MODIFICACIONES A LOS PROGRAMAS

There’s a television commercial in which a boy who’s maybe ten years old is bothering his sister by lying right next to her on the beach. Ugh—cooties! The girl appeals to her parents, who are relax- ing in beach chairs nearby, to tell her brother not to touch her. The brother obliges, and for the rest of the commercial he hovers over his sister with his finger a fraction of an inch away from her, saying, ‘‘I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you.’’ Anyone watching this commercial has immediate sympathy for the girl and certainly wouldn’t mind if she smacked him.

So the brother is literally sticking to the terms of his agreement, but in so doing, he’s driving his sister crazy. Being a child, that’s probably his goal. Being an adult, you’ll have a worthier goal in mind when you use this technique.

Here’s how I used this technique in a contract dispute with a former employee. The former employee had her husband, a lawyer, call us to argue on her behalf. It so happened that her husband worked for the government, and he had called us from his office, leaving a message on my office voice mail that included his govern-

vestigate us from his position as a government lawyer. Once I told him that I would make an issue of his improper use of his office (implying it was as if he had threatened to bring the weight of the United States government to bear on a private business matter), he had to worry that I was going to report his actions to his supervisor. Although I knew full well that he had not been speaking as a gov- ernment employee, what mattered is that he had, in fact, violated the rules regarding the use of his government title. We could make the case to his superiors that he was guilty of abuse of the govern- ment’s power. He had broken the rule, and even though we hadn’t really been intimidated by his use of his title, we could demand that his superiors start an investigation of our complaint—because a rule’s a rule. We were no longer arguing over the issue the ex- employee had raised; now the argument had shifted to something I knew I could win, because he’d been caught breaking a rule.

Be Naive

Appearing naive and following the rules to the letter are very differ- ent strategies that may achieve the same effect: They frustrate the other side. I call this the ‘‘Joey Syndrome,’’ named for the lovable but somewhat dim character on the television series Friends. Joey often got what he wanted not through the logic of his arguments, the force of his personality, or any other traditional method. He got his way because people thought he was genuinely perplexed and needed their help in some way.

We’ve all encountered this pattern in our lives—especially when talking with children. They can’t be expected to handle every- thing on their own. No matter how slowly you speak, how simple the words are that you choose, or how much you do to get them started, you have to do more. And more. And then you end up doing their whole job for them—they don’t need to lift a finger.

I recently saw this happen on a flight from London to the United States. An elderly couple was seated behind us; they didn’t speak English, and you could tell from they way they gripped the back of the seats in front of them—our seats—throughout the en-

perhaps the most cliche´d moment I have ever experienced, the flight attendant asked these passengers if they wanted some coffee. They didn’t understand and smiled blankly. So she asked in a louder voice, ‘‘Would you like some coffee?’’ They still didn’t reply, so the flight attendant spoke even more loudly: ‘‘DO YOU WANT COFFEE?’’ Finally, she realized it was no good trying to take an order. She came back with both coffee and tea and let them point to what they wanted. Then she served them immediately; they didn’t have to wait for their order to be filled. Now I’m pretty sure that this elderly couple wasn’t using this technique to get served ahead of everyone else, but the effect was the same: The flight atten- dant just gave up because she got frustrated with the apparent in- ability of the other party to understand her.

Nobody has unlimited patience or time. Eventually the other party will either give in and do what’s needed to complete the deal, or walk away. The couple on the airplane could easily have ended up with nothing. But because they were smiling and not demand- ing—just sweet but somewhat befuddled travelers—the flight atten- dant served them first.

But here’s the risk in this strategy: If it becomes apparent that you do understand, but just aren’t cooperating, the other side will walk away—and probably tell others that you’re a faker. If you present yourself as charmingly, helplessly naive, it helps to really be that way.

Yet sometimes in business, that’s just what you want. When you’ve got a persistent salesman who keeps calling, it’s in your inter- est to be unable to comprehend what he’s trying to sell. ‘‘So let me see,’’ the potential customer says. ‘‘If we take the car with five years’ additional service warranty’’—which, by the way, is what you’ve already decided you don’t want or need—‘‘we get a brand-new computer and you need to fix our old one for free if something goes

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wrong?’’ It’s one thing to negotiate over the price of a purchase, but sometimes the deal gets so dragged out with attempted sales of extras that this negotiating technique is called for. When you’re the naive one, the negotiations aren’t about facts, or money, or posi- tion, or power, or anything substantive: They’re over—well, that’s the problem—they’re never over. The only way you are going to end the discussion is when you make clear that no amount of explana- tion is going to get the salesman anywhere.

Perhaps this negotiating tool is most useful in avoiding negotia- tions that you don’t want to enter into altogether. Think about it: How do you negotiate with somebody who doesn’t understand what the purpose of the negotiating process is? How do you negoti- ate with somebody who doesn’t seem to have the ability to grasp the intricate details of what’s involved in making a deal? In other words, how do you negotiate with a child? You can’t. So you cut your losses and stop bothering the person. You think you’re wasting your time—and you are. And the naive one has stopped you from wasting his time, too. The naive party has caught you in a brilliant trap.