I Have To Have It All Together

I have negotiated business deals for the better part of twenty-five years. These deals involved many important people and companies. When i first started, I was clumsy. I approached things with brute force and adversarial confrontation, which set a tone that didn’t always make things go as well as they should have. I believed I needed to show unwavering strength at all times to get the outcome I was looking for. I believed I had to put on a facade of “having it all together” so I wouldn’t somehow compromise my position. Every single time, I’d go in combatively and the other side would come back at me with the list of reasons why my strong position wasn’t reasonable, tenable, or appropriate. It created a gulf we had to cross to reach a deal and usually strained the relationship, requiring way more work, so much more emotion, and often resulted in poorer deals.

It turns out inspiration really can come from anywhere. I started every negotiation differently from that point on. I thought about what they would come at me with, which of my position’s weak points they’d attack, and I brought them up before they did, addressing them honestly and cutting off the possibility that they could exploit those weaknesses or surprise me with them. Someone’s going to take a swipe at me for being the new guy? I am new to this business, but that fresh perspective may allow me to see things others aren’t looking for.