The game of give and take (TLP 2025w10)

In a successful negotiation both parties should feel like they won something: the secret is to let your opposition win what does not hurt you.

Notes:

• I am a bit late getting this episode out, as I was unwell last week.
• But I want to talk about the recent Whitehouse meeting between President Trump, Vice President Vance, and President Zelensky.
• It was a painful example of a negotiate going off the rails, and is worth talking about in terms of what we learn from it as leaders.
• In a successful negotiation both parties should feel like they won something: the secret is to let your opposition win what does not hurt you.
• If one side feels like they lost everything due to maximum leverage being applied, they will feel resentful.
• In such a situation, the topic under negotiation will reopen in the future: that is inevitable.
• So, both sides should feel like they won on topics they care about, otherwise the resolutions will not stick over time.
• Vice President Vance displayed a combative style, that reminded me of an SVP that I reported to in the past.
• My SVP would:
  1. Challenge on every topic.
  2. Attack both the topic and the messenger.
  3. Be adversarial by default.
• I wrote a blog entry back in 2014 that reminds me of the argument in the Whitehouse this week: "Badgering is an aggressive questioning technique that is intended to steer the recipient to a conclusion that has already been reached, inside the mind of the badger." Ref: https://techleader.pro/a/436-Taming-the-badge
• I included a few tips in that blog about how to deal with someone badgering you, I think the following two still resonate with me after watching that grueling encounter in the Whitehouse:
  1. "Agree with everything they say: bite your lip and be like mister bobble head, always nodding and smiling. This will save your energy and blood pressure. Forget about everything they said immediately afterwards."
  2. "Get the badger to confront you publicly. To a reasonable audience, the badger will seem like a bully and you will garner sympathy."
• All strong leaders should be able to deal with badgering, and an emotional reaction is not how to do it.
• You need to fight for the important topics, but concede on the unimportant ones.
• There should be no pride in a negotiation, leave your ego outside.
• Arguing about every single point however will get you nowhere, and will most-likely lead to a breakdown of negotiations as we all witnessed so painfully during that Whitehouse exchange.
• Leverage is everything in a business deal, everything else is just talk.
• President Trump and Vice President Vance understand this: they are business men first, and politicians second.
• It is brutal to witness this if you are not used to it, but that is the reality of high stakes negotiations and both men are bringing that robustness to international politics.
• Diplomacy is great, but leverage is better.

Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/682-The-game-of-give-and-take-(TLP-2025w10)