CHAPTER 12
Planning to Win SUCCESS
IS A
CHOICE, NOT
A
RESULT
business must not be left up to chance. Chance is for gamblers and the vast majority of gamblers are losers, much to the delight of casino owners everywhere. Winners control risk and make it work in their favor, much like those same happy casino owners do. The choice of a proper strategy (by a negotiator or team) controls risk to the point where success is readily foreseeable. Failure is the result of poor strategy, not the level of risk. This chapter explores the process of choosing a strategy, but it doesn’t recommend one strategy over another. Negotiators must make that choice for themselves.
WINNING IN INTERNATIONAL
Understanding the Zero-Sum Game In the introduction to this text the concept of the zero-sum game was proffered as the essence of international negotiations. It’s a very old concept that has, on occasion, been pushed aside by such theories as “win-win” and “co-opetition.” These latter theories are decidedly less confrontational, but therein lies their weakness. International business is a very high stakes, super-competitive and often brutal form of commerce. While time may soften its edges, that softening will not occur for several generations. R U L E : My gains come at the expense of your losses, and vice versa.
Every negotiator and team must enter discussions with a clear idea of how much they’ll need (not want) to take away from the negotiations and a detailed strategy for attaining that objective. Considerations about the opposition are based entirely upon how much they can afford to give up and still remain interested in the deal. No one side will get everything it wants, but both sides must get exactly what they need or what they’ve been convinced they need. The role of a successful negotiator is to allow counterparts to protect their needs by bargaining away their wants. The “pie” being negotiated can be cut into an infinite number of slices, but the pie never changes size. Some slices are more important than others (needs versus wants), but the fact remains that the more one side gets, the less the other side can have. Acquisition of 30 percent of the pie by team A means the loss of 70 percent. Team B meanwhile has attained a 70 percent gain and sustained a 30 percent loss. Both sides’ gains are offset by the total of both sides’ losses. The zero-sum game seems simplistic, but it’s often misconstrued as creating winners and losers. It may, but it’s not inherent in the system. It might just as easily result in two winners or two losers, based entirely on the goals each side initially brings to the table. Moreover, the concept of winning and losing in international negotiations is strictly self-imposed. In the example stated above, team B may indeed consider
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