C-suite leaders, are you negotiating at your best? Or, are you winging it because, hey, you’re smart, you know the terrain, and you like to move fast?
Negotiating with business partners, investors, acquisition targets, suppliers, governments, community interests, other BUs, employees — it’s endless.
Are you missing crucial unlocks to forge satisfying and durable deals?
In this series, Dr. Paul R. Williams, professor of Law and Intl Relations at American University, shows you how to get ready negotiate. His wisdom is hard-earned, having personally negotiated dozens of serious conflicts, often in war-torn countries with millions of lives at stake and bombs way too close for comfort.
Fun fact: Paul was my ride-or-die when we were undergrad leaders, negotiating with campus admin and the range of activist groups to upgrade student services and facilities without raising fees. He was a brilliant strategist then, and, well, he’s had a lot of experience since.
I just listened to the episodes on red-teaming and building internal consensus in your own delegation. Full of practical guidance, as relevant to founders wrangling at-odds investors as rebel groups negotiating cease-fires, including:
• Stand up a red team and empower them to fight to win against you. Learn from that and change your approach.
• Show the unaligned parties on your side you have heard them and systematically considered their interests.
• Make sure everyone negotiating on your side shares the same red lines.
• Dig into the interests under positions.
Don’t miss, before your next deal.