Introducing “HBS Managing the Future of Work"

In the final episode of Season One of Dealcraft: Insights from the World's Great Negotiators, I’ll offer you several fresh negotiation insights plus a look back over the dealmakers and diplomats from whom we've heard during these last twelve weeks. Each of these negotiators has given us a master class in one or more of the “dimensions” that make up the “3D Negotiation” framework that David Lax and I have developed over the last three decades:

Sadly, Colin Powell is best remembered in many quarters for deploying his immense personal prestige in giving what became his infamous speech at the United Nations. This speech purported to reveal evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, thereby building support for the disastrous U.S. invasion of that country. Powell did not want to give this speech on the rushed timetable demanded by President George W. Bush along with neoconservatives Vice President Dick Cheney and others. Having “lost” this timing negotiation with the president, the die was cast. We probe this episode for insight into how a more sophisticated approach to his “negotiation” with the president might have led to a very different outcome, in the process seeking to extract positive lessons from painful negotiating failures.

In 2015, before a rapt Harvard audience, Colin Powell recounted his poignant and incredible life story and career with me and my colleagues Bob Mnookin and Nick Burns. Interwoven into his remarkable accounts were lessons drawn from profound success and deep failure in negotiation. In this week's episode of Dealcraft: Insights from the World's Great Negotiators, I share three short examples of success from these conversations with Powell:

When facing any negotiating counterpart, especially a very tough one, it is wise to learn as much as possible about their background, likely approach, and tactics that can turn the interaction to your advantage. This episode uses Vladimir Putin as a prototypical hardball opponent and shows just how much one can usefully learn by speaking with others who have extensively and personally negotiated with this challenging Russian leader. Via interviews with former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Rex Tillerson (who also carried out many negotiations with Putin when Tillerson was a top ExxonMobil executive), this episode gives valuable insights into dealing effectively with Putin, but more generally demonstrates a key element of preparation for tough deals.

John Branca was tasked by his client, Michael Jackson, to buy the Beatles’ catalog. Jackson’s instructions: “under any circumstances, do not lose this catalog, but do not overpay and don’t over-negotiate.” To pull this off, Branca was soon embroiled in a fierce competition against record companies and individuals such as Richard Branson who also craved this musical prize. Ultimately, John Branca must negotiate with its then-owner, ruthless Australian billionaire, Robert Holmes á Court, who frequently made reference to how the clever North Vietnamese bested the vastly stronger Americans. Via tactics that have broader implications for other negotiators, Branca was able to pull off this deal for a much lower price than offered by others and parlay it into an unprecedentedly lucrative joint venture for Jackson with Sony.