I was just on the English seaside, and, along with a few friends, I decided to revisit an English classic:
Bridget Jones’ Diary.
One scene sticks out.
Daniel Cleaver (played by Hugh Grant) is talking to his ex-girlfriend, Bridget Jones (played by Renée Zellweger).
Daniel is a bit of a cad — he cheated on Bridget and left her for another woman.
Now he’s back.
And after getting into a fight with Bridget’s new beau, he tries to win Bridget over with the infinitely romantic line:
“If I can’t make it with you, I can’t make it with anyone.”
To which Bridget bites her lip and says,
“Mm… that’s not a good enough offer for me.”
“Let me tell you what I want from this negotiation…”
I’m just re-reading Jim Camp’s Start with No.
Camp makes a big deal about negotiators having a “mission and purpose” statement, defined and written out for every negotiation, regardless of how small or informal.
So for example, in the case above, Daniel Cleaver apparently wrote out the following mission and purpose before heading over to Bridget’s:
“I want to get Bridget back because if I can’t make it with her, I can’t make it with anyone.”
“Wrong!” says Camp.
Daniel has made a classic negotiating mistake: he set his mission and purpose in his own world.
That won’t work. You can’t focus on what you want because your ultimate goal is to get the other person to make a decision. And you can only influence her indirectly.
That’s why you have to make your mission and purpose set in her world — not yours.
Daniel wants Bridget to take him back. So Camp would advise Daniel to change his mission and purpose to something like:
“I want to help Bridget see and decide that she will be happy in a new relationship with me, because I am a changed man.”
Better, right? He now has a fighting chance.
But here’s the trouble.
I feel that this second type of mission and purpose statement still doesn’t go far enough.
I feel like it’s too easy to change the first type of M&P into the second type:
I want something -> I want to help my adversary see and decide that what I want is also the best for them
This kind of lame mission and purpose can create all sorts of problems.
For example, not trying to understand your adversary as well as you should.
Or not building enough vision in her mind.
Or even getting needy.
All three of these are cardinal sins in the Jim Camp system of negotiation. So I’m surprised he didn’t think of them when talking about the mission and purpose statement.
The good news is it’s easy to fix this mission & purpose problem. In fact, the fix requires just one word.
Even though this fix is simple, the effects on how you negotiate — and how you’re perceived by the adversary — can be enormous.
But I’m still tired from my trip. So I’ll cover all this, including the magic M&P word, in full detail tomorrow.