Over the last few months I, like many Americans, have become
frustrated by the state of our political landscape. As business people, we have to work day in
and day out with colleagues that have different agendas, goals and objectives –
many times competing with our own. Yet
somehow we manage to negotiate through without constant threat of shutting down
the factory.
Not so with our pols. These fellas (and
it is men that are the problem) can’t seem to negotiate themselves out of a
timeshare presentation, let alone work together to find solutions to our
problems. Our President seems the most prone at making
basic negotiation mistakes, often taking a starting position that is overly
aggressive or extremely passive.
On the aggressive side, Obama nearly started World War III after stating that use of chemical weapons would be a “redline” in the Syria conflict. While the comments seemed to make perfect
sense at the time, the President didn’t realize that backing off that line
would be a political impossibility for him. If chemical weapons were used, the country had
to go to war.
In reality there were plenty of other options, and eventually
we fell into one. The President should
have realized that before announcing such an aggressive policy, he would need
to enlist both international and domestic support for taking action. He also should have realized that other negotiation
tactics could be used, and work with countries like Russia to help us negotiate
another way out. He could have also left
it to Congress to decide how to handle the situation, or at least bring them
into the conversation. He did none of
these things and his lack of foresight and blustered posturing led him right to
the brink of a scenario that very few people, save crazy old John McCain, were
interested in.
On the flip side, Obama was willing to negotiate on the
debt ceiling in 2011. In this case,
Obama shouldn’t have even come to the negotiation table – the debt ceiling is
based on money we already spent and Congress already approved to pay out. Not paying it is like missing your mortgage
payment, except it affects the credit rating of the whole country. His
willingness to negotiate gave Republicans an incredible advantage, and led to
severe government cuts that Democrats would have typically never agreed to, no
increases in revenue, and ultimately the
sequester which no one, save the Tea Party, likes.
These two examples show polar opposite negotiation tactics,
used at the polar opposite wrong times! In any negotiation, you have to know
where your leverage is and you have to know your end game. It seems Obama has learned his lesson in the
latest debt fight, where Republicans wanted to repeal Obamacare in exchange for
an increase in the debt ceiling. Obama
simply didn’t show up at the negotiation table. He had nothing to gain from a negotiation, and he had the leverage to
force the Republican’s hand. It’s nice
to see he learned from his mistakes. Still, it would have been nicer to see it three years ago.
Next up – lessons in negotiation from American Pickers!
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