How to negotiate like a child: unleash the little monster within to get everything you want by Bill Adler

Author:Bill Adler [Adler, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Business & Economics, General, Business Communication, Negotiating, Negotiation, Negotiation in business, Interpersonal communication in children
ISBN: 9780814472941
Publisher: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn
Published: 2006-12-15T04:09:39.481000+00:00

LET THE OTHER GUY THINK HE’S WON

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‘‘I got shoes on. Let’s go Pawpaw’s.’’

The battle was over. She won.

There was a certain synergy going on here. The little girl decided that the only way she could achieve her objective, going to her grandparents’ house instead of shoe shopping, would be to try and get her mother to believe that the ultimate objective would be achieved by merely putting on shoes. Her mother certainly recognized the difference between buying new shoes and putting on shoes, but the little girl figured—and was right on the money about this—that her mother would accept this change. The strategy of changing the rules would not have worked unless the little girl knew (or guessed) that her mother would cave in to the change of objective.

Can you make this method work in the business world? Oh, yes. Of course, it won’t be as easy as it was for this toddler. She had the advantage of having an adversary who really wasn’t prepared to fight about the shoes. Across a real bargaining table, you’re going to have to come up with some kind of plausible alternative that will allow your counterparts to imagine that they’re walking away with a victory. This happens all the time in politics: When defeat on a particular bill draws near, all a legislator has to do is redefine the objective to be able to declare victory.

Modifying the rules so that the other side thinks it’s won—or gotten something important—is one way to apply this technique.

Simply making sure that the other side doesn’t lose or is happy with what it gets, all the same, is another way. In an August 8, 2004

article (‘‘The Poker Player’’) in The New York Times, Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast Corp., said: ‘‘I’ve been able to perpetuate what my dad started. He always told me that in any negotiation, let the other guy feel [as if] he won. Don’t take the last nickel from the

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