To progress to your place in the sun you must always put up with some blisters—those who dispute your right of passage. There is nothing wrong with having this opposition. From it, you sharpen your mind, increase your skill, and add zest to your life. In fair competition with an opponent you gain insight into yourself that will foster growth and development. As Walt Whitman wrote, “Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you?”
Opposition is what life is all about. Your entire muscular system depends on it. When an infant first tries to stand he encounters resistance from the force of gravity and falls down. But as he persists, he builds the muscles in his arms, legs, and back until he finally rises. Dealing with opposition can keep you alert.
To get what you want, you have to encounter opposition. If you have no opponents, it may be that you’re still seated. In essence, you’re not negotiating to get the result you want. Provided that you are doing nothing, you’ll soon get opponents. Your boss, peers, subordinates, mate, family, and others will oppose you because of your inaction. You may even end up negotiating with yourself, as you try to manage your disappointment. So the question isn’t whether you will have opposition. The question is, “From whence cometh your opposition?”
Opposition comes in two forms:
A. Idea opponents
B. Visceral opponents
A. Idea opponents
An idea opponent is one who disagrees with you on a particular issue or alternative. The disparity of misunderstanding is theoretical. You say, “I think it should be done this way.”
He or she says, “No, I think it should be done that way.” Approaching this conflict of views, using the method suggested in the previous chapter, it is possible to arrive at a solution that will satisfy both of you.
Remember, our method encourages the pooling of ideas, information, experience, and feelings to find a mutually beneficial outcome. It is even possible, with both sides working together, to bring about a synergistic result. This happens when the final result surpasses the contributions of both sides. Where synergy occurs, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” or one plus one equals three. In other words, the final agreement could give both sides more than they even expected at the outset.
When this occurs, you have used the pressure of adversity or opposition to help you get what you want. In this way, an idea opponent is always a potential ally. Granted that a composite solution could be better for you and your opponent, why is this outcome so rarely achieved?
Because most people violate what we have said about building trust and starting with agreement on the problem to be solved. Instead, they begin negotiating with an idea opponent by announcing their alternative or answer. They may even take a harder line and express their conclusion as a demand or ultimatum. Being confronted by your opponent’s position, usually stated numerically, causes you to respond in kind. Suddenly, both sides are poles apart in a competitive Win-Lose negotiating mode. The potential ally has suddenly become an adversary.
Should both sides realize their dilemma, they can scrap this framework with its focus on “my way versus your way.” Presumably, if too much damage has not been done, they can then share information, redesign the package, and still arrive at a Win-Win conclusion.
But if the focus is not changed, attempts to reconcile the divisive positions are frustrating. Trying to negotiate conclusions or ultimatums is like trying to cut down a redwood tree with a pocket knife. You can jab away forever, but it just stands there. There are no soft spots. There’s no give.
Here’s what I mean: You apply to me for a job and ask for a salary of $50,000. That’s what you have concluded you are worth. Based upon my company’s pay-grade structure and what others are earning, I offer you $30,000. That’s my conclusion. You reiterate that $50,000 is your “rock bottom.” I restate that $30,000 is my “absolute top.” I refuse to budge. You refuse to budge. You won’t consider going lower and I won’t consider going higher.
To break this impasse and in a spirit of harmony, I say, “Okay, maybe I can go to $30,200.”
Sarcastically, you respond, “Okay, maybe I can drop to $49,990.”
We butt our heads together with the force of two mountain goats on a cliff.
“Is that it?” you finally ask.
“That’s it,” I reply.
You depart in a huff and start looking elsewhere. Somewhat irritated, I open my top desk drawer and begin to leaf through a pile of résumés.
But what if—as idea opponents—we started out searching for a solution to the problem of meeting both of our needs? Gradually, as we build trust we share information, experience, feelings and needs with each other. As we progress each of us has heard the other’s point of view and is able to see things from his angle as well as our own. We now can understand their constraints, and when each party eventually states his salary position, we can comprehend the rationale behind it.
In spite of all this effort expended, a logjam continues to exist, and we are far apart on salary. Supposing I now pour both of us a glass of water from a container and suggest, “Maybe, we can move off the discussion of salary itself and talk about other forms of compensation that might meet your particular needs.”
You nod your head in assent. Together, we proceed to repackage or rework the agreement, taking into account my restrictions, limitations, and needs as well as yours. What we are doing is moving from the competitive Win-Lose area of salary where I am confined, to use leverage in other areas where I have more flexibility.
After a candid give-and-take discussion, we set up a situation in which although you receive only $30,000 in salary, you get money in other forms. The final accord calls for you to receive more than the equivalent of $20,000 in terms of:
Clearly, I have gone beyond the realm of realism in any employment contract that I know about. This listing was deliberately expanded to give you an idea of how dollar bills, or in some cases personal satisfaction, can come in forms other than salary.
It should be noted that such items cost the company money, but it may be in an area where the expenditure is more acceptable from their point of view. Finally, unlike salary, some of these benefits are not legally taxed as income. And so the real worth and value of an item given to you in this manner is much greater than if you were to pay for it yourself. You have just experienced a synergistic effect.
Keep in mind that these twenty-five extras represent an incomplete listing, and some are of greater or lesser value to you, depending on your unique needs. They are nothing more than dollar bills in a different form or dispensed in a different manner.
If you were the prospective job applicant, this refashioned and reshaped package might meet your needs much better than the $50,000 in salary. Assuming that this creative agreement was within reason, don’t feel sorry for the employer; an experienced buyer of services generally gets value for his or her expenditure.
That was a hypothetical example of reconstructing a negotiation to meet the needs of idea opponents. Here’s a real one:
Several years ago, I represented a large corporation that was attempting to purchase a coal mine in eastern Ohio. The mine owner was a tough negotiator who wanted $26 million from the outset. A $15 million offer was made as a starter.
“Are you kidding?” blustered the owner.
The corporation answered in effect, “No, we’re not! But give us your realistic selling price, and we’ll consider it.”
The mine owner remained adamant at $26 million.
In the ensuing months the buyer offered $18 million, $20 million, $21 million, and $21½ million, but the seller refused to budge. Stalemated, neither side moved. The situation? A $21½ million offer against a $26 million demand. As I stated before, it is almost impossible to creatively negotiate only conclusions. Since you have no information about needs, it is difficult to restructure or reshape the package.
Perplexed as to why the owner wouldn’t accept what appeared to be a fair offer, I had dinner with him evening after evening. Each time we ate, I explained how reasonable the company was in making their current offer. The seller was usually taciturn or changed the subject. One night in responding to my regular pitch, he commented, “You know, my brother got $25½ million and some extras for his mine.”
“Aha!” I thought. “That’s the reason he’s locked in on that particular number. He’s got other needs that we are apparently neglecting.”
With that insight, I huddled with the corporate executives involved and said, “Let’s find out exactly what his brother received. Then we can reshape and repackage our proposal. Apparently, we are dealing with important personal needs that have little to do with pure market value.”
The corporate officials concurred, and we proceeded along those lines. Shortly thereafter, the negotiation was concluded. The final price fell well within the corporate budget, but the payments and extras were such that the owner felt he had done much better than his brother.
B. Visceral opponents
We have observed that idea opponents can be addressed on an intellectual level with factual and descriptive comments. In this climate, despite the difference in the initial viewpoint of the parties, creative problem solving can take place.
A visceral opponent is an emotional adversary, who not only disagrees with your point of view, but disagrees with you as a human being. He may even attribute sinister or nefarious motives to the position you espouse. In this climate, there is inordinate stress, judgments are formed, accusations may be made, and scorekeeping takes place. Obviously, this is not a fruitful environment in which creative problem solving can take place.
Once you make visceral opponents, they tend to stay with you for a long time, for they are difficult to convert. All the logic, facts, ideas, and evidence you marshal will not be enough. So try not to bring them into being in the first place. Avoid producing a visceral opponent the way you would avoid a contagious disease.
The next obvious question is how you make (or transform) someone into a visceral opponent. Attacking “face” is what causes someone to become an emotional enemy.
Face sense is who I want others to think I am. It’s how a person wants to be seen publicly. When I am concerned with my saving face after a difficult negotiation, I want to make sure that the stature I have always projected in terms of prestige, worth, dignity, and respect will not be diminished.
Self-image, on the other hand, is concerned with how a person sees himself in the privacy of his own head. It is who you think you are. The conception that you alone have of yourself, your abilities, your value, and your role.
The two concepts overlap, but only slightly. Briefly, they can be distinguished if we refer to one’s public face sense, as distinct from one’s private self-image.
For the sake of further clarification, let’s say that in a private discussion I attacked you personally by calling you a fraud, a clown, and a liar. This offensive, though unprovoked attack might have momentarily annoyed you, but your self-image is undoubtedly strong enough to withstand even this abuse.
As you walked away, shaking your head, you might even have thought, “This fellow is not only obnoxious, but he’s sick!” In addition, if I came to my senses the next day and sincerely apologized for my aberration, you might even forgive me, since we were the only people involved.
Now let’s assume that during a public meeting, or in front of your associates, I made a similar blistering assault, calling you a fraud, a clown, and a liar. Although your self-image would reject my charges as totally unjustified, you will sustain loss of face and wounded pride. At this point you probably will start keeping score, saying to yourself, “That’s one, two, or three I owe that creep.”
Supposing I were to visit you the next day, begging your forgiveness for my temporary derangement? Chances are that my apology would not be accepted. Not only does wounded pride produce a tenacious enemy, but the onslaught was made in public, and I’m trying to make amends in private.
People will go to extreme lengths to avoid loss of face. We all display a remarkable ability to protect ourselves in such situations, from distortion and rationalization to blocking out the episode entirely. In the words of a song that was popular some time ago, “What is too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.”
Ten years ago, I was acquainted with an executive who was unexpectedly fired by his organization after many years of faithful service. He never informed his family or friends of his discharge. Every morning at the usual time, carrying his briefcase, he boarded the train at his suburban station and was transported into Manhattan. Thereafter, he spent endless days in the motion picture houses in Times Square or at the public library, waiting until it was time to catch his regular train home.
It was almost two months before the make-believe world he concocted came apart, when his uninformed wife made an unforeseen phone call to the office. The story is tragic, but it points out the incredible illusions that we are all capable of putting in place to protect our stature in the eyes of the people we care about. In reading the plays of Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams, you will find that this is a recurring theme—the maintenance of make-believe and pipe dreams to protect “face sense.”
Keeping in mind the desperate and irrational behavior that individuals may employ to save face, we must avoid any possible public embarrassment to the people with whom we deal. You must train yourself to speak honestly to idea opponents without offending face sense.
You must be able to make your point and present your case without making a visceral enemy. You must always keep in mind the physical law that “for every action there is a reaction.” The gist of this was verbalized by Bernard Baruch when he said, “Two things are bad for the heart—running up stairs and running down people.”
Emphasizing the consequences and risks involved in making a visceral opponent, two instances come to mind:
The first involves a supervisor named Kate, a competent employee of a large corporation that has an “open-door policy.” This doctrine means that if employees believe they have a grievance that is not being rectified by the boss, they have the right of appeal. In effect, they can go over their boss’s head and even to the president if necessary. Kate had just cause to believe she was being mistreated by her boss, and after pursuing the matter locally and getting nowhere, she decided to exercise her rights.
She wrote a letter to the president and was flown to the corporate office at the company’s expense. There, she met with the division vice-president, who was two levels above her boss in the hierarchy. When the facts of the case were laid out, Kate’s immediate boss looked bad.
One week after her return, Kate was summoned to see her boss and his boss. In this session, her boss admitted the error of his ways, promised to rectify her complaint, and asked forgiveness. Thereafter, the matter was resolved to her satisfaction, but the relationship with her superior was never the same.
For starters, he began to point out her mistakes publicly. He kept a written record of her arrival and departure times. In the months that followed, there were minor slights at staff meetings and informational memos that were not received in time for her to make plans and take action. Although she obtained a raise, it was somewhat less than she expected.
Ten months after the “open door” episode, Kate got the message and left “captivity” for a new position that she described to me as “all milk and honey.”
The second incident concerns Vince, a social-science teacher and a longtime baseball coach at a metropolitan high school. Because of changing demographics and a minor tax revolt in their district, the principal called a meeting of the entire faculty to discuss where the budget cuts would have to be made. She had an elaborate slide presentation in which her conclusions flowed naturally from the comprehensive data presented. At the conclusion, as she gathered the slides and placed them in her briefcase, she asked the rhetorical question, “Do any of you have any comments?”
At this point, Vince took the unintended bait and pointed out several errors in logic that had been made in selecting the statistics shown. Elaborating further, he made a convincing argument that the principal’s conclusions and action plan could not be supported by the evidence she presented.
These statements were particularly telling to this principal, who had an advanced degree in mathematics and who always quoted Michelangelo that “trifles make perfection, but perfection itself is no trifle.” Nothing was ever said to him about this brief interlude in his long professional career. However, the next semester Vince was asked to coach soccer instead of baseball, and one year later he was transferred to another high school a greater distance from his home.
As far as I know, Vince is still making the long commute to work. Regarding his career, you might say it’s currently stalled. On the road to success, he’s parked on the shoulder.
These two cases point out the chances you are taking when you expose someone to ridicule in front of others. Even when you are right, shun all opportunities to humiliate people—at least in public. Remember this, not only for them, but for yourself as well. Ultimately, the avoidance of visceral opposition is the avoidance of mutual dissatisfaction.
How can you ensure that you do not make visceral opponents? My two rules are stated in terse negative terms: