BEST Negotiation Picture of 2019
There are lots of ways to deepen your negotiation skills. You can study books, take courses, get a coach, or coach someone else.
You can also learn by being observant, reflecting on your own experience, viewing other people’s behavior, and also watching movies, especially ones that spotlight interpersonal dynamics.
For a master class on persuasion and coalition-building, you can’t beat Henry Fonda’s classic performance in Twelve Angry Men. For taming a hard bargainer, there’s nothing better than the scene in the remake of True Grit in which young Mattie Ross outwits a horse trader.
And the 2015 Best Negotiation Movie Winner, Bridge of Spies (about the swap of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and American Francis Gary Powers) is a historically accurate tutorial on strategic agility.
Thank you all for your nominations for best of 2019. The two runners-up are Little Women (which begins and ends with a negotiation), and Uncut Gems (where an operator juggles a bunch of shady deals).
Our 2019 winner is unlike either of them. It’s Marriage Story starring Scarlet Johansson as Nicole, and Adam Driver, as Charlie, her husband. From a negotiation point of view, it’s a cautionary tale about conflict, specifically how two good people can make a bad a situation worse.
I know that’s not much of a sales pitch. Given the topic, I was reluctant to see it myself. But the story is so compelling and so well told, I’m glad that I did. It may not be for everybody, though, so let me highlight some broader lessons about conflict in personal relationships, be that in families, communities, or the workplace.
1. Good intentions are not enough. People who get caught up in small disputes often mean well. They may even recognize the risk of escalation, as do the husband and wife portrayed here. And they may sincerely commit themselves to resolving their differences amicably.
That’s a start, but what each person says or does step-by-step sets the path for what happens thereafter. Ambiguous comments are construed negatively. One person’s defensiveness can be read as hostility by the other. Small provocations are answered with larger ones.
As with all negotiations, strategy should drive tactics—not the other way around. The hotter the emotions, the more important is maintaining that perspective.
2. Things are often not what they seem. At first in the movie, it appears that it’s the wife Nicole who is set on ending the marriage, while the husband Charlie wants to save it. But as the story unfolds, there’s a sense that the husband is ambivalent himself. Maybe he knows that it’s over, but he wants his wife to take the fall for it.
The lesson? Be cautious in assessing other people’s motivations—and just as important, your own less than conscious needs. Truth be told, do you need to “win,” retaliate, or deny any role in sparking the problem?
3. Beware of instigators with their own agendas. In the beginning Nicole and Charlie swear to handle things privately and amicably. But then a friend of one them urges getting a lawyer, so the other responds in kind. Both attorneys are sharks with big egos (played wickedly by Laura Dern and Ray Liotta).
When Charlie tells the Liotta character, “I just want to be reasonable,” his attorney answers: “Listen, if we start from a place of reasonable and they start from a place of crazy when we settle, we’ll be somewhere between reasonable and crazy. Which is STILL crazy.”
Hurling accusations back and forth, both lawyers dig their clients into an ever-deeper hole. While pumping up their legal fees along the way.
For many of you, that trio of points may have cemented your mind shut against ever seeing this movie. That's understandable. But it isn’t all grim. There even are some funny parts. And the leads are so personable, it's hard not to root for them.
Whether you give it a look it or not, think about the disputes, small or large, that you, may have gotten tangled up in.
What have you learned to avoid getting caught in lose-lose escalation traps? High on that list should be maintaining a balanced perspective and summoning your best self.
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Version 2.0 of my Negotiation 360 self-assessment/best practice app was released late this fall. The app is available on both Apple and Android devices. Subscribers get priority access to the new Agility at Work podcast that I co-host with Kim Leary. Kim teaches Adaptive Leadership at the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. And that nicely dovetails with my focus on strategic agility and being quick on your feet in negotiation.