Janet and I have a 15-month-old and we split up certain “responsibilities.” I call them responsibilities for want of a better term, and I am totally convinced that I got the better end of the bargain. Even though these responsibilities have to be done, when assignments were issued, I managed to get the things I really wanted to do and Janet got the rest.
In any event, I give our 15-month-old, Jordan, a bath every night between 7 and 7:30 pm. To say that it is a bath is somewhat misleading because it is more a “process” than an “event.” There is the pre-bath, the bath, and the post-bath.
The Bath
The pre-bath process includes “I’m gonna get you” behavior—on my part, of course, not on his—culminating in me eventually undressing him.
The bath consists of this “ba-boom ba-boom,” behavior with a green cushioned crab going after Jordan’s neck as I complete the cleansing and shampooing process.
And the post-bath consists of my efforts to put Jordan’s pajamas on while he retains the opportunity to be without clothes.
Somewhere along the line, while trying to trap Jordan long enough to put his diaper on before the tee-shirt, the socks, the pajamas, the bib, and the hair combing, it occurred to me that I was being given the opportunity of a lifetime to learn fundamental lessons of negotiating at the earliest stages of development.
Let me share with you what I discovered.
1. Select your points of contact.
Jordan starting walking on his first birthday. Not one day before, not a day after. Right on his birthday. I’m not exactly sure why it occurred that way, but it did. Since that time, he has pretty much terrorized the house.
We had decided not to child-proof the house, not because we were naïve about the chances of ceramic survival but because it just wasn’t worth living the next three or four years with a stripped down, padded wall living environment. Besides, we figured that along the way we would probably learn some lessons about how to protect the goods.
Our first lesson was that we might as well pick our points of contact or points of battle. If we were going to say “no” to everything that Jordan touched, we could pretty much be assured that at some point he’d simply tune us out. So, we started taking a look at everything he was touching. When it was something that really didn’t matter—cloth, candles, books, pictures, and more or less, unbreakables—we simply let him play to his heart’s content and factored in the compromising expectation that we would be retrieving a lot off the floor.
On the other hand, when Jordan went after the breakables—crystal, wine glasses, decanters, brandy glasses, statuettes, art work and the like—the directive was a gentle “no,” followed up by additional no’s as we guided his hand away from the object mesmerizing him.
We’ve been using this procedure about three months. Will it work? I don’t have a clue. But, in the meantime, it occurred to me that negotiation is no different.
In negotiating, you want to provide a general framework of “yes” or agreement and choose very carefully the points you are prepared to discuss. If something doesn’t matter or represents a minor inconvenience, let it go, storing in your mind only those things that require major discussion. In the process, you create an environment in which you and your negotiating partner come up with the various ways that you agree on things. You focus on those areas on which you may not agree. They are narrowed down to those that are essential to you and on which you focus your primary consideration. Of course, the inconveniences along the way are not forgotten; they are stored for future barter.
Choosing your points of contact, or points for “no,” doesn’t always work. Take a look at rule number 2.
2. Always replace a “no” with a “yes.”
At 15 months old, Jordan is not all that interested in learning what he is not allowed to do. Breakables are within reach of a boy who wants to touch anything he can as often as he can and with maximum effect. That has resulted in a few “accidents” along the way, but so far, we have been fairly good at the process. A simple “no” is certainly not enough. Repetitive “no’s” are better, but we have to add in another factor.
When you combine a “no” with a “yes” to something he is allowed to do, this attention is shifted from what he is not allowed to do to what is available.
“No, Jordan, don’t touch the brandy glass” turns into “Here, Jordan, hold pretty red candle.”
Negotiating isn’t a whole lot different than that and, in fact, it is probably not even all that much more sophisticated.
“I appreciate very much what you are saying, Mike, but that’s just not something I am willing to do. However, let me make a suggestion to you about something else I think might be beneficial to both of us.”
Same concept, different ages.
3. Demonstrate your capabilities.
Part of the nightly ritual, especially now that Jordan is walking, is for me to chase him around the rocking chair in his bedroom as I go through the process of getting his pajamas on (a process, by the way, which takes longer than the bath).
I don’t exactly go all of the way around the rocking chair because I can’t. I can only go three-quarters of the way around it because the crib is next to the rocking chair and there is a little wooden rocking horse in between the chair and the crib. The only one who can fit between the two of them, even on our hands and knees, is Jordan.
Somehow, however, Jordan hasn’t managed to figure that out. He knows that I can never chase him through the straights, but even when I bluff and pretend that I will, he takes me up on it and runs the other way. And then, of course, I catch him as he is coming around the other side and put on one more piece of clothing.
You have to be asking yourself at this point, what could that possibly have to do with negotiating. Think about it. In a real negotiating session when both players are playing for keeps, part of your assessment of your own negotiating position reflects your assessment of the other person’s strengths and capabilities to do without the choice you are negotiating for. In other words, when you are assessing how much you should be pressing a particular point and the extent to which that particular point is important to you, you also have to ascertain what the other person’s alternatives are.
A standard negotiating technique is to diminish the value of certain aspects of what the other person is offering you and highlight your own capabilities of performing even if this deal does not go through.
Regardless of whether we are bluffing, your negotiating partner’s position, as well as his or her response, will be predicated as much upon whether he or she wants the deal as it is upon the extent to which he or she sees or knows that you have other alternatives available to you. Regardless of whether those alternatives are available to you, what’s important is that the other person believes they are.
We had three joint residency training programs in San Diego immediately prior to the San Diego convention. The city was completely booked, and any locations close to the convention site were taken. My job, after our logistics department had been unable to find a location for over three months, was to go to San Diego and a cut a deal with some hotel as close as possible to the San Diego convention site.
I finally found a location, but it could have turned out to be unworkable for us if the hotel recognized how booked the entire city was and how minimal my alternatives were. It was literally the only hotel that had any availability at all.
Needless to say, I got through the negotiation. It was as important to the success of that negotiation that the hotel perceived my capability to bring the programs elsewhere as it was that the hotel wanted our business.
4. One snap at a time.
I happened to remark to a friend of mine not too long ago that I had never lived so much in the moment as I had when I was putting Jordan’s pajamas on, one snap at a time. I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that a baby hitting the crawling age isn’t going to lie there and allow you to put his pajamas on while he mediates.
The first time Janet sent me in there to put his pajamas on and I came back out of his room looking like I had been through a hail and wind storm, I realized that I probably had the wrong perspective on the whole thing.
My objective was to get to the end—putting his pajamas on. My objective should have been to stay with the process, step by step. Making the first objective paramount could wear any adult out. When I finally got the idea, that the objective was not putting the pajamas on but snapping each snap, the whole process turned out to be a blast.
The greatest sins in negotiating occur when we are so keen on cutting the deal that we forget to set the pitons. We want the objective, but we don’t recognize that the objective is worthless, or the expenditure of effort too significant, if we are not securing our position along the way. There is only one way to do that—point by point, measure by measure.
In a good negotiation, each party focuses on the process, listening and responding appropriately to the other side, and then moves on when both are comfortable. That is about the only way that I know to create a hassle free, tussle free, negotiated result that lasts.
5. Sometimes only a bald smile will do.
In certain instances, when Jordan starts getting himself worked up because we are refusing to give him what he wants and there isn’t any opportunity for diversion, there aren’t too many options left.
At 15 months, he certainly doesn’t understand strong negative reinforcement or, in any event, if he does, it certainly is not going to quiet him down in the middle of a restaurant full of people. And when we take a look at the objective, the most important one at that moment is to get him quiet without sacrificing the dish that he is reaching for or the salt-shaker that he has already thrown on the ground twice before.
It’s during those times that only one option is left—make a game out of it. When our parental position changes from participating in a tug of war to pretending that it’s a game, Jordan stops crying, starts playing, laughs, and moves on when the game is over.
At times, in the midst of a negotiation, when it is clear that both parties are at loggerheads over a particular point, there is sometimes only one choice left—baldly and boldly make a game of it to the point where it is obvious that it’s a game, intended to be lighthearted, and intended to put into perspective the particular point at issue.
Subtlety is no longer necessary. In fact, the more the subtlety, the less effective is the move to provide a smile. The action has to be abrupt, obvious, and so apparently self-serving that the very light-heartedness of it breaks the stalemate.
I remember being in the midst of a client’s mediation settlement that had gone hot and heavy for several days with one final sticking point over $20,000. Even though $20,000 is a lot of money in real terms, the actual lawsuit was over a $400,000 claim. We had been deadlocked on this one $20,000 issue for close to two hours and it appeared that the $20,000 conflict was going to jeopardize the entire settlement.
In the middle of the mediation and at a particularly tense time, I suggested that this was about to go as far as it could go and if we couldn’t reach agreement rationally, we should have both parties throw their choices to the fates and cut a deck for high card. I never expected the suggestion to be taken seriously, but what happened was priceless. The air lightened up so much by my suggestion and the tenseness in the atmosphere was cut so drastically that both parties started laughing about how funny it would be if a three year lawsuit got solved by cutting high card. That opening in the communication allowed the parties to resolve not only that one issue but the rest of the entire case in less than 30 minutes.
In a business closing I was conducting as a neutral closing agent, it appeared that the parties were stuck on one particular point. We simply could not reach a rational solution with both parties firmly implanted in their positions and getting more stubborn with each passing minute. I feared that if we continued in that vein, the entire closing would blow up. There was no way to get them to a settled position based on any rational ground.
Hence, with a wry smile, I suggested that we forget about trying to reach an agreement in principal and asked the buyer of the bakery if he would be willing to deliver two dozen croissants on the first Friday of every month for the next twelve months to the seller’s office. I hadn’t asked the seller whether he was willing to accept that, but most important of all, I had to get them lightened up to the point of gaining some perspective over the issue.
It did the trick. We ended up not with my suggestion but with the buyer of the business delivering to the seller’s office two dozen croissants every Friday for three months after the closing.
Sometimes, you have to throw all of the negotiation niceties to the wind and just go for the smile.
In any event, Jordan, I don’t know whether these are negotiating lessons I just learned in having to deal with you, or whether I’m just being reminded. In any event, I’m learning a lot and I owe it all to you.
Original writing date: September 1996