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October 27, 2007
Power Negotiation has a Price
The reason they say to keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer is that power negotiators have no friends. They have no one they can trust. The first rule of power negotiating is trust no one. That is a sad state of affairs when negotiating is simply the process of interacting with others. It is a requisite of social survival.
To be a power negotiator limits your ability to openly communicate with others. The school yard bully has the respect of a small group of peers but the ire of the rest of the student body and faculty. When the time comes to matriculate and join the adult world, the bully will find few friends from school he can call on to open doors or otherwise help him.
The second rule of power negotiations is to not reveal your needs, wants, objectives and goals; to keep your foe guessing. The bully cannot reveal his real feelings, even to his peers. So he becomes isolated and ill informed. When corporate CEOs, intoxicated with their power, become bullies around the office they quickly cut the lines of communication that served to get them to the top. These short-lived tours of duty are excellent examples of the Peter Principle.
Power negotiators have limited potential. While they may succeed in one or two aspects of their lives, they will likely fail in others. Too many hard driving business negotiators are deemed effective around the deal table but later are seen alone in a dimly lit bar wondering what happened to their families.
The effective negotiator views power negotiations as a tactic, not even a strategy. They use it to amplify an argument or capture a concession. They do not abuse it to the extent that it damages the relationship or jeopardizes future opportunities.
Posted by Bill at 9:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 5, 2007
Socializing is Part of a Negotiation
Sociologists have studied the ways primates learn. One of the studies included very young chimpanzees and children. The combined group was given a basic demonstration on how to open a device. Afterwards the chimps and children were given their own devices.
The chimps diligently tried to open the devices. They applied their proven skill of random experimentation. The children, on the other hand, applied what they had been shown and tried to open the device with that technique. The children were far more successful.
We, humans, learn through socializing. We observe others, collect those observations and store them away to use in the future. Chimps, on the other hand, attack each new task with vigor but with little application of what they have just observed.
Negotiators must develop the social skills to promote social interaction as part of the early negotiating process. From this interaction will come insights useful in the actual negotiation discussion. In today’s fast paced environment, too often building a relationship is omitted in the interest of saving time and getting to the point. This can be a costly strategic error.
Posted by Bill at 1:18 PM | Comments (0)