When I was flying (to work) early this morning, I picked up a copy of the GlobeAndMail for my inflight reading. Yep, same old stories, gossip, movie reviews, baby boomers saga, Michael Jackson trial, etc.. But one article did catch my attention. The headline read
HARVEY SCHACTER'S GUIDE ON HOW TO HANDLE EVERYTHING FROM OVERFLOWING E-MAIL INBOXES TO MEETING OVERLOAD
Well I did relate to the headline right away, and that's what prompted me to read further. Schachter quoted Deepak Malhotra, a Harvard Business School professor saying :a sure way to win is to unscrew your steering wheel and throw it out the window so your opponent knows you can't possibly change course. Similar tactics can be applied in negotiations, to make a credible threat that the other negotiator must take very seriously:
This reminded me of a few friends of mine who used to make comments on my company being a superfast highspeed racecar on the autobahn without a steering wheel, Well, I hope they read this !! This is the kind of reading material every inflight magazine should have.
Here's Jonathan Schwartz's presentation on "The Dot.com Bubble was a Proof of Concept". Please listen to it carefully and try to co-relate. I sincerely hope you see what I see...
- Openly restrict your retreat possibilities. Make sure your options are irreversibly restricted and visible, as in the steering wheel example.
- Visibly incur sunk costs, like the company that signals it is serious in negotiations over price with its information technology supplier by not only saying it will create an in-house capacity but also plunking down $150,000 in unrecoverable costs for the necessary hardware.
- Delegate authority to somebody who will follow through on the threat -- generally somebody who has less riding on the outcome and is likely to be tougher.
- Create a reputation for making credible threats and carrying through on them, sacrificing dollars if necessary to principles.
I had to post something, no matter how