Managing Leadership^®

Have you ever negotiated with someone – a potential customer or partner, a boss or colleague – who just can’t bear to say “no?” Desperate to avert an unpleasant confrontation, not wanting to hurt your feelings, and struggling to evade personal responsibility for either of these, this person instead expresses admiration for your plans and support for your proposals.

So off you go, busily filling in details, mobilizing resources, and preparing for implementation.

But when you return to your negotiating partner for their agreed input, or to finalize the deal, misunderstandings and minor objections begin to surface. These are presented with pained expressions of apology, plainly evident discomfort, and genuine appeals for your tolerance and understanding.

You recover from your surprise – everything had been clear; mutual benefits of the collaboration understood and mutual obligations carefully laid out and integrated. But back to the drawing board you go, adapting plans and redeploying assets to accommodate the new understanding of the situation.

But no matter what you do, you can never get this party to take the last step, to commit to action. Rather, you are asked, always with profuse and sincere regrets, to reduce references to and expectations of him or her.

Finally, you realize: there was never an agreement, never any intent to cooperate. Behind the apparent initial approval, and subsequent evasions, was a panicked (although, sometimes, a juvenile and manipulative) determination to achieve a “no” without having actually to say it.

You see this at last, and, frustrated and amazed, drop the matter. Then the other party either pretends the incident never happened or, if pressed about it, portrays it in the most bafflingly self-serving manner.

If this does happen to you, rest assured that it is not an isolated event. It is not related to the project, but to the other party’s unwillingness to deal with what it perceives as potential conflict. If you cannot be caused to uncontroversially drop an unwanted matter when you first broach it, they will just try to outlast you.

And they will. Every time. You don’t win by trying to wear them down, but by being alert to what may really be going on. As soon as you suspect it to be what has just been described, construct and offer a face-saving way out. You may be surprised at the alacrity with which it is accepted. You will certainly find it to be more satisfying for all concerned than persisting in believing that the illusory collaboration will ever materialize.

Best of all, it’s a white lie that saves everyone embarrassment, and you wasted time, effort, and resources.

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Today’s tips: Speaking of unconstructive ways of dealing with disagreement, please see what Miki Saxon has to say about ultimatums and corporate culture.

And if you find that you are making your proposal to a party like the one depicted above, you may wish you had preserved your flexibility to adapt on the go, by avoiding the standard presentation software, and instead using this exciting new invention described by Michael Wade.

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