Hilary Gallo - The Power of Soft: How to get what you want without being a ****

It was as I was returning home one Saturday afternoon from a long work week that I realised my negotiation model was broken. This was the mid 1990s and I was working for Electronic Data Systems (EDS), a technology services company. We were at the leading edge of outsourcing deals, taking over an organisations technology and offering it back to them under contract for a multi-year term with a big cost saving. From pretty much a standing start, we had just outsourced all the IT of the DVLA (the UKs Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency), Her Majestys Revenue and Customs and also global giant Rank Xerox. We were now being offered a big deal with a large UK-based industrial conglomerate. Not only would we run their computing systems globally but wed also buy two consulting and technology businesses they owned. My boss and I were the two in-house lawyers; he ran the legal side of the outsourcing deal while I looked after the purchase of the two companies. To do the deal we had to base ourselves in Coventry for weeks on end and somebody smart negotiated a good price for us all to stay in a huge rural gothic hotel outside Coventry. This was being sent to Coventry in style.

I distinctly remember coming home that Saturday night after a particularly hard week, as the negotiations came to a climax. Even though it was a long drive home, I was still pumped full of adrenalin. We had just put our final positions to our client across both deals. What struck me was how horrified my then partner was at my behaviour. She first remarked on my language, which she said was pretty foul and unlike me. It went deeper, though: my whole attitude had become abrasive and even abusive in her eyes. She was shocked at how confrontational I was. This was the first I knew of it, but instinctively I felt she was right. I went from proud to slightly defensive and then more slowly to slightly sheepish.

From that point I knew something deep down that I only later acknowledged consciously. I knew that we were not going to win the deal. We hadnt acted as we might, we hadnt got the right relationship, we hadnt done the best we could. The following week I was there to help in the briefing when our managing director was due to go to a meeting with the clients CEO, ostensibly to wrap things up. I remember seeing him off with gusto but he came back later with no deal. We heard a week later that our major competitor had been invited in. Subsequently they won the deal. We understood that it was a loss leader for them and the client was subsequently absorbed in a huge merger. We took consolation in all of that, but the fact remained that we had lost.

As I reflected on this deal I realised that it was a turning point in my career as a lawyer. I had focused on getting the best possible deal for my employer. I had been an advocate for some strong positions and argued hard for them. We had taken these positions because we believed they were right. As the lawyer I had ended up leading the active part of the deal team, the negotiations with the client. The rest of the team, external lawyers from a top City law firm, financial experts and our technical team, were taking the lead from me. We stoked each other up and believed our own publicity. The clients team was structured in the same way, and as a result we ended up being highly confrontational. There was also a lot of ego involved. In hindsight it didnt feel good.

I subsequently left EDS and also fundamentally shifted my focus. I could see that there was a much larger picture than a positional fight for the technically right answer. We felt wed made compromises when we presented our final deal to our Coventry client, but they were just that, compromises. They werent creative solutions to fully understood problems that we had worked on together. I also wasnt happy that my work and home personas could be so different, particularly without my being aware of it. I knew that I needed to work on understanding both the commercial and human challenge more broadly to achieve more in future. The challenge was mine but I also knew that I needed to shift environment to find the answers. If I had known what to do, I could have done it at EDS. Not knowing what to do was a good reason to move somewhere else where I was more likely to get some help. By luck as much as judgement, I was right. The firm I joined, Andersen Consulting, were pioneers in understanding a new thing they called Relationship Management. At its core, this was about understanding more, both about the client but also about yourself. What drew me in was the professionalism, profitability and image of the organisation. I would find out more about what that was driven by in due course.

The first thing I want to be clear about is that I think negotiating with dominant power is relatively easy. If you hold the thing people want, you can demand the best terms. You can tell people what you think and you can define what is right. Big supermarkets have often pulled business from suppliers because they wont agree to their prescribed terms. So many of our ways of thinking and our systems are built around a prevalence of dominant power that runs at least through the past 2,000 years or so of history. In it the bullies prosper. For my part, I was bullied at work and I in turn bullied. The fruits of my labours contained seeds of sustenance but also of destruction. Once after a bad day at work I got stopped for speeding and realised that there was no sense in taking my frustration out on others. What was the point of intimidating other road users, scaring pedestrians and ultimately defiling the quietly ever-giving natural world around me that gave me sustenance? We hate being victims ourselves, but at the same time it is easy to become part of a pattern where we take our revenge for being bullied by also taking a part-time role as the villain. The problem is that through this approach we dont grow. The good suppliers give up and go elsewhere. Creativity and new product thrive in an atmosphere of trust, not fear. Sooner or later the bully will be left sitting in his vast but now empty palace, as the last cronies desert.