The Naked Negotiator

Some of my clients are what are known as secondary consultants.

As secondary consultants they subcontract to a primary consultant.

If they are not careful, they end up taking on the risks of the primary consultant.

In The Fat Tail, The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing, authors Iam Bremmer and Preston Keat offer 6 practical ways to deal with risks and uncertainty.

1. Isolating: You can isolate and separate critical assets, either to lower their overall vulnerability or simply to ensure that not all our critical assets are open to the same set of threats at the same time.
2. Smoothing: You can distribute risks over time and across various theatres, business subsidiaries and entities.
3. Warning: You can establish warning systems to better prepare for specific contingencies.
4. Agility: You can reduce the time and costs and response to crises and lower the risks associated with them.
5. Alliances: Alliances among firms and private corporations, non-governmental organisation (NGO’s), international instsiutions, and private stakeholders can help mitigate the risks inherent in uncertainty by spreading risk among them.
6. Environment Shaping: You can mitigate risk by influencing the environment where they operate.

Consider these six approaches when you face having to negotiate a complex, risk riddled contract.

Read Bremme’s and Keat’s book The Long Tail as well. It is powerfully argued. Bremmer and Preston Keat have played in the political risk management game for years.

Popularity: 25% [?]

“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit a third time - a tremendous whack.”

- Winston Churchill

In her book, POP!, Stand Out in Any Crowd, author Sam Horn tells us that one of the most dramatic examples of a crafted soundbite was one used by the late Johnny Cochran, one of the defense lawyers for O.J. Simpson.

Can you remember the trial?

It went on for months. The jury heard testimony from dozens of experts and witnesses. But the dramatic moment came when O.J. Simpson was asked to try on a glove arguably worn by Nicole Simpson’s murderer.

Many people believe O.J. Simpson exaggerated the difficulty of putting on the glove, but Johnny Cochran amplified the doubt over O.J. Simpson’s guilt with this pile driving soundbite.

“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Many legal analysts believe that this - Cochran’s summation encapsulated by this one soundbite - won the case. The phrase was doubly impactful because it recalled a visual demonstration.

The best PowerPoint presenters conclude with a pithy statement that recalls an earlier slide that had high visual impact.

Popularity: 28% [?]