The fascinating mechanics of striking a deal

If you wish to know how to become a master negotiator, a formidable body of books will now offer to train you in that art, but I’m not entirely sure it can be taught. The greatest natural asset, I suppose, is the ability to enjoy the game: the performative mulling, tough-talking, buttering-up, pitching of curve balls and – when absolutely necessary – flamboyant execution of a real or bluff exit. Yet even for those of us who are clumsy and reluctant hagglers, the mechanics of striking a deal can be fascinating. This is the stuff of the Dealcraft podcast, hosted by Jim Sebenius, a professor of the Harvard Business School, and himself a high-flying negotiator. Via ‘interviews with the world’s greatest dealmakers and diplomats’, he aims to distil ‘practical insights for listeners to apply in their own toughest negotiations’.

The first thing to notice about Sebenius is that he has a tremendously gravelly, reassuring and slightly soporific voice, suggestive of expensive Scotch and knowing observations in oak-panelled boardrooms. Indeed, it could easily lull a susceptible opponent into signing all sorts of agreements under the temporary delusion that everything Sebenius proposed made obvious mutual sense. I suppose this could act as tip number one: if you have a squeaky, grating voice, take it down a few notches. Before long other anecdotes and lessons are coming thick and fast, courtesy of his stellar array of guests, including Hillary Clinton and the late Henry Kissinger.

One retired ‘music-industry super-lawyer’, John Branca, describes the challenges of working for Michael Jackson at the height of his Thriller era. Jackson kept nagging Branca to get hold of the film canisters of the ‘Thriller’ video, which he duly did. But in numerous whispery but insistent telephone conversations, Jackson started demanding that Branca destroy the film, something the lawyer was understandably loath to do.