Quickthink

Yesterday we finished the first day of negotiation training for a new group. What happened? A lot of things. But one thing in particular fascinates me.

People come to negotiation training with a lot of fixed ideas about what they need and what they  already know. And by the way, this is true of how we approach most of the challenges that we face in life. It is a painful first step to let go of assumptions that are not useful. That hurts because it seems to threaten our identity. But we have to do it if we want to open our minds to creative thinking.

So what are some of the fixed ideas that people have about negotiation? People think that success in negotiation is about becoming powerful. Why? Isn’t that how we can get what we want or what we think we need? With this assumption, people want to learn tricks of the trade. The magic that unleashes the genii from the bottle. Sure, there are tricks. But based on my experience, understanding the tricks is less important than understanding the process. And in the first day, we get our first look at the process — for what it really is.

I can’t describe that process in a single blog post. But I can give you a glimpse of it. Negotiations tend to be stressful. Why? Because we don’t know how they will work out. The negotiating process is about managing that stress to our advantage. Not just to your own individual advantage. But to the advantage of  the group that you identify with. That you want to strengthen. Sometimes that means protecting the group from an outside threat. Sometimes it means opening up to a new idea. Deciding which is needed in a given context is an important strategic choice. Once we make that choice, we then take on the role of the caveman or the genius.

If this interests you, come to the course. There is a lot, lot more to talk about.

I promised this post a few days ago, and here it is!

I was saddened when  Whitney Houston passed away. I was not a huge fan, but she was so young and talented. Yet even though she seemed to have it all, she just fell apart. And it is not the first time that a celebrity performer went in this direction. It seems like an occupational hazard! I wonder why.

Of course, performers are very good at pleasing their audiences. That is what they do. And they are highly sensitive to audience reaction. Fans give them an adrenalin rush. But apparently that is not enough to offer a great life. At the end of the day, it seems that performers are often less good less good at pleasing themselves than pleasing others.

When I was a lad, I thought that this came naturally. Wasn’t it automatically fun to be free of school and parental control?  But as I grew older, I realized that people have widely different aptitudes for pleasing themselves. It came as a bit of a shock and the shock grew as it dawned on me that I could use some improvement in that area as well. “What! Me? Grumpy!?”

You might be wondering what this has to do with two hearted conversations. Well, conversations are the work horse for connecting. And connecting  is a prerequisite for innovation. That means doing conversations well is an important skill.

Here comes the big point - getting conversations  to work better means finding a balance in the exchange between pleasing (performing) and being pleased.   That makes it sort of “two hearted”.

The same is true in a negotiation. There is the effect of what we say and do (and we must be performers to a certain extent) as well as the fun of testing a strategy. You have more fun when you grow more confident. And where does the confidence come from? Well coming to my negotiation course is a good starting point.

It is nice to have friends. Here is why.

A while ago, I had lunch with two friends, Marju and Kadri. At lunch, we started talking about open innovation, shared space and learning cycles. And my friends were kind enough to listen to me. And not just that. After the lunch, they threw my ideas back at me. And we all started having a lot of fun putting the ideas into projects. Experimenting. Seeing what would make them work better. Two very cool projects have came out of it. In connection with one of these projects, Marju has built up a valuable new capacity - making video. And there are more to come.

A couple of weeks ago, Marju said to me, “You know, not enough people know about this. You need to do a video and talk about negotiation and problem solving.” So we did a video (coming out soon)t. Then yesterday, Marju said to me, “You know, if you take this seriously, you need a brand so that people can connect with you.” And so I today registered the brand “strategyfirst.ee”.

It all started from a conversation with a few friends. Now it is building into some really interesting stories.

FOLLOW -  BTW,Marju is right. In the old days, only celebrities and big firms thought about branding. But these days, if you have a great story to tell, you have a brand to develop. FC has a nice article today about some web tools to help you brand better.

A brief disclaimer. Some time ago, I had the privilege of working in Bahrain on and off for several years in connection with a legal assistance project. But I am not an expert on Bahrain, and do not pretend that my comments here are anything other than an outsider’s sympathetic view of what is going on there. And the opinions here are solely my own.

I did not want to read Atlantic Magazine’s article about Nabeel Rajab. I knew what it would say before I read it. I knew that it would say that tensions between the Sunni government and its majority Shi’a population persist and that no one knows what to do about it. I knew that the article would describe how Shi’a leader Nabeel Rajab tries to stay out of jail and keep his followers in the streets while the government tries to figure out how to get them off the streets. The bottom line is that neither side knows what to do with the other. And surprise, surprise, that is just what the article says.

The sad thing is that it really doesn’t need to be this way. Bahrain is essentially a friendly place. The people are just that way. And the governing Sunnis want it to be that way. They are not hard liners or fanatics, though they are conservative. They want Bahrain to be a peaceful and prosperous banking center and I am sure that they are horrified by what happened at Pearl Roundabout and elsewhere last year.

But there is a problem. And while the problem is simple, it is also intractable, at least for now. The government bought into the mindset that only step by step liberalization avoids risking uncontrollable outbursts of anger by disenfranchised Shi’a. So the government stage managed the reform dialogue over the last period of years. Introducing some democratic institutional reforms without nurturing democratic values. Sorry, but no matter how well intentioned this may have been, it never works for long. Why not? Because after a while, angry people get angrier when they believe that they are being manipulated. So even as things are getting slowly better, the anger about the perceived manipulation can get worse. Meanwhile, whatever dialogue exists tends to wither. The two sides talk past each other. Trust is broken.

This is sad. And yet, the mindset that brought us this far is quite strong.  The decision makers are prisoners of a weak strategy in a volatile situation. I don’t expect them to change. And that means that Nabeel Rajab et al probably won’t change either. It looks like the people on that tiny island are in for a bumpy ride for some time.

FOLLOW - Bloomberg reports on the demonstrations taking place on the anniversary of last year’s protests and offers this

Tensions in the island nation have simmered in Shiite villages throughout the past year and have recently spread to the capital, Manama, as protests became more violent in the run- up to today’s anniversary.

Oh dear.

The way we live now

Yesterday, my friend Marju said that getting into conflict is like falling into a well. She has a point.

Over the last several days, I have noticed more than the usual number of articles in the digital media ranting about what other people write. Bill Keller went nuclear, for example, about “knuckle dragger” tweets concerning an alleged NYT double standard about digital piracy. He wrote

Whether or not Twitter makes you stupid, it certainly makes some smart people sound stupid.

And Bill has a good point on the merits. Today MG Siegler writes

Most of what is written about the tech world — both in blog form and old school media form — is bullshit. …

Hmmm … doesn’t sound like digital nirvana. And it is not surprising. With social media entering our routines, we create more content faster. But speaking and writing faster do not produce more meaningful dialogue. At the same time, we are not about to go back to the good old days when events moved more slowly and we all had time to reflect before we picked up our quill pens (err … were things really ever that way?). Moreover, the trend is that we will need to use digital media more — not less — and to do it in new ways. For example, using video. The conclusion is a bit sobering: the risks from using digital media poorly are likely to grow. And as we do more work across cultures and over distance, well, the risks are likely to grow faster still.

So, it may not be a bad idea (especially for younger persons out there) to reflect for a moment. Are you up to this? If not, working to upgrade your communication skills might find a place on your “to do” list. Errr … like taking a course in negotiation? Definitely! Better yet, by taking MY course in negotiation.

Now, how is that for some good old fashioned blatant self-promotion!

FOLLOW - And about that “falling in the well” metaphor — getting into conflict warps dialogue over time. Not just for the moment, but as part of our ongoing history. It is sticky. This can have disastrous long term effects where positions harden and relationships wither over a period of years. Don’t believe me? Well check out Paul Krugman today on why the candidates for the US Republican Party nomination for president all seem so weird.  He writes

For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.

The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game (over an extended period of time), and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure.

I get a headache when I start to think about the various conflicts that have been work here over the years — and not just among republicans. These are likely to fester if not get worse. Very complicated. Very messy. And in the end, not productive.

Perhaps the US can afford this type of distraction. But most of us and most of our institutions are not so lucky. We need tools to manage conflict more efficiently. Notice I did not say eliminate conflict. That is neither possible nor desirable. To be blunt: sometimes, conflict is needed. Too bad for us, but that is one of the realities of being human. But just because we need conflict from time to time, doesn’t mean that we need to wallow in it. Conflict management tools help us strike the right balance.

2d FOLLOW -  Last night my friend Liam showed me a set of six 18th century Hogarth prints that comprise a series called “marriage a la mode”. Following the story line, one gets the sense that the “good old days” that I referred to above were not so good after all.

As a lawyer, this scene in the fifth print in the series got my attention

… the new Earl catches his wife in a bagnio with her lover, the lawyer, and is fatally wounded by the lawyer. As she begs forgiveness from the stricken man, the murderer in his nightshirt makes a hasty exit through the window.

Good Lord!  A bagnio? And done in by the lawyer! Who then will handle the estate? Perhaps that question is on the lawyer’s mind as he peeks back from the window. Just for fun, here is the image from Wikipedia

A quick primer on negotiation

Of course you do not. But someone very much wanted to give Sandy Weill that amount. Why? Could it be that Mr. Weill is a good negotiator? And what was his key negotiation skill? Well, setting the price he wanted, of course. From BI

It is such a simple lesson. But one that we easily overlook. You only can get what you have the courage to ask for. And that includes, BTW, the courage to ask for things other than money. So, Steve Jobs famously said “nyet” to many perfectly good projects. Why? He was asking for great projects. Not just good ones.  And he got some great ones too. More than one. After a while, the people he was negotiating with got used to what he was asking for. And they gave the greatness to him.

FOLLOW -  More frequently, you hear this lesson in the negative - “you won’t get what you don’t ask for”. I like the lesson better in the positive - you CAN get great things if you ask for them. Call me an optimist, but I think people want to share great things. To be part of something great.

We start up our negotiation course today here in Tartu and I am looking forward to it. One of the themes of the course is how to manage yourself better during stressful communication. Today I saw two articles connected to that theme that may be useful to you. First is an FC article that offers three ways to keep your head during conflict with a difficult person. Next is a NYT piece on how humor helps us deal with crisis.

Enjoy!

When you wan to persuade someone of anything, start by linking your argument to a sympathetic figure. How about Shakespeare? Then build the argument around his hypothetical demise. Something like, “if the internet existed (with freemium) back in the 16th century, would we have got Shakespeare?” Here is a link where you can read Torrow, Aiken and Shapiro roll out precisely this argument in full regalia, complete with archeologists sifting around in the dirt in East London for earthenware knobs.

It is a nice story. But did we not have great dramatists before Shakespeare? And did pulling down the Globe theatre really end production of great drama? And how about this whopper — while Turrow, Aiken and Shapiro champion US legal innovation to protect intellectual property, they leave out that the US courts in the 19th century brazenly refused to enforce British intellectual property rights (like those of Dickens). Indeed, the US literary market was a paradise for literary piracy. So does the US really have such a strong claim to leadership in protecting intellectual property rights now … just because it would like to provide more protection to rich US corporations that own most of them (like Disney still owning the rights to Mickey Mouse)?

So don’t be fooled by stylish references to the great bard. The real story going on these days is that the old way of distributing content (through books, plays and movies) is giving way to new opportunities for wider and cheaper distribution. That doesn’t mean less quality. It means adjusting to new platforms that offer more to uers.

After two intensive days of negotiation training, we take a break and let the class think over what they have experienced. This gives me a chance to reflect a bit as well. One of the more interesting themes of the course relates to persuasion. Students are often skeptical of the idea that they can become more persuasive once they understand how the process works. And how does it work? Well, it has a lot to do with how well we connect with and are able to relate stories. Stories (much more than products) sell.

This article bout selling thousand dollar bottles of sake gives a glimpse of what I mean. Here is the link. Alternatively, you might consider what story is emerging in Egypt. Nickie Kristoff offers his story line about two brave ladies who stood up to government thugs in Tahrir Square, Cairo. Here is that link.

Trust me on this one. It is not easy in a tough negotiation just to say “no deal”, stand up and walk away from the table. But sometimes it has to be done — especially when the party on the other side is demanding something that runs contrary to your core values. When is that? It happens more than you might think. But each case is different because we operate with our own packages of values. So case studies of saying “no” are perhaps the best way to get the idea.

Paul Krugman thinks that Barrack Obama needs to say “no” now to extension of the Bush era tax cuts for the rich that Republicans are demanding. He lays out a pretty good argument why “no” is better than “let’s make a deal” — even though raising taxes in a recession carries political and economic costs. It is worth reading in light of this rather ticklish negotiation problem. Here is the link.

FOLLOW -  Well, President Obama decided to give up the opportunity to end the Bush tax cuts for the very rich for 2 more years in order to get support from Republicans on other issues. He did a deal. Was it a mistake? He will argue that it was necessary to get benefits for the middle class. But I don’t know. It looks a lot like a betrayal of a core value as well. I am reminded of the tax deal that the first President Bush did — that eventually contributed to his defeat by Bill Clinton. Remember “read my lips. No new taxes”? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.