Skilled Negotiation and Politics

11:56:04 AM EDT
You know what's intriguing?  I wrote The Secret Handshake and It's All Politics to help readers understand the subtle, underworld of politics.  But Karl Rove and his ilk play the game so overtly, in such an in-your-face-why-should-I-care-if-you-catch-me manner that subtly has left the building.  In TSH I wrote that in most organizations and in government "the political savvy necessary to break down barriers to the inner circles is inaccessible to all but a very few."  Politics is an enigmatic puzzle to most people.  Those who understand it share their knowledge sparingly as the acquisition of the "secret handshake" is "purposely kept ambiguous."

But the current occupiers of The White House are so arrogant that they don't need to use crafty strategies to achieve their nefarious ends.  They just do as they like.  That's a frightening level of pathology indeed.  It'd be great to go back to the days when people needed my books to understand the good and bad of politics.  It'd be a healthier condition by far!


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12:37:07 PM EDT
Before writing The Secret Handshake, I interviewed Ann Lewis, adviser to Hillary Clinton on her bid for the presidency.  Ann told me this about handling criticism:  "I never second-guess myself... I wasn't raised that way.  I don't dwell on things like that.  If I make a mistake, I learn from it and move on."

Running about worrying whether what you say today as a candidate is identical to what you said last year is a waste of time.  Surely none of us should be contradicting ourselves on a regular basis, but we should be learning.  It is the basis for change.  Otherwise we'd all be stuck in a time warp, predictable, but unproductive. 

It is natural for us to prefer consistency from people.  Most relationships rely on it.  But it is also the reason why many fail -- being consistently boring, wrong, rude, insensitive, etc.  More important by far is having a set of values that inform our decisions.  Those at times conflict.  Honesty, for example, may run counter to loyalty at times.  It isn't how we acted in the past that should inform us of what to do under such circumstances in the present, but rather if what we intend to do emanates from what we truly value.  That standard shows how cheap consistency can be.


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11:53:25 AM EDT
Extending what I wrote in my Huffingtonpost.com blog about how to know a candidate for president and how Obama's repeated use of the phrase "take them out" suggests he may be resorting to rhetorical device that cheapens his message, let me add this.  Just as in any managed speaking small clues exist that tell the observant whether what is being said is true, so too in political speech small clues within the words and in body expressions can indicate if what is being said is indeed representative of the true thoughts of the speaker.  Micro-expressions, small facial expressions, do this.  Despite how quickly they fleet by, they are critical to knowing if another person is being truthful.  Too many of us are remedial in this area.  We simply don't attend to these clues.  And if we're going to avoid another George W. Bush as president, we need to do so. 

So while this example is not an indictment of Obama's honesty, it should give us and him pause.  He used it to sound tough.  But it didn't ring true.  If he is tough, we'll notice without this type of rhetorical device.  The same can be said of all candidates for the presidency.  If they want us to believe they're authentic, then they need to be sure they're delivering an authentic message.  Enhancement is one thing, planted phrases are another.  "Take them out" repeatedly used seems the latter.


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7:48:19 PM EDT
My advice to Katie Couric on Huffingtonpost.com doesn't tell her to give us the investigative journalism so many of us admire. But after what happened to Dan Rather, no station wants to probe deeply into controversy.  And we should cease to expect it -- not in a half hour show.

Much of the criticism of her and other news commentators is akin to frustration at oranges for not being apples.  The days of Edward R. Murrow are gone.  Millions of people get their news from sources on the internet long before the evening news shows are aired. 

Real news comes from other sources -- multiple and competing ones.  Given this reality, the issue for Katie Couric is not how to become someone who tackles tough subjects, takes stands, and brings corruption to its knees but how to provide us with the best of what can be expected from a half-hour show recapping the day.

Don't get me wrong, I could go for bringing corruption to its knees -- but it just isn't going to happen on CBS, NBC, ABC or any other nightly news venue.

So going after Couric for not being something the format doesn't allow is a waste of energy.  Going after the format and insisting on more, now that's a better use of time.


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6:38:41 AM EDT
Extension of "War Fatigue" -- "A Subtle Version of "Cut-And-Run" at Huffingtonpost.com

We all noticed "cut-and-run" but it took root anyway.  John Murtha wasn't proposing "cut-and-run, but it still stuck to him.  That's the power of word association.  We all do it, and it can be a legitimate means of persuasion when not utilized, especially over and over, by a government in a manipulative, self-serving manner as in the cases of subverting reality, deflecting deserved blame or responsibility, fogging the issues at hand to preclude productive discussion, and serving deception.

Words are not harmless.  All the more reason for vigilence in interpreting their meanings. This is not paranoia.  I'm often asked when talking about persuasion, negotiation and politics if I ever have down time, if I'm always reading between the lines, watching for underlying meanings and propitious choice points.  During serious discussions and negotiations, surely I'm attentive.  When assessing political climates and observing political strategy, of course.  This is evident in all my books.  During day-to-day discussion, though, such careful observation is usually unnecessary.  But when your own government won't be straight with you, or at least endeavor to do so, none of us should be relaxed about what we're being told behind what is being said.

If more time were spent by the current administration learning to communicate with other leaders around the world instead of thinking up words and phrases to manipulate, deceive and alienate, we wouldn't be on our own increasingly despised by those who once befriended and admired us.

Even the way the president talks about the Maliki government is patronizing.  "We expect this," "We expect that."  Sure, we can have expectations but public patronizing, instructing other governments -- as didn't go over well with Vladamir Putin, asserting authority leads to failure.  No one likes it, least other leaders whose "faces" are daily on the line.

There appear to be no crafters of meaning at the White House and within the administration who do so for our collective benefit.  It's always to put down, ostracize, alienate, distance, dismiss, or in some other way preclude honest dialogue.  We don't hear sincere word associations helping us to make sense of an increasingly dangerous world.

Words are the conveyors of meaning -- weak vehicles that they are at times, they're all we have.  They are, too, the windows through which, if we care to look, we may ascertain the intentions of those who use them.  I suggest we embark on peering out more often to see how we're being moved and managed lest we end up wondering even more how we ever got where we'll all end up.


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12:56:28 PM EDT
The Supreme Court's recent ruling against Lilly Ledbetter which rigidly establishes 180 days as the period of time employees have from the first act of pay discrimination by an employer to legal action is a disgrace.  In other words, if someone is discriminated against by unequal pay and then takes action after 180 days, even if not feeling he or she could prior to that or had difficulty obtaining legal representation, then that person is out of time and out of luck.

In the case where pay inequality from early in a career can be found, claiming that the latest incident of it,  no matter how much more egregious than earlier ones, can't be grounds for legal action.  My husband, Chris, just said to me, "So I suppose the first time someone steals it's a crime, but subsequent times don't count."  That's what the latest ruling amounts to.  It demonstrates either complete indifference to the plight of women and minorities in the workforce attempting to obtain equal pay or intentional malice toward them.  No wonder women are stilled paid at least twenty percent less than their male counterparts.  This does not bode well for future Supreme Court decisions.  These guys are WAY out of touch or inexcusably biased.

See my blog on Huffingtonpost.com




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8:24:19 AM EDT
This follows a blog I wrote for Huffingtonpost.com.  I didn't intend to be cagey about specific ways to persuade a President who is clearly a Commanding type leader, unable in his case, to stretch to Logical, Inspirational, and Supportive styles.  But you can't tell someone how you intend to persuade him.  What we do know is that power matters to George Bush.  He has to feel he's won.  In as sense that's a window into reaching him.  But it requires skill.

Backing him into a corner works only to let him know it's possible to do so.  Then the task is to find a way to bring him out, where he wants to be, on your terms but doing so via his language.  It take persuasion mastery.  The tendency is to try to persuade someone on the basis of how he should think rather than how he does.  It's a common, fatal error. 

Yet, too many of us misconstrue learning how the other side thinks as some sort of weakness.  It's the opposite.  A champion chess player doesn't decide moves only on how the other side ought to act.  They have to know how they will act.  The same perspective applies here.

Now, the trouble with George Bush is his inability to stretch to another style.  He's trapped in his own brain.  And that's dangerous for us.  Nevertheless, even the worst of entrenched can be nudged with skill. It takes what I describe in It's All Politics as "speaking like the duck."  You don't become the duck.  You don't learn to like the duck.  But you learn to sound like the duck so you can reach him/her.  Teaching yourself duck-like tendencies, which is what Democrats must now do, while not becoming too gentle with the duck.  This duck is hard-headed at best.  But if you know what a duck like this needs, you're half way there.


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8:01:38 AM EDT
Republican Life Forms From The Planet “IT WASN’T ME”

They’re all cut from the same cloth –  Bush, Tenet, Wolfowitz, Gonzales, Rice, Rumsfeld, Rove, Cheney.  You have to wonder if there hasn’t been an invasion from outer space – maybe from the newly discovered planet.  One after the other these nefarious creatures have arrived to destroy and then assimilate into the human race.  Tenet is the latest example.  

The Bush White House has produced one hypocrite after another, all shaping apologies into a low-life art form.  “I was new at my job,”a la Wolfowitz apparently still works in some circles for people over fifty.  “I can’t remember” said over and over would embarrass someone who actually couldn’t, but it’s fine for the U.S. Attorney General.  Others in their camp are historical revisionists – all with books and millions of dollars in advances.

Wiggle room in Washington D.C. is cavernous.  Egregious errors are “missteps” and “misjudgments” brought on by unforeseeable circumstances.

The only way to deal with this kind of deception and cowardice is standing up to it, collectively, as the Democrats are starting to do. 



See Announcement below of L.A. conference -- Women Lead.  A few more days left.



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8:38:40 AM EST
As discussed in my most recent Huffington Post blog, George W. Bush has essentially constructed an American Maginot line by consistently "staying the course" in Iraq.  As Tony Blair begins to withdraw troops, the U.S. is increasing them.  It's a dangerous leader who cannot think broadly, who only knows one route and relentlessly follows it no matter the costs. 

What we have here is the kind of negotiator described in my work as an "Achiever."  Achievers have little patience for logic and avoid concessions.  They seek compliance, adhere to plans and seek control.  Sound familiar?  They find Analyzer, Motivator, and Mediator negotiators annoying or weak. 

This is why negotiation is shoved to the back of U.S. foreign relations strategies.  The people hired by Bush are like himself, especially Secretary Rice.  John Bolton almost trumped Bush and has made his anti-negotiation stance with North Korea well known.  We are well rid of him.

It isn't that Achievers are necessarily poor negotiators.  They simply, like others with only a single style, are often not suited to complex negotiations.  If George W. Bush could expand his style, there might be hope.  If he were willing to hire people who differ from himself, whose style would be a compliment to his, again there might be  hope.  But he is not this type.  So it falls to Senators and Congresspeople to insist he step away from the reins and correct the route before that option is no longer available.


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12:36:51 PM EST
If you live in L.A. or want to travel there for a fascinating conference and a chance to meet, check out the Women Lead Conference site  -- May 8 2007. 


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