Next Time, They’ll Screw Me. That’s Business

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.