Teach Me How to Lie like an Englishman

Quite often on my international courses I am requested to; “Teach me how to lie like an Englishman”. This used to bother me, as I was somewhat surprised that the English had this reputation. But as this request became more frequent it caused me to think about it.

As many of you know, I have been working in international negotiations since the early 1980s. My work has taken me to all parts of the world and for clients in many types of public and private organisation. In the last 15 to 20 years, it has been increasingly noticeable that people are lying more often during negotiations and one must wonder why?

Well, as I teach on my courses – we need to ask ourselves:

What are we doing, or failing to do, that is making the other party do this?”

And

Why do many nationalities think the English are economic with the truth and do it better?

There will be many reasons, which include:

·      They get away with it most of the time.
·      A belief that everyone does it.
·      It is only a small lie.
·      No one accuses them of lying to maintain the relationship, save them from embarrassment – save face.
·      They do not realise that they are lying.
·      If they tell the truth, they will not get what they want.
·      Standards of morality no longer exist or are of no importance.
·      Right and Wrong are not taught effectively anymore.
·      Lack of Conscience.
·      Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware. It's your fault if you fall for it.

However, what has led to this state of affairs? Has it always been like this? What if anything should be done? The reasons are many and include:

·      Parenting, the home culture, the visible behaviour between parents.
·      Modern teaching, learning and training techniques.
·      The avoidance of “difficult” situations and people.
·      Current attitudes towards morality.
·      The pressure to “get the deal”, almost at any cost.
·      The incentives of bonus or commission corrupting honesty.
·      Denial of responsibility.
·      Behaviour of role models.

The evidence for these behaviours we see every week during our courses when people are conducting negotiations. The rule seems to be if you are able to get away with it - all well and good. If they find out that you have profited from the lie that is the other side’s tough luck.  And if the lie gets called out - they know you are lying - what happens then?  Well, never mind - you live to fight another day. But the cost may be that you cannot be trusted to negotiate honestly with that party ever again.


And it is this thought that influences my answer to the original request. What reputation are you trying to achieve for the long term? Someone to be trusted, relied upon and good to work with. Professional Negotiators are trusted.

Trust In Negotiations.

 Last year I included the following as part of one of my Blogs - It is even more valid today.

Trust:

Trust is built up over time between parties. It becomes established as agreements are honoured exactly as agreed – not just once, but every time.

Trust is a major part of a relationship, a corner stone.

Trust allows each side to “know” how the other party will act, not just an expectation but a promise that will be fulfilled. 

One can expect (and be right) that secrets and confidences will be kept. The parties know if the trust is ever broken it can never be repaired.

Deals will be delivered to the letter – exactly as agreed, not distorted, misinterpreted, reneged upon or ignored and forgotten.

If changes have to be made they will be discussed and agreed in advance.

The parties know the value of trust (and the cost of losing it).

In Business: 

Trust is very difficult to maintain because:

• Employees are for ever changing.
• Market and economic pressures do not remain constant.
• Greed for profit / commission or bonus have a negative impact – relationships are expendable when there is a quick profit to be made.

When an individual does not understand complexity, consequence, sustainability and the long term, they do not understand trust, relationships, integrity and partnership.

Hello and welcome to  all of you who are interested in professional negotiating.

The intention of this site is to be able to exchange views and ideas amongst our growing community of negotiators. 

As a group of interested practitioners, we will also comment about some of the more significant negotiations on-going in the world; negotiations which will or might impact on us all.

Feel free to use this site, and to build it into your own personal development schedule.

Best Wishes and Good Negotiating

Mike Roberts

Founder, Partner - ScottRoberts Negotiating

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson Four

Structuring Expectations: One  

The pre-negotiation phase: The negotiation has begun already! 

Many people make the mistake of thinking that in the period running up to the formal start of a negotiation the parties are not negotiating. They could not be more wrong. The reality is that once one becomes aware that someone wants something, then the opportunity to make a deal means that the negotiation is off and running. From the moment this reality begins expectations are being structured.

Every action, statement, move, meeting, event sends out messages as to the aspirations of the parties; how they intend to behave towards each other and indications as to the priorities they are working to. What they want and (often more importantly) what they want to avoid. 

The unguarded are giving information away all the time and not realising it. Discipline and coordination in this phase are all important.

If the negotiating landscape has a considerable number of interested parties trying to influence objectives and strategy,  discipline can become very problematic. An experienced negotiator can read much from watching from the other side. It provides useful information about how well prepared the other side is, what problems they are having within their team, who the key influencers may be, where the real power is and who the key decision maker is. 

 

In this phase the internal conversations within one side maybe the real negotiation. It can be very difficult to get the clarity of objectives and priorities when there are too many fingers in the pie.  But it gives away a lack of togetherness, conflicting objectives and strategies and possible lack of real negotiating knowledge and ability.

Sharpen up your skills at http://www.sharppractices.co.uk/negotiating_sharppractices.htm. 

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson Two

The Problem with Selling a Deal .

Most negotiators are wary of those who have to “sell” a deal in order to try to get it agreed, because the perception is that it not the best deal, right deal, appropriate deal or an adequate deal.

Most often it is politicians, PR specialists and Sales Professionals who are guilty of this approach. It may be because they often “get away” with using their persuasive selling skills that they grow to believe that they can sell anything. This misplaced confidence to be able to spin any outcome as being a “good” or the “best” deal is at best misleading and at worst lying. Whatever the view, it is not good practise and demonstrates a scant regard for the fundamentals and disciplines of professional negotiating.

One of the most common reasons for this selling behaviour is down to a failure to set clear objectives or  plan a proper choice of strategies. “We’ll listen to what they say, see where they are coming from and take it from there” one hears far too often. A plan which is focussed not on what one should be seeking (what one wants), but what the other side will let you have is weak, reactive and inefficient.

There is no substitute for well prepared objectives with well thought through strategies and contingencies. The focus should on what you want, pro-active and positive.  This all needs coaching and practise to build up confidence and courage.

It’s why we are here.

#Negotiating Lessons from the #Brexit Experience - Lesson One

Multilateral Bargaining - It is always dangerous to have separate, bilateral meetings when trying to get a collective agreement involving three or more parties, although often necessary. For the unwary and inexperienced it is easy to get picked off by more expert and prepared negotiators.

Having a private meeting with one party when there are up to 28 parties to the deal, can lead to making a concession unilaterally to each one in turn to gain each as an ally. All of the 27 other Premiers might ask for a different condition in return. This could lead to 27 concessions (favours) being made for just one gain. Using up considerable currency in a very inefficient manner. And if the deal does not happen, the other parties now know of 27 possible concessions that they might (should demand) gain during the next negotiation.

Buying favours to build up alliances can lead to secret agreements that are “called in” later as part of other deals. An ever present danger.

It is one thing to have informal discussions to “get a feel” as to how things might go in the formal negotiation - what interests and concerns the other parties might have, but to go beyond the preparation and investigative dialogue stages will be a step too far.

Once one has the “intelligence” gathered in, then comes the time to construct powerful proposal options which will bind in all the parties. This approach maximises the efficiency of one’s trading currency, but needs plenty of practise and experience.

Advanced Negotiation - Latest UK

There's a lot of talk - positioning - statements about rules and procedures - attempts to structure expectations, but the listening and whispering will be going on behind very closed doors.

Articles of interest:

FT - Fall in Pound may trigger wage negotiations..........

Global Government Forum - Britain turns to private sector, foreign governments for help on Brexit talks.

Business Insider - Germany might not care if the UK loses access to the single market

Independent: Donald Tusk: Freedom of movement is non-negotiable if Britain wants access to single market

Saying you are negotiating may not be negotiating!

Setting the prime objective of a negotiation as just “closing a deal (any deal)” is not negotiating and dangerous. It underlines your priority objective to the other side giving away leverage on the one hand and leaving one no exit if deadlock occurs.

However many may think that they are negotiating when they are saying they are trying to get the best deal. It is not. It is giving in to the other side before you start. It puts all the control in the hands of the other party and you get what others are prepared to give you / let you have - not what you want and only what you deserve.

Being seen to negotiate by  going through the motions of negotiating - meetings, discussions, arguments,  - may just be grandstanding for the audience. Trying to make it look tough and difficult to get an agreement are old games which have been played out many times over  hundreds of years which should not fool anyone these days. However, these little dramas are still attempted by the inexperienced, less skilled and under-prepared performers - especially if PR gets in the way.

Often the other side will go along with this game. Why? Well because they may have to protect the relationship between the parties by playing along so as to humour them and keep them from embarrassing themselves. Protecting the other side’s “face” is often important - especially in the world of politics and international affairs.

Anyone can say "yes" just to get a deal, but it will be a deal on the other party's terms.

Negotiating for Europe #5 – Discipline at the Close

Beware Last Minute Nibbles.

During the end game, there were some public declarations that a deal was close and that there were just a few minor details to sort out. I suspect that these declarations of being nearly there were made more out of habit and in hope than in all seriousness. It is common for many negotiators and hagglers to try to push for concessions in the end game by bringing up small demands whilst dangling the prospect of a deal. The hope is that the incentive of reaching the deal, especially after long and protracted sessions, may be so inviting that unconditional  concessions will be easy to secure. Most often it is Buyers who use this successfully when dealing with Sellers who just want to secure a deal. Trades Union negotiators use it when they know a Management team is under pressure to get the deal and get back to work.

The tactic may have worked in previous rounds of these Greek Debt negotiations, but this time, after all that has passed, this was not going to happen. As Trust has been lost, it has been important to make sure that all the required conditionality was in place and was going to be “honoured” if an agreement was to be reached and to work.

The German position, as reported by Paul Carrel of Reuters, was made clear by Ralph Brinkhaus, deputy parliamentary floor leader for Merkel’s conservatives:

“The more money is handed out in one stroke, the less leverage one has to stop payments if the reform process in Greece does not pan out as planned and as promised.

“A lot of trust has been lost in recent months,” he said, adding that aid should only be provided in return for Greece delivering reforms.

Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-senior-german-conservative-sees-open-questions-on-greek-bailout-2015-8?r=US&IR=T#ixzz3igZYLg7g

The lesson in the end game is to make sure that all concessions are traded against the agreement of specific conditions. That if a last minute concession is being sought it is traded on agreeing the deal and bringing it to a close. The concession being traded should be small and conditional that the deal is now done. And if trust is a problem, it should be agreed on the basis of everything being clearly understood and how it will all be implemented and what the penalties will be incurred for failing to honour the accord.

Negotiation Requires Courage and Talent: Get Organised - Get Ready - Develop.

As we go into the dark days of the winter and we batten down the hatches to weather the storm of Brexit and take stock about who and what really matters; this is a good time to look around, contemplate strengths and weaknesses, to prepare for the challenge ahead and to evaluate one’s resources. This is the time when you will find out whether you really have leaders within your ranks – really have talent. Anyone (almost) can play a strong hand if you are holding all the Aces, but it needs a lot of skill, experience and practice to play a weak one.

So, who around you has what it takes? Have you looked after them during the good times so that they will stay with you and be ready to cope with the tough ones ahead? Who are the ones with real talent who need to be better equipped to succeed and prepared to take on more responsibility? Who is ready to take on your challenges?

Now is the time to “cut the crap” and focus on development that really makes a difference and will give a real return; training and coaching that will draw out the talent, build the confidence, excite, energise and motivate.

Profit from adversity – be courageous – use the time – build the team.

Make contact through our site - Sharppractices.co.uk