Want to master the art of negotiation?
It all begins with selecting the right puppy.
Puzzled? I will explain.
An instructor with 40 years of experience once told me: "No subsequent efforts can turn a coward into a hero. Start with the right puppy and the rest will fall into place."
The same approach applies to business negotiations. You may think that the most important thing is to have tactical skills in this mental battle. But if your counterpart is a fraud, psychopath, or liar, then any attempts to reach an agreement will be futile. While you are pondering whether to move your knight or pawn, he (or she) is stealing your queen from the board. Like melting snow on a mountain, he is just waiting for a good opportunity to unleash an avalanche on you. In his imagination, the predator has already eaten you. For him, the subject of negotiations is to devour you in pieces or all at once.
You may argue that one needs to be able to defend oneself against evil intentions. Yes, but I remember cases where even very smart people were deceived by a professional liar. The society of Alcoholics Anonymous has a valuable rule: "If you don't want to slip, stay away from slippery places." It is much more effective to develop in yourself the ability to distinguish dangerous partners, so as not to enter negotiations at all or to timely catapult yourself out of them.
This is true even for one-time transactions. Therefore, for example, experienced founders choose not the buyer who offered the highest price for their company at auction, but the one who has a reputation for fulfilling promises. I remember "miraculous" deals that were rolled back or stuck in courts for many years.
But the entrance control becomes especially critical for relationships with a long horizon. We are talking about choosing an investor, co-founder, long-term landlord, or even a client. No matter how good the contract is, if your partner is toxic by nature, it's like going into the mountains with a coward or getting stuck in an elevator with a jerk. By definition, nothing good can happen to you there.
All successful, that is, surviving entrepreneurs have had negative experiences in the past. As a result, each one developed their own lie detector and litmus paper to test the partner's acidity level. Of course, no one wants to immediately clarify suspicions or exacerbate the first contradictions, risking spoiling a tempting partnership. However, experienced entrepreneurs know for sure that a small diagnosis at the beginning eliminates the need for major surgery in the future.
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As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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