The Power of Nice. Barshefsky Charlene

swaggering, in-your-face lingo – winner take all, out for blood, call their bluff, raise the stakes, battle-scarred, make 'em beg for mercy, first one to blink, an offer they can't refuse, nuke 'em, meltdown, go for the kill, last man standing – negotiation isn't about getting the other side to wave a flag and surrender. Negotiation is not war.

      Despite all the clinical, logical, rational, psychological, data-sifting analysis, graphs, pie charts, methods, and techniques from MBAs, CPAs, CEOs, shrinks, mediators, mediums, gurus, and astrologers, negotiation is not a science.

      The problem is that war stories tell well. Wars have heroes and enemies and simplistic lessons: Take no prisoners. To the victor belong the spoils. (But war, you may have noticed, can lead to more war.) And science sounds like a formula. If you do A, he'll do B, and you'll arrive at C. Maybe. Unless he does D and then what do you do?

      Negotiation as war and negotiation as science have each contributed to the popularity of the negative image of dealmaking, one by perpetuating the myth that the biggest, toughest thug wins and the other by way of the equally erroneous proposition that the coldest, least human calculator prevails.

      Cultural conditioning (magazines, TV, movies, best-selling books, infomercials) has reduced dealmaking to images of brutal combat – often making great entertainment on film but lousy negotiation in reality. Gordon Gekko, the classic tough-guy negotiator from the movie Wall Street, played business hardball and never seemed to lose. (This is the movies, not life.) You may recall one scene where Gekko showed an adversary how the game is played (or Hollywood's version, anyway). In the scene, the well-dressed and self-impressed Sir Larry Wildman tries to bully Gekko into selling his shares of stock cheap so Wildman can pull off a takeover deal. Gekko, of course, is too shrewd to succumb to Wildman's intimidation. Gekko's protègè, Bud Fox, watches and learns. It went something like this:

      Wall Street*:

      INT. GEKKO DEN – NIGHT

      Wildman

      I'm announcing a tender offer at 65 tomorrow. I'm expecting your commitment.

      Gekko

      Showdowns bore me, Larry. Nobody wins. You can have the company. In fact, it's gonna be fun watching you and your giant ego try to make a horserace of it… (turns to Bud) Buddy, what's a fair price for that stock?

      Bud

      The breakup value is higher. It's worth 80.

      Gekko

      Well, we don't want to be greedy, so what do you say to 72?

      Wildman

      You're a two-bit pirate and green-mailer, nothing more, Gekko. Not only would you sell your mother to make a deal, you'd send her COD.

      Gekko

      My mail is the same color as yours is, pal. Or at least it was until the Queen started calling you “Sir.” Now, you'll excuse me, all right, before I just lose my temper.

      Wildman

      …71.

      Gekko

      Well now, considering you brought my mother into it, 71.50.

      Wildman

      Done. You'll hear from my lawyers tomorrow. Eight a.m. Good night.

      Gekko

      Well, he's right. I had to sell. The key to the game is your capital reserves. You don't have enough, you can't piss in the tall weeds with the big dogs.

      Bud

      “All warfare is based on deception…” Sun Tzu. “If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight. And if not, split… reevaluate.”

      Gekko

      Hey, hey, hey, he's learnin', huh? Buddy's learnin'.

      * Excerpt from Wall Street ©1987 Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox. Written by Stanley Weisner & Oliver Stone. All rights reserved.

      The Hollywood version of dealmaking makes good entertainment; it just doesn't make for good deals. The person on the other side of the table doesn't have to stick to the script.

      Now, think of the word “negotiation” again. In order to practice the Power of Nice, start by wiping out everything you knew, thought, or felt about negotiation. Forget about winners and losers. Forget about verdicts. Forget about survivors and victims. Forget about keeping score. Forget about statistics. Forget about science. Forget about war.

      Going into negotiation and counting on scientific results is like betting on the weather. If the forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain and you leave your umbrella home and it rains, you won't get 20 percent wet; you'll get soaked.

      If you go into negotiation expecting war, bring a flak jacket. If you're armed for combat, the other side will be, too. If you have to win at all costs, so do they. Both sides attack, both sustain casualties. Neither side gives in, neither side gets what they want.

      Negotiating a Phone Call

      Imagine your car has broken down. You need to make a phone call for help and you have no cell phone. In the distance, you see a phone booth. You run to the booth but see there's a gentleman talking on the phone. How do you negotiate the man out of the booth? Do you wait patiently? Do you tap on the glass? How long is long enough to wait? Do you reach in and drag the man out?

      Okay, change the facts. You had a car accident and your friend is near death in the passenger seat. You have to call 911. Now how do you negotiate? Do you wait patiently? Bang on the door? Throw the man out?

      Change the facts again. You still have to call 911, but the man in the booth is Hannibal the Cannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. Do you ask politely? Do you try to throw him out? Do you invite him to have dinner with your friend? Do you run for your life? As situations change, negotiation strategies must change. Negotiation isn't a science – there's no laboratory-proven answer. And negotiation isn't war – you don't attack Hannibal the Cannibal. Negotiation is a human interaction; it must be adapted and modified to fit the situation.

      I Win–You Lose Becomes We Lose

      Remember, if one party destroys the other, there's no one left to carry out the agreement. (Exacting exorbitant rents, punitive penalty clauses, or unrealistic noncompete terms often defeat their own purposes by creating disincentives; in other words, deals that are so good, they're bad.) The negotiation doesn't end when the contract is signed. If the other side is crippled by the deal, they will have every incentive to break the terms, literally having nothing to lose. You just made your first and last deal, instead of the first of many in a long-lasting relationship.

      Nothing proves the point like history.

      The Last Day of World War I was the First Day of World War II

      It was 1919 and the Allies had defeated Germany. The story goes that the Allied representatives sat the vanquished German leaders down in a railroad car outside of Compiegne, France, to dictate the settlement that would eventually become the Treaty of Versailles. “Dictate” was the appropriate word. President Wilson had warned the Germans that the terms of armistice would be harsh – and they were.

      German troops had to withdraw to a line six miles east of the Rhine River. Allied troops would occupy the evacuated territory. The German naval fleet was surrendered. Virtually all military supplies were given up to the Allies, including 5,000 cannon, 25,000 machine guns, 5,000 locomotives, and 150,000 railroad cars.

      But the toughest demands were political and economic. Germany was ordered to pay huge reparations to the Allies in the form of cash and the removal of German assets and capital goods. France, which had been devastated by the German forces, regained Alsace-Lorraine and took over several German colonies. France was also given a 15-year lease on the Saar coal mines which, along with Lorraine, provided coal, iron, and potash to the development of heavy industry.

      With a crippled postwar economy, it was soon