I Will Make Sure You Lose Your?Job

My mother accidentally taught me how to ensure that fear as a negotiation strategy fails.?

Unintended Negotiation Training

My mother was very conservative and believed that nothing good could happen when I stayed out after midnight. When I was seventeen, I would creep up the stairs when I got home from my girlfriend’s house, only to be let down by a creaky stair.?

“What time do you call this?” was her rhetorical opening question, facilitating a long tirade about lateness. My refusal to respond shortened the discussion, as she could not argue with a bucket of water.

Making the Impossible Possible

Many years later, I used the same negotiation technique with a Spanish customer who was a little upset that we had sold them a dumb terminal rather than a PC for their travel agent business.

When I turned up, the opening greeting I received as the third project manager was, “Your company will close, and I will make sure you lose your job.”

The Sales department felt the negotiation was impossible, and they agreed to pay me their sales commission. What became our most profitable customer was rewarding for me at many levels.

It was the best policy to refrain from arguing against a powerful customer who held all the cards.

The customer was happy when my team developed a “PC-like” multi-emulation terminal, which worked and met their needs some months later.?

So were my young children, who received sweets and gifts for months afterwards.

Behavioural Science

I later discovered that the basis for my negotiation technique was the psychology of insufficient justification. If an argument is lost because of insufficient justification, your opponent will require an even stronger justification to change their position.

The consequences of understanding negotiation as behavioural science means I spot manipulation and propaganda usage in corporate and media channels.?

This manifests as fear, bullying, abuse and threats, which are usually rather primitive. Mostly, it’s just management by bullying and fear because the company’s culture is to get it done regardless.?

Compliance is not collaboration, so everything stops when the pressure is off.

Persuasion Engineering

Historically, all the businesses I have been responsible for have focused on growth and profitability. They were often too busy to accept change, which was resisted by demonstrating that all staff were 100% loaded.?

They behaved as if busyness were a value rather than an excuse for avoiding change.

Behaviour engineering was required to persuade them to adopt change.

Ironically, the proposed change was internalised after a problem was resolved or a benefit was demonstrated in accelerated product introduction, reduced support costs, increased productivity, and bottom-line profitability.?

Like Oliver Twist, the next request was “Can I have some more?” without the “please.”

Conclusion

Using fear as a negotiation strategy failed when I knew I was right and they were wrong. However, a poker face is critical because using “fear” is a learned behaviour that works.

My lighthearted comment of “illegitimi non carborundum”, the mock Latin aphorism meaning “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”, is mistakenly seen as a joke.

One slightly stunned, rueful protagonist even commented, “Ian is a pussycat, but he has sharp claws”.