Pride—The mother of all sins and the thinking that you are better or that your situation is different.
2.)
Greed—The human emotion of wanting “more.” Every human being has a magic number and that number is “more.” The most important question you have in a negotiation is, When is enough enough? and stick to it.
3.)
Lust—The undisciplined emotion of sex in a negotiation is a pitfall that can ruin many otherwise competent negotiators. Very often men will be sent to negotiate with women, and women will be sent to negotiate with men. Sex can take the other side’s focus off of the real issues at hand.
4.)
Envy—The desire to count the other side’s money instead of your own will prevent you from winning the negotiation. What you want and what they want are two seperate things. Do not count the other side’s money—it doesn’t matter.
5.)
Wrath—When emotions go up, intelligence goes down. Sometimes negotiations can get heated, and wrath takes over. When anger takes over, your chances of winning a negotia-
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tion go to almost zero.
6.)
Sloth—Negotiations take a lot of work, time, effort, energy, and sometimes money to carry out. Many humans avoid negotiating purely because it takes energy—don’t be lazy!
7.)
Gluttony—The human emotion of anything done to the extreme. Although opening positions may be extreme in a negotiation and it’s effective to be extreme at times, very seldom can you be successful by being extreme over time.
(11.) Poor record keeping and research—Superior negotiators conduct thorough research before entering a negotiation and keep excellent records on their position and the other side. Consequently, poor negotiators keep poor records and do little or no research.
(12.) Bad trading or no trading—Poor negotiators typically are bad at trading items and will lose to superior negotiators when trading. Poor negotiators are also bad at selling their position to the other side and creating value in their position.
(13.) Failure to Understand and Embrace Human Nature—Understanding human nature and how people work is one of the most important fundamentals for negotiating. You may not know the technical intricacies of how a negotiation works, but you can understand human nature and still be successful. Many of history’s most successful world leaders, industrialists, entrepreneurs and military generals who shaped the course of history through negotiation, commerce and war had little technical knowledge of negotiation but instead had a deep understanding of human nature. In many ways a deep understanding of human nature can outweigh all technical skills at the bargaining table.
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Reason to Study Negotiation #4: All Is Fair in Love and War
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Reason to Study Negotiation #4:
All Is Fair in Love and War
“Your political reputation affects how likely allies are to trust you,
and what kind of deals they’ll offer at the negotiating table. There’s
also some emotional response in there, so factions do bear grudges.
Just like the real thing.”
—Mike Simpson
I
n negotiation, as in war, there are no rules. It might seem kind of ironic that you are reading a book about the rules of negotiation, and it may seem a little comical. There are no rules, but at the same time,
there are rules to create order out of the chaos. Negotiation is a chaotic subject with unexpected outcomes and results. Rules in negotiation are often like rules in war in that whoever wins the war makes the rules.
I teach a negotiation class to businessmen and entrepreneurs who perform thirty live negotiations over three days. The students negoiate for ten houses, ten cars and ten pieces of furniture. The houses, cars, and furniture are ficticious but each negotiator puts his own real money on the line at the rate of $5 per negotiation. The winner of the negotiation, the person who gets more of what he wants, gets to take the loser’s $5 bet, and when people are negotiating for their own money, the results are fascinating. Over three days, the room of otherwise civilized businessmen wearing their best suits degenerates into an anarchy of lying, cheating, stealing, jumping on tables, slamming doors—and one student even stole another student’s play money. To an outsider, the picture I have
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painted of these $5 negotiators may appear to be an inaccurate representation of humanity. These small-time negoitators were only negoiating for $5 at a time; imagine how they would act negotiating for a $5,000 item or $500,000 item. Would their behavior be magnified with more lying, cheating, and stealing? The likely answer is yes. The way a man treats one dollar is the same way he treats a million dollars.
Throughout history great generals and leaders of men have understood human nature and, subsequently, how to negotiate. The Great Wall of China is visible from space and was supposidly built to fend of a specific group of raiders called the Huns. The Huns were very skilled mounted archers who would storm into a town or fortification on horseback and fire volley after volley of arrows at their enemies. The Chinese, wishing to keep the Huns out of their territory, built the great wall to keep the Huns out, so they travelled West. At the same time, the Roman Empire was splitting into two smaller empires as it began to decline. The Roman Empire, which formerly ruled all of Europe, was now separated into two smaller empires—east and west. Atilla the Hun was the famous leader of the Huns at the time and was so feared and had such a reputation for brutality that entire towns and cities would surrender as he approached their walls and would pay him tribute of gold and silver to go away without shedding blood. Over the years Atilla was hired by the Eastern Empire to attack the Western Empire and then was hired by the Western Empire to attack the Eastern. Through his mercinary military career Atilla and the Huns became very rich through their people’s only industry—war. Along with great riches from sacking towns and intimidating them, eventually the Huns were awarded their own parcel of land that was later named Hungary. By being fearless warriors and having a fearsome reputation, a nomadic people with no industries other than war, the Huns were able to carve a permanent piece of land for themselves out of the landscape of Europe that exists to this day. Atilla the Hun was a great negotiator, and although he used force, intimdiation, and power to get what he wanted, he was able to get the gold, land, and slaves that he wanted from a much larger and more powerful enemy than he was by leveraging his reputation, his skill for diplomacy,
