Strategic Negotiations

If you want to be taken seriously, don’t talk too much, doing so diminishes your weightiness, don’t make yourself too accessible either. As this really only cheapens you. To do all this is not to indulge in false pride or arrogance. It is the art of how to be effective in a very compact and concentrated manner….where a little can go a very long way.

Recently a plot of land that I am very interested in was put up for sale. Both the broker and landowner were baiting me with round after round of intrigues..they are well organized and their strategy seems to be fool proof (so they believe)…despite all their efforts it was really like throwing stones into a dark bottomless well…no sound, not even a reaction, just the sinister silence that deepens and broadens with passing of time. Soon every hour resembled a cut with a very sharp knife. When the call finally came. I didnt even pick up and instead just shut off my phone and placed it in the drawer. Then they tried to make an appointment to meet me. At the last minute, I cancelled the appointment. They asked for a new appointment and again that was cancelled like the first….this went on for weeks and months. Finally when I meet both the broker and landowner when I was presented with the price along with standard hard sell. I merely smiled neutrally, looked at my watch, stood up and told them both that I need to attend to some pressing matter that had urgently popped up. No serious negotiations took place. One of them look unsettled as I showed him out. I simply ignored his pleading questions and proceeded while remaining silent to their many questions……be mindful not to be rude when you do this, neither should you be too quick to justify or explain, instead strive to remain neutral…..this matter has not been concluded, its still going on, slowly and gradually….that’s how you deal with manipulators, not by dealing them one forceful blow that knocks them out cold….that’s no good. You need them like how you need copper wires, solders and other stuff that all need to be carefully constructed to create a bomb. The mind of the manipulators are your raw material. This is all that you have to work with. The goal is to deploy what Japanese negotiators refer too as the concept of “sarukobushi” (猿枯らし), meaning slow destruction through a series of small incremental attritional pressures. I gathered this in land management. Whenever I am faced with problems such a soil erosion, drainage issues or just plain lousy yield. I never try to take on the entire problem in one bite. Instead I divide the problem into segments and further break them down into subparts and only then do I deal with them. On each occasion prescribing the solution and observing the results. If its favorable. I proceed to the next sub part. If it yields nothing. I stop and reformulate and start again. It is the same when you find yourself having to deal with manipulative folk. Never try to take them on in one bite. To do so is walk into a gun fight with a spoon. You will be overwhelm. Instead divide the person or persons psychology into subparts like goals, motivations, strategies, strengths, weaknesses etc etc. Then look at these like individual pieces on a chessboard…each chess piece has a capability and constraint…this needs to fully appreciated…if the person you are dealing with is greedy, bait him with short term goals….if they are united, divide them…at every encounter test and observe and only when conditions are favorable do you move to the next level, but never try to take on the whole storm…slowly wear them down with an endless process of slow and gradual understanding of the sum of the parts that make up the entire psychology of the person or group you are dealing with….above proceed silently like a deadly submarine.