negotiations indicates getting closer to real consequences at
a real specified time. To gauge the level of a particular
threat, we’d pay attention to how many of the four questions
—What? Who? When? And how?—were addressed. When
people issue threats, they consciously or subconsciously
create ambiguities and loopholes they fully intend to exploit.
As the loopholes started to close as the week progressed,
and did so over and over again in similar ways with
different kidnappings, the pattern emerged.
With this information in hand, I came to expect the
kidnappings to be orderly, four-day events. It didn’t make
the abductions any more pleasant for the victim, but it
certainly made them more predictable—and a whole lot
cheaper—for the families on the other end.
It’s not just with hostage negotiations that deadlines can
play into your hands. Car dealers are prone to give you the
best price near the end of the month, when their transactions
are assessed. And corporate salespeople work on a quarterly
basis and are most vulnerable as the quarter comes to a
close.
Now, knowing how negotiators use their counterpart’s
deadlines to gain leverage would seem to suggest that it’s
best to keep your own deadlines secret. And that’s the
advice you’ll get from most old-school negotiation experts.
In his bestselling 1980 book, You Can Negotiate
Anything,^1 negotiation expert Herb Cohen tells the story of
his first big business deal, when his company sent him to
Japan to negotiate with a supplier.