‘pendulum of emotions’.
No living person’s emotions can be completely neutral. Our pendulum of emotions is always in a state of flux: even when we are calm, our pendulum will oscillate slightly. And the task of the negotiator using the Kremlin method is to swing the pendulum to its maximum amplitude, so as to more effectively influence our actions and dealings.
Let’s see what happens to our pendulum of emotions during each of these five postulates.
Postulates 1 and 2: the negotiator listens to us and asks us questions. This puts us in a pleasant, even happy frame of mind. The pendulum swings out towards the positive edge of its range.
Postulate 3: we are ‘depreciated’. The pendulum swings in the opposite direction.
After the fourth postulate, once the ‘red carpet’ has been rolled out, our pendulum moves back into the positive. That is where we want it to stay.
If this isn’t enough to seal the deal, then one more step is added – postulate 5.
Under what circumstances is it ethical to use such negotiation methods?
Before we answer this question, let’s evaluate the effectiveness of this method.
How to measure the effectiveness of any negotiating system
A system is evaluated on three points:
1. The negotiation system should, where possible, lead to a reasonable agreement.
2. It should get results effectively.
3. It should improve (or at the very least not worsen) relations between the parties.
On the first and second points there is no doubt that this school of negotiation gets results, and it clearly leads to an agreement.
Which begs the question:
to what extent does the Kremlin method improve relationships?
The answer to this question will also answer our question of ethics. Let’s take a look.
Every coin has its flip side, and I have to examine both.
In theory, the answer should be a resounding no: it worsens them.
The opponent leaves the negotiations feeling happy with the outcome. At that point in time, they genuinely believe that they have found a win–win scenario: both sides have won and they have also met the goals they set out for themselves. After all, they got the contract (letter, sponsorship, etc.). Gains have been made. At some point, however, this person will start to get a feeling I liken to a hangover – when your head starts to clear after a big night, and you realise that something isn’t right, that you’ve done something wrong. Only in this case it’s that something isn’t right, but that someone else has done something wrong to you. This ‘hangover’ feeling can soon begin to grate.
This is one reason why the Kremlin method isn’t always conducive to long-term relationships, which is a major factor to consider in our modern world. Now, if you don’t need long-term relationships – if this is just a one-time negotiation that you want settled here and now – then this method is undoubtedly very effective. But if you have your sights set on long-term communications – even just one more exchange with this party – or if their recommendation is important to you, then this negotiation method is not for you.
That being said, in practice things aren’t always so black and white.
In 2006, when Russia introduced an import ban on Moldovan wines, our company experienced some difficulties. This ban meant that all of the wines in our warehouse would have to be destroyed. And that our regional partners owed us a lot of money for these very wines.
Of course, many of our partners started to speculate on the situation, trying to shift as much of the risk and loss onto us as possible.
Initially we made the decision to write off these debts, in the hope of preserving these relationships and encouraging future business. But then a combination of circumstances made us change tack and toughen our policy. We insisted that our partners accept their share of the risk, and pay what they owed us for the wine that we had had to destroy. With some companies, the matter even went to court.
It is worth noting that, despite us having handled everything in a ‘civilised’ manner, some of the companies from the first list turned their backs on us and stopped working with us. But the very companies that ended up ‘taking a hit’ continued doing business with us, some even more so than before.
Businesses prefer to work with strong, reliable opponents who stand up for themselves. In practice, people respect strong, decisive opponents.
Never sacrifice your own interests to maintain a relationship. That is no marriage of equals. Strategically, you stand to lose both the relationship and your negotiation benefit. Your opponents are most likely simply banking on your desire to ‘do the right thing’.
So where does this get us with the ethics of the Kremlin method?
As with any weapon, this method can be used for good as well as ill. It all depends on your goal. If you use the method in a competitive setting, with no fraudulent intent, then it can be regarded as one of any number of resources. But it’s another matter entirely if the method falls into the arsenal of a not-so-honest negotiator.
For this reason, it can be beneficial to look at how to stand up to negotiators who have near-enough mastered the Kremlin method, while also honing your own methods.
A reminder: developing three basic skills will take you far in the art of negotiation. These three skills will help you to become a true negotiator and leader and to get results. Let’s recap what these are. The first is the ability to defend your interests, i.e. to play the strong lion, see your goal and pursue it. The other two are the ability to manage your emotions and the emotions of your opponent, i.e. to be a circumspect and slightly cunning fox.
BEING THE LION IN PURSUIT OF YOUR INTERESTS
Above all else, defending your interests is knowing how to fight for them. We can draw an analogy between this and physical combat, even war. In fact, negotiation algorithms have much in common with those of military operations, which is why virtually every negotiation method has some grounding in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, written some 2,500 years ago.
War is a form of combat that plays out through the positioning of bodies and objects in space. It only differs from other forms of combat – wrestling, or a fistfight, say – in the specific equipment used, and in the all too real possibility of inflicting irreversible physical damage on the opposing side. Fistfights lack both the weapons and the irrevocably destructive objectives of war.
However, where negotiations follow the same formulae as physical combat
