The Naked Negotiator

Negotiators can be divided into three groups: foxes, bloodhounds and donkeys.

Foxes

Foxes are at heart devious. Ruthlessly competitive, they exploit negotiation opportunities to deceive and manipulate others. Life for a true fox is a contest; they win, you lose.

When foxes manipulate, they focus on the short term. If they are selling, they focus on the current sale. They don’t care about how their behaviour might damage their long term reputation so long as they close the deal in front of them.

Bloodhounds

Bloodhounds are detectives of influence. They recognise the negotiation opportunities inherent in any situation and legitimately take advantage of them. Influence opportunities are not good or bad in themselves - they are opportunities to build mutual gain.

Bloodhounds are win-win motivated. They use influence opportunities to create synergy - where one and one equals three. They also think about the long term implications of anything they do. They appreciate that a reputation built over years can evaporate in minutes with the wrong tactics.

Beware: Some bloodhounds are closet foxes.

Donkeys

Because they are stubborn, unwilling to learn and inflexible, donkeys botch most of their influence opportunities. Typically they fumble their way through meetings, presentations and negotiations.

Meetings derail in confusion and argument. Presentations fail to convince. Negotiations that have the potential to be win-win turn into lose-win or lose-lose.

Donkeys usually lack the skill to recognise the influence opportunities inherent in any situation. They also lack the techniques to skilfully manage an influence opportunity through to its best conclusion.

Turning donkeys into bloodhounds

Can you turn a donkey into a bloodhound? Yes, you can. Most donkeys simply don’t know how to analyse or manage an influence opportunity. Donkeys who belong to this group lack knowledge and need training.

A second group of donkeys has a natural distaste for using influence. They see influencing and persuading as unethical manipulation. Donkeys of this type can usually be won over with education and training. Most become enthusiastic bloodhounds when they learn that if you truly believe in the merits of your proposal, you are letting your customers or co-workers down when you fail to persuade.

The last group of donkeys is much harder to change. If someone is truly inflexible and cannot see the world through any other person’s eyes. He is doomed to remain a donkey.

Turning foxes into bloodhounds

Foxes fall into two groups. The first type of fox has become a fox because of an overriding ambition to succeed. Such people would like to be able to look themselves in the mirror in the morning and play win-win, but in a dog-eat-dog world they believe good guys finish last.

Most people in this group have a limited repertoire of skills. In negotiations they lack the skills to turn a win-lose haggle into win-win agreement. This group can be converted but the often need intensive training or managing.

The second group of foxes may be irredeemable. These foxes are genuine Machiavellians. They lack trust; they don’t care about other people’s needs and they delight in contests where they win and you lose. Training will do little for this group. What they need is a character transplant. Deal with them at your peril. If you can, avoid them.

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