|
LETS MAKE A DEAL
Monday Aug. 31, 2015
Compromise and negotiation.
We want what we want, talk out of one side of our mouths, which actions often contradict.
Meeting half-way is no win/win situation. Most people internalize that as a half-lose equation.
We all want what we all want.
Selling, negotiating forty-seven years experience (some home-runs, some clear wins, many clever compromises and untold abject failures) surely qualify me to comment. Many transactions, two marriages, two divorces, two near-Mrs., two daughters, two-grandchildren and a dog who wants what she wants …
Do I make deals?
Do I compromise?
Most people say they hate confrontation. Me too, yet I love debate, robust discussion – perhaps that’s fighting – about issues, ideas and policy that matters. Love it, but I don’t want to paint my friends into corners. Don’t want loved ones to hate me.
Yet I’m not so worried about my adversary/enemy/competitor distancing themselves.
Most people say they want fairness, they’ll meet you half-way. Lovely concept, but please show me two parties who will agree on a definition of fair. Half-way works for people as long as their sense is that the end point is still nearly all-the-way to their way.
They don’t want half-way, they want all the way. Their way. There is never a short list of reasons. They feel they are right, have might or want to fight. They argue or avoid, engage or disengage – everyone has their own style/culture of negotiation. I won’t debate that – I’ve seen so many variations.
The problem that most confounds negotiations is that we want it all guaranteed in some form of contract or form of obligation – a commitment.
That’s a lovely dream …
Mark Kolke
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: 12C/53F, cloudy, light breeze, Gusta dawdled hunting for rabbit candy in the tall grass – which please me because I’m hobbling a little (I managed time at the range + three holes yesterday before my ankle yelled for help!), ice and tape are on my agenda; traffic busy, summer must be waning …
| 
