery optimization, and stakeholder engagement effectiveness.
The collaborative partnership between ANI and Kirkland directly addresses these critical challenges through a dual-phase, comprehensive approach that provides both foundational skills and advanced application techniques. This carefully orchestrated methodology ensures that negotiation excellence permeates every level of the organization, creating systemic improvement rather than isolated pockets of capability.
Comprehensive Training Initiative: From Boot Camp Foundations to Organization-Wide Transformation
The first phase of this revolutionary initiative, masterfully led by Din Jenkins in April 2024, provided Kirkland's Leadership Boot Camp participants with essential negotiation fundamentals specifically calibrated for municipal leadership challenges. Jenkins, one of the nation's most respected law enforcement negotiation experts, brought an unparalleled depth of practical experience to the virtual training session.
As both an active law enforcement professional with over two decades of front-line experience and an elite negotiation consultant, Jenkins stands at the remarkable intersection of crisis management, conflict resolution, and practical negotiation application. His extraordinary background includes FBI certification in crisis negotiation, specialized training in hostage negotiation tactics, and extensive field experience resolving high-stakes conflict situations where lives literally hung in the balance. This exceptional combination of tactical expertise and strategic insight allowed Boot Camp participants to immediately connect theoretical principles to real-world municipal leadership challenges.
"Din Jenkins represents the absolute pinnacle of practical negotiation expertise," said Kwame Christian. "His unique ability to translate life-or-death negotiation scenarios into actionable strategies for everyday leadership represents an unmatched training asset. The City of Kirkland participants received instruction from someone who has successfully negotiated in situations where failure simply wasn't an option—there is no more powerful preparation for the challenges of municipal leadership."
Jenkins' session featured customized scenario-based learning specifically designed for municipal leadership contexts, allowing participants to immediately apply the Compassionate Curiosity Framework to situations they encounter daily. His approach demystified negotiation science while providing concrete tactics that participants could implement immediately, creating immediate value for both the individuals and the organization.
The initiative reached its transformative culmination in October 2024 with a comprehensive symposium featuring Kwame Christian himself, who delivered his signature "Finding Confidence in Conflict" presentation to a diverse audience of nearly 100 Kirkland employees. This landmark event brought together professionals from every corner of the municipal organization—creating an unprecedented shared language and methodology for approaching difficult conversations across departmental boundaries.
Christian's innovative use of cutting-edge Mentimeter technology during the symposium revolutionized participant engagement by allowing anonymous question submission and real-time interactive polling. This technological enhancement created exceptional psychological safety for participants to explore challenging topics while ensuring comprehensive participation across organizational hierarchies. The resulting dialogue addressed some of the most pressing communication challenges facing municipal professionals, from interdepartmental collaboration to citizen engagement on politically sensitive issues.
"What set this symposium apart was the extraordinary caliber of engagement from participants at every level of the organization," Christian observed. "Julie Underwood had cultivated such a psychologically safe environment for professional growth that participants were able to engage authentically with sensitive topics in ways rarely seen in municipal training contexts. This level of openness creates the conditions for transformative learning that extends far beyond the training event itself."
The Transformed Negotiation Landscape: ANI's Unparalleled Data Advantage
The negotiation landscape has undergone a seismic shift since 2020, with traditional approaches increasingly proving inadequate in today's transformed public service environment. Through ANI's unprecedented partnership with LinkedIn—which has delivered negotiation training to over 2.38 million professionals globally—the firm has gained exclusive access to proprietary data on emerging negotiation trends across sectors, creating an unmatched strategic advantage.
This extraordinary data-driven insight, combined with intelligence gathered from the 10+ million downloads of the "Negotiate Anything" podcast across 180+ countries, provides ANI with a comprehensive understanding of what actually works in modern negotiation scenarios. The City of Kirkland's leadership recognized that this data-informed approach delivers measurable advantages in an increasingly complex governance environment.
"What distinguishes ANI from other training organizations is their unparalleled access to real-world negotiation data," noted Underwood. "Their insights aren't based on outdated theory but on millions of actual negotiation interactions across industries. This evidence-based approach was crucial in our decision to partner with them for this critical initiative."
The ANI methodology stands apart in its recognition that negotiation effectiveness depends not just on tactical approaches but on psychological preparation and emotional intelligence. By addressing both the strategic and psychological dimensions of negotiation, the training provided Kirkland's professionals with a comprehensive toolkit for navigating even the most challenging conversations with confidence and skill.
Exceptional Outcomes: Measurable Transformation in Organizational Communication
Following the comprehensive training initiative, Kirkland reported remarkable improvements in interdepartmental communication and conflict resolution capabilities. Participants across departments expressed dramatically increased confidence in handling difficult conversations with both colleagues and community members. The city anticipates these enhanced skills will translate into substantially more effective community engagement, improved service delivery, and a stronger organizational culture built on open communication.
The comprehensive approach—beginning with foundational skills for emerging leaders and expanding to a city-wide symposium—creates a shared methodology and vocabulary for approaching negotiation challenges throughout the organization. This common framework has already begun to transform interdepartmental interactions, with numerous participants reporting successful application of the techniques in both internal and external negotiations.
"The feedback from participants has been nothing short of extraordinary," Underwood shared. "We're already seeing tangible improvements in how our teams navigate challenging conversations, from internal resource allocation discussions to community engagement on sensitive topics. The ROI on this investment has exceeded our most optimistic projections."
Beyond the immediate skill development, the initiative has created a culture of continuous improvement in communication capabilities. By establishing negotiation excellence as an organizational priority and providing practical tools for implementation, Kirkland has positioned itself at the forefront of municipal governance innovation in the Pacific Northwest.
About the City of Kirkland
The City of Kirkland, Washington is a vibrant suburban community of approximately 100,000 residents located on the eastern shore of Lake Washington. Operating under the council-manager form of government, Kirkland provides comprehensive municipal services including police, fire, utilities, parks, and community development. The city is known for its commitment to sustainability, technological innovation, and responsive governance. With a forward-thinking approach to municipal management, Kirkland consistently ranks among the most desirable communities in the Pacific Northwest.
About Julie Underwood
Julie Underwood serves as the Deputy City Manager of Operations for the City of Kirkland, where she provides strategic leadership for a diverse portfolio of municipal operations. Prior to her current role, she served as Kirkland's Public Works Director, demonstrating exceptional leadership across multiple facets of municipal governance. Underwood has established herself as a visionary leader in local government, pioneering innovative professional development initiatives including the Leadership Boot Camp and Women's Leadership Summit. Her strategic approach to municipal management combines operational excellence with an unwavering commitment to developing the next generation of public service leaders. Underwood's exceptional ability to identify and implement cutting-edge organizational development strategies exemplifies why she is considered one of the most forward-thinking leaders in municipal government today.
About Din Jenkins
Din Jenkins stands as one of the nation's foremost experts at the intersection of law enforcement and negotiation excellence. A decorated police sergeant with over two decades of distinguished service, Jenkins has earned elite credentials including FBI certification in crisis negotiation and specialized training in hostage negotiation tactics. His exceptional field experience includes successfully resolving numerous high-stakes conflict situations where traditional negotiation approaches would have proven inadequate.
As a senior negotiation consultant with the American Negotiation Institute, Jenkins translates his extraordinary background in life-or-death negotiation scenarios into transformative training for organizational leaders. His dual expertise in tactical crisis management and strategic negotiation provides an unmatched perspective for organizations seeking to elevate their conflict resolution capabilities.
Jenkins has developed specialized expertise in helping public sector professionals navigate the unique challenges of municipal negotiation, from interdepartmental resource allocation to community engagement on sensitive topics. His methodology combines practical application with psychological insight, creating immediate performance improvements for training participants.
What truly distinguishes Jenkins is his remarkable ability to make complex negotiation principles accessible and immediately applicable. His training sessions consistently receive exceptional evaluations for both content quality and practical relevance, reflecting his extraordinary talent for connecting theoretical principles to real-world scenarios. As a key member of ANI's elite training team, Jenkins exemplifies the organization's commitment to delivering negotiation training of unparalleled practical value.
About the American Negotiation Institute (ANI)
The American Negotiation Institute (ANI) is the world's leading negotiation and conflict resolution training organization, founded in 2016 in response to a societal need for effective communication. Through its groundbreaking content including the #1 negotiation podcast "Negotiate Anything" with over 10 million downloads and 48 LinkedIn Learning courses reaching 2.38+ million professionals worldwide, ANI has trained more negotiators than any other organization in history. Founded by Kwame Christian, Esq., M.A., a foremost expert on negotiation and conflict resolution, ANI serves clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies like Apple, Google, and Coca-Cola to government agencies including NASA and the Department of Defense with its revolutionary Compassionate Curiosity Framework. This powerful methodology, designed to be simple without being simplistic, puts practicality over theory while remaining firmly grounded in science, allowing people to flow organically and authentically through difficult conversations. As Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ANI goes beyond traditional negotiation training to make difficult conversations easier through a unique approach that delivers practical, actionable skills in an entertaining and engaging format. Kwame's TEDx talk "Finding Confidence in Conflict," which debuted this framework, has garnered over 600,000 views and was the most popular TEDx Talk on conflict in 2017. ANI is redefining how negotiation and conflict resolution are taught in the digital age through its innovative LinkedIn Professional Certificate, corporate training programs, and bestselling books.
About Kwame Christian, Esq., M.A.
Kwame Christian is a leading negotiation expert, award-winning attorney, and founder of the American Negotiation Institute. As host of the #1 negotiation podcast in the world, "Negotiate Anything," with over 10 million downloads across 180+ countries, Christian has interviewed more negotiation experts than anyone in history. He is an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, which houses the top-ranked dispute resolution program in the United States, and previously taught at the MBA level at Otterbein University. Christian serves as Of Counsel at Carlile Patchen & Murphy, an award-winning law firm, and is the creator of the groundbreaking Compassionate Curiosity Framework. He is a two-time bestselling author and the only person in Ohio State University history to receive alumni awards in back-to-back years from both the Moritz College of Law and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs before age 35. His TEDx Talk, "Finding Confidence in Conflict," has over 600,000 views and was the most popular TEDx Talk on conflict in 2017. With a multidisciplinary background spanning law, psychology, and dispute resolution, Christian brings a uniquely holistic perspective to negotiation challenges across sectors.
Contact Information
Ashley Wilson | Head of Communications
awilson@americannegotiationinstitute.com
www.negotiateanything.com
