Alison Miles-Jenkins is the expert on building training businesses, particularly how they can become the “go to” expert in their niche.

She interviewed me recently on how I’ve built my niche in negotiations and particularly how I’ve brought my own particular flavour to the field and how the book has helped with this.

You can find the video on Trainer TV right here.

The Importance of Bargaining Power

Dealing with Tough Guys

Can You Be Nice and Still Be a Good Negotiator

More to come soon!

Quite apart from the book reviews, I’ve had several articles in national newspapers or trade magazines in recent weeks so I thought it worth collating them here.

More to come in the next few weeks eg, FT, Daily Mail, The Edge (magazine of the Institute of Leadership and Management) and Management Today.

Edge, Institute of Leadership and Management, Jan/Feb 2013

The ILM’s flagship magazine had a short article by me called Dealing with Deadlock, which you can read here

04-09_Edge_Jan-Feb_13

Training Journal, Feb 2013

http://www.trainingjournal.com/feature/2013-02-01-negotiating-the-network/

Go to source website using the link above or read here as PDF:  Training Journal Negotiating the L&D Network

Management Issues, Dec 2012

http://www.management-issues.com/2012/11/21/opinion/the-manager-as-negotiator.asp

Go to source website using the link above or read here as PDF: The manager as negotiator

HR Review, Nov 2012

http://www.hrreview.co.uk/analysis/analysis-hr-strategy-practice/negotiating-your-ld-budget-successfully/40144

Negotiator Magazine, Oct 2012

http://negotiatormagazine.com/openarticle.php?art=AR201210168.php

Negotiator Magazine – The Hostage Negotiator’s Guide to Change Management

Franchisor News, Oct 2012

http://content.yudu.com/A1yyla/FNAut12/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl

Sunday Express, Oct 2012

Sunday Express, Oct 2012

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/350634/German-demands-add-complexity-to-BAE-merger

Entrepreneur Country, Oct 2012

http://bit.ly/T0MLbI

Sunday Express, Sep 2012

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/346449/Blair-and-the-art-of-persuasion

eFinancialCareers.com, Sep 2012

http://news.efinancialcareers.com/117831/should-you-be-negotiating-your-salary-canny-candidates-are-increasingly-doing-this-in-scotland/

The Global Recruiter Magazine, Sep 2012

http://www.theglobalrecruiter.com/news/negotiating-read/3898

Here is the original version of the promotional trailer for my book, Negotiation Mastery. It was great fun making, thanks to the help of all my circus friends. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t work as marketing material because there’s so much interesting visual stuff going on, you don’t listen to my talk-over!

So we stopped working on it (hence the rough edges) and shot another version http://bit.ly/NTcbqX but I’ve decided to put the original up here because I think you’ll enjoy it.

You can see it on YouTube or Vimeo and, of course, you can buy the book on Amazon and other stores!

Since the book was published two months ago, there have been a number of reviews in the press and I thought I would collate them here. Fortunately, all of them have been positive, including being the Institute of Director’s Book of the Month, so I’m quite happy to include them!

If you don’t have time to read the full reviews, I’ve caught the summing-up sentences here and I’ve posted the full reviews at the bottom of the page. Other articles in the press (ie, anything that isn’t a review of the book) can be found here.

• “In short, an interesting read, packed with takeaways, anecdotes and action points. There should be something for everyone to learn from in this handy little paperback.” – HR Magazine, September 2012, http://bit.ly/UBs1ba
• “In other hands this could easily become psycho-babble but Horton’s subject mastery and easy style always keep it interesting” – PQ Magazine, November 2012, http://bit.ly/SUCTnl
• “Horton gives practical advice on how you can get the best deal from any situation – either in the office or in your spare time.” Director Magazine (Book of the Month), November 2012, http://bit.ly/Q5F60J
• “The thoughtful negotiator will find much to reflect upon in these pages. Recommended” – The Negotiator Magazine, November 2012, http://bit.ly/Uh2zaI
• “Negotiation Mastery is a practical and highly entertaining read whether you are a career negotiator or just wish your skills were a little stronger. I highly recommend ordering a copy.” – Buyer’s Meeting Point, September 2012, http://bit.ly/SEGROd
• “This excellent book…very informative, with detailed background to the theories it outlines…both useful and thought-provoking. Highly recommended”. FAB Women in Business, FAB Women in Business Review

Some of the source articles aren’t online or require a subscription so I’ve posted them here.

The Negotiator Magazine is effectively the trade magazine for the negotiation world, it has been putting out scholarly and practical articles on the subject from many of the top experts in the field for many years.

This month’s issue includes an article by myself which you can read here. You will have to become a subscriber, which I wholeheartedly recommend, it has a depth of brilliant articles.

For those of you who are not so deeply into the field but would still like to read it, I’ve posted it below.

The Hostage Negotiators Guide To Change Management

 Many years and careers ago, I was a young fresh-faced management consultant, involved in a very high  profile multi-billion pound outsourcing project. Unfortunately, this project was not going smoothly. Why not? Because there was resistance to the change – quelle surprise!

Specifically, there was resistance from just one person – but one person who was very loud, well-connected and stubborn. And she was jeopardising the whole shooting match. Holding the whole project hostage. And it was this fresh-faced young management consultant who was sent to deal with her.

Ironic really because now I teach negotiation skills and have even taught hostage negotiators. But I knew nothing of those skills back then and I had to freestyle it. But I just wonder whether a hostage negotiator could have taught me something useful in my predicament back then.

Holding the project hostage

Indeed, hostage crises are often initiated by change of some sort, a change that the hostage-taker does not take kindly to and decides to fight. They make demands that are, frequently, totally undeliverable and the negotiator has a choice: talk, send in the SWAT team or, most frequently, some kind of parallel approach.

Not dissimilar to the project leader’s situation. Resistance to change is common and those resistors really can hold the project hostage.

Of course, we don’t want to stretch the analogy too far – we definitely won’t be recommending purchasing helicopter gunships for your change team. And likelihood of death should be lower in the project situation. But there are similarities and my advice-giving negotiator would have recognised many of the issues I faced.

Establish your war-room

The first thing my advisor would have told me is to take the situation seriously and  plan my response as thoroughly as possible.

Like most things military or quasi-military, crisis responses are extremely well-planned, whenever possible, down to the last detail. They use a war-room with everything up on the wall, they use checklists to avoid heat-of-the-moment errors, they have a team working together, all members highly trained and drilled, they get expert advice.

Their first action is to find out as much as they possibly can about the situation and about the hostage-taker themselves. Who are they, what is their background, what are their demands, what are their drivers (beyond the demands), what are the logistical facts of the situation, who else is involved, what are the power sources on either side? The more knowledge of the matter they have, the greater chance of a successful outcome.

Of course, planning will only take you so far; almost certainly events will unfold differently to the predictions of the plan. Napoleon wasn’t so into planning – his approach was “I engage, then I see what happens” – and he did pretty well. But the Prussian army revolutionised warfare with the extent of their plans – and ultimately Napoleon was defeated by the Prussians at Waterloo (with a little help from Wellington, of course).

Perhaps the best advice is from another successful military leader, Eisenhower who said “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”.

Work as one team

My advisor would also tell me to be wary of splits within my team. Hostage negotiators always have to fight against their own SWAT team who are itching to go in all guns blazing.

Senior FBI negotiator Gary Noesner describes this: “Just when we had finally established a bond of trust with the perpetrator, moving closer to ending the crisis, we’d sometimes find that a fellow agent or police officer had thrown a rock through the window, ordered a military vehicle driven up on the lawn as a show of force, or turned off the power. This often produced violent resistance and  injuries or death that might have been avoided”.

So get everyone on message.

And that includes 3^rd parties too. In the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980, it was discovered that one of the interpreters was not translating the negotiators’ messages faithfully, instead relaying their own opinions and thoughts. And in the same incident, the BBC agreed to broadcast the demands of the hostage-takers but did so in a way that infuriated the terrorists’ leader and made the situation significantly more dangerous.

Engaging with the enemy

Erm, did I say enemy? See, that’s what I mean about being on message!

At some point, you have to make connection and when you do, the most important thing is to listen. Why? Because it is the most effective way to achieve your objectives. Hostage negotiators talk about the “behavioural change stairway”: namely, listening leads to rapport which leads to influence which leads to a successful outcome.

So ask lots of open-ended, non-judgemental questions to find out everything you can from the original source. Find out their demands and the concerns behind those demands; find out their story; find out their values.

After all, however crazy you think their demands are, they don’t. That you can guarantee. So you need to work with their rationale if you want to persuade them. If you know their values, nothing will be more compelling than to use those values to support your case.

In the world of change, resistance is actually quite understandable. Behind an unreasonable demand may well be a very reasonable fear – that they won’t be able to do the new role, that they will lose their job, that the change won’t work and will be followed by yet another initiative and yet another and yet another.

Find this out, help address it and you are well on your way to a resolution.

Don’t rush

A key tactic of the hostage negotiator is to delay. The more time they can buy, the more likely that emotions will defuse and a peaceful solution achieved.

Remember your objective here is to get hostages released safely. In the analogy with change management, this means your project being delivered successfully. And as time passes, they calm down and trust is built, you should be able to start talking them around to where you want them to be.

Bear in mind, too, that people don’t change their minds instantly. If you offer them a solution that isn’t exactly equal to their first requests, don’t expect them to agree straightaway. They will need time for the idea to process before they will accept it.

Carrot & stick

As well as building relationship, you must also appear strong and manage the expectations of the hostage-taker. In “Kidnap and Ransom”, Trevor Eve, the negotiator tells the hostage-takers “I’m trying to talk to the police to buy time; but if anyone is shot, its all over, you do realise that?”.

Challenging their reality and sowing seeds of doubt as to their version of events or view of the world can help undermine the strength of their position and start moving them to concessions. Without threatening, make them aware of the SWAT team who are standing behind you, busting to get involved. As Roosevelt advised: “Speak softly and carry a big stick”.

Dr Mike Webster has helped design the FBI programmes on hostage negotiation. He promotes the parallel approach to crisis resolution, combining the promise of reward for good behaviour and the threat of penalty for bad behaviour, as the best method to bring the other party around. It’s carrot and stick, it’s not new.

The reward can be giving into small requests. You might not be able to give them their getaway plane, the dancing girls and freedom for Whereonearthistan but you can offer food and water or medical treatment or similar things easy to give. In return, the hostage-takers agree to release some of the hostages or drop some of their demands.

This process builds trust, develops the habit of agreement and gradually weakens the hostage-takers’ position. Again from “Kidnap and Ransom”:

-          “You need to start releasing hostages and you need to start now”

-          “What do I get in return? I need medical supplies and we need guns and bullets”

Eve allowed the former in return for 1 hostage but did not allow the latter. He also agreed to remove the snipers in return for 7 more hostages.

Slowly trust is built, slowly their position is weakened, slowly a resolution is achieved.

Negotiating inwards

George Schultz was U.S. Secretary of Labor and Secretary of State for 7 years. To quote from his book, “Turmoil and Triumph”:

“Here is a first principle for negotiations: The toughest negotiations are usually the negotiations within the constituencies” (my italics).

Negotiating with the hostage-taker is one thing but you will have to conduct parallel negotiations with your own side or with 3^rd parties at the same time. And they can be just as tricky. You may not be able to deliver what you promise because other parties are not willing to honour the deal you have struck. So bear this in mind when you make your concessions – all part of the expectation management.

Saving face

One last piece of advice my hostage-negotiator mentor would probably give me would be to allow the other side face. This is crucial.

Bear in mind that the hostage-takers want a way out of this predicament too. They want an end to the situation and they usually want to live as well and the negotiator needs to capitalise on this. But they also want a solution that allows them honour and you must provide for this.

When Iran and the U.S. negotiated their settlement of the hostage crisis in 1980-81, the agreement was mediated through Algeria. To enable the deal, the final wording suggested any Iranian concessions were made to Algeria and not to America. You can’t make a deal with the Anti-Christ but you can with the Anti-Christ’s drinking buddy.

Indeed, face works both ways. Sometimes secret deals are made so that the government gets the hostages released without appearing to give in to the hostage-takers demands.

The good news

The good news is that most hostage incidents end well and this is more likely if the dual approach of speaking softly whilst carrying a big stick is applied.

It wasn’t always this way. A 1977 study by the Rand Corporation found that 1 in 7 victims in a kidnap/hostage situation died. It also found more hostages died during the assault of the security forces than were executed by the hostage takers.

Partly as a result of this research, the late ‘70s and 80s saw the introduction of a new approach from security forces in dealing with hostage situations which allowed for a more integrated approach – relying on negotiations much more than previously. Tactical forces were still present but the aim was not to use them directly if possible. Carrot and stick.

The FBI maintain a database of all hostage situations in the U.S. and as of 2007 held details of over 5000 incidents. In 97% of these incidents, no one apart from the hostage-taker was injured (and, excluding self-inflicted injuries or death, only 11% of hostage-takers were harmed).

This is a remarkably high success rate and by far the majority of these were achieved through negotiations only and a significant minority involving both negotiation and physical force.

So perhaps the last thing my advisor would have told me is to be optimistic. Expect a good result, negotiate for it, and I’d be likely to get it.

And in reality?

Getting back to that young fresh-faced management consultant, dealing with the manager holding the billion pound project to ransom – how did he get on?

Well, he messed up at first. His first few meetings were an absolute disaster and it very nearly all came tumbling down. He’d been given a bit of a hospital pass but he certainly wasn’t dealing with it well. The Project Lead spoke to him personally and told him to give in to all the demands.

But he didn’t follow orders. He tried one more time and this time managed to win her around. How did he do that?

His explanation at the time was that he listened, really listened. He thought he’d listened before, but he hadn’t really. And this time, not only did he listen to the demands (which he felt he could not give in to) but he listened to the concerns behind those demands. And when he heard those, he understood why the woman was behaving as she was.

The concerns were valid, the demands less so. He addressed her concerns fully and was able to turn her around. In fact, he was so successful in turning her around that a few months later she became a champion for the whole project; a champion for the project in her loud, well-connected and stubborn kind of way.

Who knows maybe he could have taught a hostage negotiator a thing or two.

Fifty years ago this week, the world found itself staring apocalypse in the face. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest we have ever come to all-out nuclear war and the ensuing mutually assured destruction.

Remarkably, John F Kennedy had a tape recorder running 24/7 in the White House throughout this period so we have exact word-by-word transcripts of the discussions that took place. This was the most important negotiation the world has ever seen and we are lucky enough to know in great detail the various strategies considered and ultimately executed.

Below is an excerpt from my book, Negotiation Mastery, that relates the events and the negotiation as they unfolded.

The most important negotiation the world has ever seen

“I remember leaving the White House at the end of that Saturday. It was a beautiful fall day; and I remember thinking that I might never live to see another Saturday night”.

So said American Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, amidst the most important negotiation the world has ever seen.

With nuclear war imminent, the future of the world was balanced on a knife-edge.

On October 14^th, 1962, a U-2 spy plane on a routine reconnaissance flight over the island finds clear evidence that the Soviet Union is secretly building nuclear missile capability on the island of Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the United States. Such a deadly threat cannot be tolerated.

Kennedy chooses a strong but considered response. He publicly calls upon Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles whilst at the same time announcing a blockade on ships carrying weapons to Cuba. He mobilises 180,000 troops, ready for invasion and places America’s own nuclear missiles on ready alert with twenty planes in the air poised to launch an attack on the USSR. He is prepared to stand up to what he sees as Russian bullying.

Khrushchev’s response is immediate and pugnacious, declaring Kennedy’s statement to be a serious threat to world peace and under no circumstances can the Soviet Union comply. He places his own ICBM nuclear strike force on high alert.

The fight is on.

It is Wednesday, 24^thOctober. Nearly three hundred American ships move into position on the quarantine line with instructions to use force on any Russian ship that refuses to halt. Twenty-five Soviet ships are sailing towards them, with submarine support. Khrushchev’s order is for the ships to continue on their way and not stop. The American Navy will have to sink them to prevent them getting through.

According to Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy’s speechwriter, they are staring down “the gun barrel of nuclear war”.

Events accelerate. Russian troops in Cuba are put on standby and authorised to use tactical nuclear weapons if they think fit. The U.S. Navy boards the Soviet ship Marucla for inspection. A U-2 spy plane accidentally strays into Russian airspace but escapes before being caught by Red Army fighter planes. A U.S. reconnaissance plane is hit by Cuban gunfire. Another U-2 is shot down over Cuba. The Navy drop depths charges on Russian submarines, the Russians are poised to launch nuclear torpedos in return.

Eyeball-to-eyeball. Pistols cocked. Hair trigger. Anything can happen. According to the Soviet General and Army Chief of Operations, Anatoly Gribkov, “Nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread … and we weren’t counting days or hours, but minutes.”

Kennedy does not want war but nor will he yield to bullying. He declares, “We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.” As his brother Robert later said, “Every opportunity was to be given to the Russians to find a peaceful settlement which would not diminish their national security or be a public humiliation.”

Khrushchev, it turns out, does not want war either. Like Kennedy, he sees the terrible danger of accidental Armageddon so when offered the chance to achieve his interests by different means, he takes it.

Kennedy promises he will respect Cuba’s freedom and gives a secret promise to withdraw 15 US missiles stationed in Turkey, and Khrushchev agrees to withdraw the missiles from Cuba. The Soviet Defence Minister gives the order “Remove them as soon as possible. Before something terrible happens.”

The world steps back from the brink.

Read the article by clicking on the image below:

Negotiation Mastery is available from all good bookstores including Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones in the UK and Barnes and Noble and Amazon in the USA. For other countries, Book Depository offer free delivery worldwide. It is also available in ebook format including Kindle, iPad, Kobo and Nook.

The October issue of Entrepreneur Country magazine has a two page excerpt from my book on the nature of power. You can see it here.

Or I guess you can by the book!

Or you can read the attachments below.

Negotiations can get pretty complicated at times. The latest merger talks between defence company BAE and civil aviation giant EADS to create a European Boeing are proof of that and those complications could be causing it to come apart.

Mergers are challenging enough, trying to find agreements between management teams and value for shareholders, but this one has the extra complication of five of the most powerful governments in the world having a say, each with a different, conflicting agenda.

So if you are Tom Enders or Ian King, CEO’s of EADS and BAE respectively, and you want this deal to go through, where do you start?

Start with the end in mind

Well, as Steven Covey says, you should start with the end in mind. What is it you want to achieve in the long run? Then, who do you need to get on board to make it happen?

Of course, in this instance you need everyone on board, since they can all block it, but if you look at the dynamics of the situation (and I always urge drawing it out visually, so much more becomes apparent), you will probably see one key player stands out.

In this situation? A couple of weeks ago, Enders commented that if the deal were to cause BAE to lose their Special Security Arrangement with the States then he would call the deal off. So we can probably say the US are that key player.

Negotiate backwards

Then you work backwards  from there  – what do you need to do to get the US on board?

Well, their key concern is national security, they will want to be assured that other governments will not have too much of an input on important decisions affecting American security.

So Enders will be clever. He will find a solution in the structure of the new company which will require multiple listings and firewalls. If the US subsidiary and the French subsidiaries, for example, have an impermeable Chinese wall separating them, this may be sufficient to satisfy the US.

Maybe. The US will need persuading. The amount of shares held by the other governments will be an important consideration. So how does this stand?

Well, the non-interventionist, small-government Conservative party in the UK are quite happy with minimal government ownership and, interestingly, so are Germany. Germany, however, do have a policy they want to match the same level of state ownership as the French.

So, to satisfy US requirements, the key is to minimise French state ownership of the new company.

Dealbreaker?

And here Enders comes across a problem. France have insisted on keeping a 9% share, with the option of increasing it by another 4.5%. Now, given that Germany will match any French holding, this means 27% of the shares in European government’s hands. This will be difficult to push past the Americans.

So now the question, working backwards still, is how do you get France on board to reduce their stake? If you can do this, the deal is still on.

The first thing to do is recognise they do have legitimate concerns. They are worried that their own national security issues are at stake. In particular, they would be handing European defence supremacy to the UK. Enders will probably have to be extremely clever to come up with a governance structure that can satisfy both the French and US concerns simultaneously.

What else can Enders do to persuade France to reduce their stake?

The art of the deal

The art of the deal is to make sure the needs of all the key players are met and to identify any dealbreaker then work out what can be done to resolve this. If French state ownership is the dealbreaker, what can be done to resolve this?

Well, perhaps it is to recognise that their concerns are not that legitimate after all. Maybe they are just playing brinkmanship, trying to force as good a deal as they can from any concessions that they will eventually make.

So, it’s interesting that this week there have been counter developments in both Germany and the UK. The Germans’s have insisted that there needs to be an HQ within their borders. I say “an HQ” because there is likely to be another in Toulouse, one in London and yet another in Arlington, Virginia. Four HQ’s does seem quite a lot! So, who am I to say but maybe it’s just a counter tactic, something that can be dropped easily at the last moment “for the benefit of the deal”.

And in the UK, 45 Conservative MP’s have signed a petition saying that if there is any state ownership of BAE beyond the “golden share”, the deal should be vetoed. Again, it just seems a great counter-ploy: “Sorry, M. Hollande, you will have to reduce your share, otherwise we wont be able to stop our MP’s blocking the deal. It’s not us, you see…”

And apparently Hollande does want the deal to go through. So, if this is true, what else is available to Enders?

Well, for a start, he can point out that liquidating their shares will produce several billion euros of income – not an irrelevant factor in these times of austerity. How many pensioners’ benefits would be saved by that windfall?

He can also point out that if the deal doesn’t go through, one of the main beneficiaries would be EADS major French competitor, Dassault, who just happen to be owned by Serge Dassault, a right wing senator and owner of Le Figaro, a long-time critic of Hollande. Furthermore, if it didn’t happen, BAE would quite likely be bought by an American company like Lockheed and that would be the end of long-held dreams of a European defence giant. In these days of greater European defence integration, losing an opportunity for this would be quite a blow.

Deal in the balance

So the deal is in the balance. Will it, won’t it?

The other complexity with dealing with governments is that they don’t move quickly. They rarely give you an immediate answer, they usually launch inquiries. But the UK Takeover Panel needs an answer by 5pm Wednesday October 10^th. Expect phone lines to be buzzing. But expect a deferment too.

And if this big issue does get nailed, will that be it?

The voter in Ohio has his say too

Ha, of course not. This is an American election year so if the US are a key player, the voter in Ohio is a key player too.

And Seattle. The rationale of this deal is to create a European Boeing. Well, expect Boeing to have a say in that. And very successful lobbyists they are too.

Which is why it was very interesting that last week, the EU pressed the World Trade Organisation for a $12bn penalty tariff on the US for illegal subsidies to Boeing. Coincidence? Probably. But this particular negotiation has been going on for 7 years, the situation is not getting any simpler.

But, then again, who said negotiations are simple?