Ok, let’s get real. There are no golden rules. There are no rules at all. “There is no spoon!”, remember?
Every day we negotiate, consciously or not, when all of us face multiple choice options, concessions, bargain, plea, shout or cry in order to obtain what we strive for.
If you are a parent, you know how kids negotiate, they use tears, they use the notion of “fairness”, they take your heart a hostage and get through. Do they do that consciously? I don’t think so.
When my cat wants to go outside at 5am he uses a nasty tactics to let himself out. He imitates a baby’s cry. No parent can survive a torcher of a crying baby. The cat is out in a matter of seconds. He is the champion of negotiations! He gets what he wants without the fancy brain of ours, our degrees, artificial intelligence, cloud computing or Wikipedia.
Being a professional negotiator, I see lots of people on the other side of the table. And thank God they read books, follow negotiation classes, hire coaches and get certified. Because the best negotiation skill in the world is that of my cat.
”Il fine giustifica i mezzi”, Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli