In 1977, Professor Roger Fisher of Harvard Law School published an international bestseller. “Yes” After decades of researching the most effective methods in conflict resolution. The groundbreaking work of him and co-author William Uli revolutionized the way negotiators approached negotiations for decades, encouraging them to focus on what practitioners called “profit-based” solutions rather than traditional power-based approaches.
Fisher’s work found a way to a table negotiating large and small tables nationwide and beyond, and he taught local negotiation teams across the country a mutually beneficiary approach. I had the opportunity to participate in his training during my career as a labor professional and personally experienced the transformational effects of this method.
From this perspective, and from my own experience as a negotiator, I am tremble at every statement and action of the current President, representing an antithesis of effective conflict resolution and problem-solving. Whether or not you sign up for a Fisher-style mutual benefit approach, Donald Trump violates all the basic rules of negotiation.
Effective Chief Burgeners have the goal of achieving good results. Distractions that go against that purpose unnecessarily entrench the parties in order to produce far weaker outcomes. Therefore, the delicate question of negotiating a country’s trade tariff should be achieved quietly and skillfully from the public view until effective results can be shared. While Trump’s obsession with boasting about epic, bullying, threatening, and unresolved issues may help him ease his personal dysfunction, there is no more opposition to effective outcomes.
It is very likely that anyone in America will pay more in the store for Trump’s oral attacks on leaders from other countries. This repetitive action is a terrible violation of the most fundamental principles of conflict resolution. In contrast, effective negotiators will be very aware of the fact that in negotiations, whether it is a legislative body that the other party must agree to the outcome, simply report to the public.
Humiliation or reduction of the other person is an unforced error. Consider the position of another country’s leaders who will return after Trump declares, agreeing to a new tariff. “They’re all kissing my ass.” In doing so, he creates an immediate belief among the masses of the country that they are likely to have been fooled, regardless of the fairness of the solution. His uncontrolled explosions often require him to withdraw and reverse himself, lower his own credibility, prolong negotiations, and ultimately bring higher costs to American consumers.
One of Trump’s worst trends is to announce his success before he announces. This has resulted in the absurdly unstable front and rear positioning that has plagued the market this month.
Effective negotiators understand the need for latitude in the outcome expectations on both sides. To the extent that the expected results are completely shared, bargains are best useful in creating non-specific range results that do not present traps on either side when the final solution is announced. Declaring the outcome before negotiations, by definition, fails the obstacle, even if a reasonable outcome is achieved that is not at what he had predicted.
Even if Trump had the skills of the prerequisites to negotiate, he clearly isn’t, he would be best to be completely locked out of the process until it’s time for his victory lap – he would certainly take whether the victory is worth lap. All the details and reversals that have derailed the recent process and economy could have been easily avoided by effective behind-the-scenes negotiations that resolved the differences until the results were announced.
Trump’s antics on so many levels have tried to undermine our most important institutions and reduce the country, but in this case his uncontrolled lack of behavior and discipline makes everyone costly in very realistic dollars.
Larry Robert is a retired Chief Burgener and labor expert and a former aide at Gross Point, Michigan.
