Years ago, I was conducting a negotiation training session
for a group of two dozen executives, and a comment from someone attending the
session took me by surprise.
We were debriefing on an exercise where three people,
representing Company A, Company B and Company C, try to collaborate and
maximize the value of a transaction for themselves. As we went over the results,
one group in particular seemed to have had a difficult time getting to an outcome.
Among the three people in the group, one took a highly
positional approach to the negotiation. Rather than trying to find way for all
three parties to benefit and, potentially, work together in the future, this
person wanted to have the best outcome at all costs, even if that meant alienating
the other executives.
In the scenario, there is a potential outcome where A, B and
C each get value from the deal, based on principles of legitimacy. In
negotiating for Company A, this executive seemed to have no regard for
legitimacy and interests to achieve a fair outcome that would open the door to
a future relationship.
I asked the individual about the strategy for Company A to
take such a hardline approach with the other two companies, B and C, to “win”
and deny them any real value in the deal.
The executive said, “This time, I screwed them. Next time, they’ll
screw me. That’s business.”
What stands out most from that statement, even a decade
later, is the fact that an individual could have that view of “business.” Can
anyone optimize their outcomes in business, politics or their personal life if
their strategy is to screw and be screwed?
Unfortunately, that is the reality we face sometimes in
business and in some people’s view of the world. For some people, not only is it about me, and
not about you, but it is about me to the exclusion of you.
One thing 30 years of negotiations has taught me:
collaboration will always bring greater outcomes than competition. While I am
seeing greater signs of collaboration at the negotiation table, I am seeing
less of it in our public discourse. Our world is closed system (we only have
what we have) and we have limited time (about 78 years, if you’re lucky). We
could all generate so much more value and productivity to this world, and
happiness to ourselves, if we engaged more in understanding other people’s interests
and generating options to resolve differences, rather than anchoring ourselves
to positions and refusing to budge.
