(I’m new here, so I started a reply comment, posted it prematurely, then retracted it, then finally deleted it—just because it wasn’t really thought out. I suspect that wasn’t the right way to go about it.)
I suspect my client had never read a book on negotiation. In my experience, I have seen a lot of people who believe some combination of two things about negotiation: (a) if you can talk, you can negotiate; and (b) negotiations work out for you if the other side acts in good faith.
In my experience, these beliefs tend to loosely correlate with some other behaviors that I suspect I see because I am primed to see them due to my job as their lawyer: (c) writing an agreement in normal business-speak and believing that is sufficient (note: I am note defending “legalese”); (d) the agreement that gets written does not address how the arrangement ends; (e) the agreement does not address what happens if the arrangement is a failure or what happens if the failure is simply mediocrity (i.e. neither tolerable nor a dire failure, but some level of moderately unsuccessful outcome); (f) business people referring to “standard” language when there are no standards; and (g) the business people confusing issues of language and issues of substance (deprecating issues of substance as just being about the language).
So, I would say that he was naïve, in the same way that most non-experts are about any expert field. By naïve, I mean both ignorant of the substance and ignorant of the complexity of the field. He did, though, do the generically right thing when he discovered his naiveté: he decided to become and expert (no) or to engage an expert (yes) or take the risk of proceeding without an expert (no).
My client was extremely sophisticated in his own field—branding, brand management, advertising, and generally business-to-consumer communication, especially communication without words (images, etc.). He may have initially suffered from the misplaced confidence that arises from being an expert in one field: I have seen experts in fields act as if their vast competence in their own fields means that they are vastly competent generally. They then apply the knowledge of their own field by analogy to an unrelated field. They can come to strikingly wrong results.
While I agree with you that the three techniques you identify are common, I would not say that any of them are at the top, at least in negotiations over things that are not a single number. The top technique is to first make sure that the parties’ interests actually conflict and how. Typically, the parties take positions that cover their interests and quite a bit more. Those positions can conflict when the underlying interests do not. They are typically willing to narrow their position to match their interests more closely where the other party identifies a different interest that conflicts with the position.
Benquo:
(I’m new here, so I started a reply comment, posted it prematurely, then retracted it, then finally deleted it—just because it wasn’t really thought out. I suspect that wasn’t the right way to go about it.)
I suspect my client had never read a book on negotiation. In my experience, I have seen a lot of people who believe some combination of two things about negotiation: (a) if you can talk, you can negotiate; and (b) negotiations work out for you if the other side acts in good faith.
In my experience, these beliefs tend to loosely correlate with some other behaviors that I suspect I see because I am primed to see them due to my job as their lawyer: (c) writing an agreement in normal business-speak and believing that is sufficient (note: I am note defending “legalese”); (d) the agreement that gets written does not address how the arrangement ends; (e) the agreement does not address what happens if the arrangement is a failure or what happens if the failure is simply mediocrity (i.e. neither tolerable nor a dire failure, but some level of moderately unsuccessful outcome); (f) business people referring to “standard” language when there are no standards; and (g) the business people confusing issues of language and issues of substance (deprecating issues of substance as just being about the language).
So, I would say that he was naïve, in the same way that most non-experts are about any expert field. By naïve, I mean both ignorant of the substance and ignorant of the complexity of the field. He did, though, do the generically right thing when he discovered his naiveté: he decided to become and expert (no) or to engage an expert (yes) or take the risk of proceeding without an expert (no).
My client was extremely sophisticated in his own field—branding, brand management, advertising, and generally business-to-consumer communication, especially communication without words (images, etc.). He may have initially suffered from the misplaced confidence that arises from being an expert in one field: I have seen experts in fields act as if their vast competence in their own fields means that they are vastly competent generally. They then apply the knowledge of their own field by analogy to an unrelated field. They can come to strikingly wrong results.
While I agree with you that the three techniques you identify are common, I would not say that any of them are at the top, at least in negotiations over things that are not a single number. The top technique is to first make sure that the parties’ interests actually conflict and how. Typically, the parties take positions that cover their interests and quite a bit more. Those positions can conflict when the underlying interests do not. They are typically willing to narrow their position to match their interests more closely where the other party identifies a different interest that conflicts with the position.
Max
Thanks for the correction, you’re right that the most important thing in negotiation is often the parts that aren’t about conflict at all.