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Morals and Ethics - False Milestones in Negotiation By Radu Ionescu One of my clients, a real estate developer, consulted me about a problem concerning a ten floor office building he was seeking to rent. He was negotiating with a potential client, A, about renting 7 floors of the building. They almost had reached a deal but the draft of the contract was at A’s office for approval. There had been no answer for a month. Meanwhile, another potential client, B, approached the developer about leasing the whole building at a higher rent than client A proposed to pay. My client’s question was: Can I start negotiating with client B when I have almost agreed to rent to A? Would it be ethical to do so? My question is: Are morals and ethics direct guidelines in negotiation? Maybe I will come to a surprising answer, but my opinion is no, they are not determinant in negotiation. Morals and ethics are indirect results of our actions. What drives us into a negotiation? Our interests, of course. We all agree with that, but what if by following our interests we might hurt others? Let us consider my client, for example. What is in the best interest of my client? Is it to lease the whole building at a higher rent to B or to go along with client A who is considering renting only 7 floors at a smaller rent? How can ethics solve this problem? It can not do so. If my client finds a way to negotiate with client B and also to secure his relationship with client A, then everything is all right. It's all about relationships. Should we care about them? Of course, if we want a long term business. We can not profit from every client and then turn our back on them. There are also situations, at limits, when we can not afford to care about relationships. There are extreme cases of life and death, or survival of lives or business. What do we follow in those cases, when we are desperate? Only our interests. We don't even think about ethics or morals. Can we be ethical or moral against our interests? Not really. One might argue that charity, religion and other social activities are based on ethics and morality and sometimes we act against our interests. Well, do we? It's just that in those cases our interests are not necessary linked with material outcomes but with relationships here on earth and our relationship with God. Still, they are our interests. So, if in most cases we search for our best interests, how can we succeed in our goals and still be ethical? The answer is in attitude. It doesn't matter what we do, but it does matter how we do it. And how we do it, it depends on our behavior. Professor Gavin Kennedy in his red and blue theory finds four types of human behaviors, each of them with positive and negative attributes: SOFTER BLUE NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES Interested in other people Good listener Constructive, helpful, cooperative Informative, open, approachable sees the positive in others Patient POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES Too concerned with others Lets others set the agenda Loses sight of own interests Soft touch, too trusting, naive Self-deprecating, selfblaming Easy disillusioned, gives-up AGGRESSIVE RED NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES Determined to get the best deal for self Takes control and has 'presence' Decisive, audacious Likes a challenge Good in a crisis, has stamina, takes stress well POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES Tramples over others Bullies, threatens, resorts to coercion Ignores other party's interests, ideas Impatient, impulsive, manipulative Inflexible, intransigent, creates stress DEVIOUS RED Analytical Responds to opportunity Looks after self first (and only) Avoids public humiliation of the other negotiator Educates others to be prudent Plays well to a game plan NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES Self-seeking through 'cheating' Likes to scheme and plot Disregards others Exploits the innocent, the careless Produces cynicism and suspicion Ethically confused Too clever by half ASSERTIVE BLUE POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES Adaptable, flexible, imaginative Good at questioning, probing Persuasive Wants to 'make it work' Sees opportunities and new options Lacks firmness Can give offence Can sound phony Compromises to make it work Too imaginative; adopts unsound ideas and drops them quickly; Too pushy; too charming Does not give up easily Too creative too quickly, implies Looks for the 'deal'; creates imaginative trade-offs lack of commitment and substance Won't stand firm on an Good at thinking 'on feet'; can switch between issue for long without seeking to issues to lower confrontation link it to another issue It is clear that nobody behaves in only one way. Although, we surely have a dominant behavioral style, in different situations and at different times we can behave as any of those types. Where are ethics and morals here? They are not here. We are tempted to say: red is unethical and blue is ethical. I am not so sure about that! We have spoken earlier about interests and I implied that in critical situations we follow our interests by not even thinking about ethics and morals. What is happening in those moments that make us so determined? The answer is that our feelings become so powerful that they control us. We are so frightened, so scared, so anxious or so happy, that nothing else matters. The thing is: our interests are powered by our feelings. The type and the intensity of our feelings determine our behavior. There are two basic motivations for someone to act in the red style: 1. the other party is blue and the person wants to exploit them 2. the other party is red and the person wants to protect themselves (sometimes by counterattack) There are also two basic motivations for someone to act in the blue style: 1. the other party is blue and the person wants to cooperate 2. the other party’s type is unknown and the person takes the risk of being blue to create cooperation, but risking to meet a red style Let's analyze the feelings behind those motivations. For red: 1. exploitation means greed 2. protection means fear For blue: 1. cooperation means trust 2. risk means courage We can easily detect two different types of feelings. For red, negative feelings and for blue, positive feelings. The question is: how can we be moral and ethical when we have negative feelings? It is obvious that we can't. And as long as we are feared or greedy, we wouldn't do so. A small example can be when greedy people call the trusties – suckers and the feared call the courageous ones – mad. It is unethical and is a way of undermining the superiority of the two feelings by the ones that are unable to have them. We can not have feelings like fear and courage or trust and greed in the same time. But we can combine them in any other way. And what I found is: greed + courage = aggressive red greed + fear = devious red trust + fear = softer blue trust + courage = assertive blue The only real ethical type is the assertive blue. Because the softer blue is feared. Jonathan Sims came up lately with the notion of "devious blue". And I think his theory has a lot of links with the "fear" within the softer blue. My theory is that in negotiation we mustn't decide if we will be ethical or not. Instead we have to make other two decisions: 1. What are our interests and how powerful are they? 2. What are our feelings about the situation? It is very hard to change our interests. And sometimes, apparently, they clash with morals and ethics. The solution is in attitude. We have to control our feelings. If we are led by negative feelings no matter how much we want to be ethical and moral, we can't. But if we have positive feelings, there is no need to think about moral and ethics. They will come naturally. Ethics and morals are a set of social rules based on a system of values. Instead of breaking these rules we have to find ways to use them in our benefit by controlling our feelings.