Turning Lemons into Lemonade in Negotiation
A quick word first
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“Negotiation is like jazz. It is improvisation on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you don’t know how to get there. It’s not linear.” U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke.
The value of spotting opportunities that others miss
Many years ago a major publishing house signed a contract with a respected author for a biography of Franklin Roosevelt. The writer threw himself into the project, delving into official documents and personal papers, immersing himself in his subject’s life and family.
The deadline for the manuscript came and went, as did an extended date. At long last, the author delivered his draft. It was a magnificent narrative, rich with insight, especially about the complex relationship between the thirty-third president and the first lady.
There was only one problem. The finished book was over 1,400 pages long. The publisher admired the writing but was convinced that the massive tome would intimidate even serious readers. The author was told that he had to make cuts. Drastic ones. He refused. Having poured years of effort into the book, he wasn’t about to trash half his work.
Stalemated, the parties tore up their contract, and the author repaid his advance.
The writer then approached another house, W. W. Norton & Company. That firm also was concerned about the length of the draft, but its editors saw a simple solution. They just cut the manuscript in half and had two books instead of one.
The first volume, titled Eleanor and Franklin, was still more than 700 pages, but it won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for its author, Joseph Lash. His sequel, Eleanor: The Years Alone, was a bestseller as well.
Why didn’t the editors at the first publisher spot this obvious solution? After all, they had read the same manuscript and were dealing with an author that they liked and respected. Yet they saw as irreconcilable their own need for a shorter book and his refusal to make cuts. The second publisher had the creativity to recognize that instead of being a problem, the size of the draft presented an opportunity.
A single creative idea can spell the difference between a deal and no deal, as with Lash and the two publishers. It can also turn a good deal into a great one.
An unexpected problem
That brings me back to Richard Holbrooke, whom I quoted at the top. Holbrooke brokered the Dayton Accords in 1995 which quelled much of the bloody conflict in the former Yugoslavia. However, even after the agreement was signed, violence continued in contested regions. Serbian gunmen were shooting at cars with Bosnian-issued license plates that didn’t use the Cyrillic alphabet. As you can see the two are very different.
Bosnian “Cryllic” alphabet
Serbian alphabet
This problem hadn’t been foreseen when the agreement was signed. And with relationships still bitter, Bosnian officials certainly weren’t going to adopt the Serbian system, nor would Serbs accept the Bosnians’ modern alphabet. Do you have any suggestions?
Improvising a solution
Spotting a potential solution where others can only see a problem requires what organizational behavior expert Frank Barrett describes as having an appreciative mind-set, or, in the vernacular, saying yes to the mess. That means having a clear-eyed view of whatever you confront, while still believing that there’s something that you can make of it. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss called it bricolage.
In the United States, it’s known as MacGyvering (a nod to the 1980s action-adventure TV series MacGyver): Improvising a solution with a few pieces of junk, some duct tape, and a Swiss Army knife.
An optimistic attitude can be contagious. It can encourage other parties to roll up their sleeves and help search for agreement. (It has to be tempered, of course, by the recognition that not everything is negotiable.)
The divide between the Bosnians and the Serbians had stretched back for centuries. It was unthinkable that either side would buckle under and accept the other’s alphabet for its license plates, yet the late American diplomat Richard Holbrooke mediated a truce.
If you have a couple of minutes, you can hear him explain how it did it by clicking here:
If you’re pressed for time, just look at the highlighted alphabet below.
The Serbs and Bosnians, burdened by their bloody history, could only see how different their letters are. Holbrooke, with fresh eyes, could see that the two alphabets nevertheless have have ten letters in common.1 Using just those ten could generate millions of unique license plates, without having anyone lose face.
Creativity in negotiation depends on the attitude you bring to the task. Focusing on whatever it is that won’t work can blind you to solutions that will.
Housekeeping
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Only nine letters are highlighted here. Apparently the person who created the image didn’t spot the tenth letter, the X on the bottom line.