slighted, or otherwise somehow personally injured by the
notion that he and his people “needed” any training at all.
(A surprisingly high percentage of negotiations hinge on
something outside dollars and cents, often having more to
do with self-esteem, status, and other nonfinancial needs.)
We’ll never know now.
The point is, we didn’t care until too late because we
convinced ourselves that we were on the phone with the
only decision makers that mattered.
We could have avoided all that had we asked a few
calibrated questions, like: How does this affect everybody
else? How on board is the rest of your team? How do we
make sure that we deliver the right material to the right
people? How do we ensure the managers of those we’re
training are fully on board?
If we had asked questions like that, the CEO and HR
head would have checked with this guy, maybe even
brought him into the conversation. And saved us all a lot of
pain.
SPOTTING LIARS, DEALING WITH JERKS, AND
CHARMING EVERYONE ELSE
As a negotiator, you’re going to run into guys who lie to
your face and try to scare you into agreement. Aggressive
jerks and serial fabricators come with the territory, and
dealing with them is something you have to do.
But learning how to handle aggression and identify
falsehood is just part of a larger issue: that is, learning how