If you’ve done any kind of focused writing, then you know how valuable it can be to step away from your keyboard and, after a while, return to it with a fresh eye for spotting typos, a fresh ear for writing style, and refreshed clarity of thought.1 For most day-to-day projects, from blog posts to legal briefs, you’re lucky to get more than a single day before deadlines force you back to the keyboard. For me, publishing this series has been like picking up an old draft after two and a half years off.2
Thankfully, I haven’t found any mortifying errors in the form or substance of the mini-manifesto on negotiation that I wrote and edited over the first quarter of 2024.3 But, having gone through the process of dividing my book’s chapter on negotiation into three sections for re-publication here, I now recognize a better structure I could have used to frame my so-called “negotiating philosophy for the working professional”:4
The introductory sections, published last Monday, provide a conceptual framework for the philosophy — possibly tedious if you’re looking for a quick and practical primer, but helpful to people whose brains, like mine, do better with some kind of intellectual scaffolding to hang things on.
The four “adages” from last Thursday’s post speak to how you can apply this framework to effectively persuade others.
The four adages below, in the third and final section of my book’s chapter on negotiation, speak to the values at the heart of my approach (whether or not I recognized them as such when I first wrote them down). The ones that stand out to me are respect, authenticity, discipline, and open-mindedness. I bet you could extract (or project) more of your own.
One last thing before you start, though.
Now that I’ve begun thinking about conceptual framework, persuasion, and values as three “pillars” of my “philosophy,”5 it has also become apparent to me that I missed a crucial fourth pillar altogether: process. In hindsight, it feels like a glaring omission. My approach to process hasn't really changed since I wrote about everything else — I just wasn't thinking about it as explicitly or systematically as I do now. But spotting what I missed is a nice reminder that just the fact that I knew enough to write a book about this stuff doesn’t mean I had (or have) it all figured out.
And just as the entertainment industry never met a three-day weekend it couldn’t turn into a four-day weekend,6 I’ve never met a three-part series I couldn’t turn into a four-part series.7 So I’ll be back on Friday with an unexpected (even to me) “fourth installment” in my three-part series re-publishing 2024’s “On Negotiation,” sharing the (first?) two adages I plan to add when I publish the book’s third edition (which won’t be anytime soon).
Follow along as we work our way through the full text of Chapter 13 of The Business of Television (2nd ed. 2024): “On Negotiation”:
A. Why Is This Chapter Different from All Other Chapters?
B. But First, an Academic Framework
C. A Philosophy of Negotiation in Eight Adages
C.i. Negotiate, Don’t Haggle
C.ii. Every Negotiation Has Three “Teams”
C.iii. Every Negotiation Is Three Negotiations
C.iv. Pay People in the Currency That Is Most Valuable to Them (and Least Valuable to You)
Monday, August 24, 2026:
C.v. Don’t Get Nasty; There Will Be Plenty of Time for That Later
C.vi. There’s No Such Thing as “Winning the Deal”
C.vii. Play the Long Game
C.viii. The Best Way to Negotiate Is as Yourself
D. Final Thoughts
Friday, August 28, 2026: Surprise fourth installment! (Details TBD.)
v. Don’t Get Nasty; There Will Be Plenty of Time for That Later
This is a variation on one of my favorite all-purpose adages, borrowed from sports columnist Gregg Easterbrook, but applicable to virtually any setting in business or in life: “Don’t panic; there will be plenty of time for that later.”8 As adapted here, the statement’s two halves are each doing something distinct.
The first part, “Don’t Get Nasty,” means exactly what it says: don’t get nasty. As with the advice in this chapter generally, this is not a moral prescription, but a practical one: I just don’t think getting nasty works very well most of the time.
Some professionals favor a “shock and awe” approach to negotiation, characterized by shouts, curses, and threats; an avowed unwillingness to compromise on positions, even very early in a negotiation; the aggressive drawing of conceptual lines in the sand; and a generally “I’m not here to make friends” tone of communication. This style of negotiation can be personally overwhelming and devastatingly effective, especially when deployed against young, fearful, and inexperienced counterparts. Against confident and experienced negotiators, however, attempts at bullying or other especially adversarial approaches to negotiation often backfire.9 A highly vitriolic approach to negotiation tends to galvanize people in their positions, promoting resentful stubbornness that keeps the parties farther apart in a deal, rather than the spirit of compromise that is usually essential to reaching an understanding.
On the other hand, to recycle a few clichés here: you can disagree without being disagreeable, and you don’t have to be here to make friends to act friendly. This is not a paean to being a pushover, nor a call to prioritize harmony over good outcomes. Rather, in my experience, trying to open every negotiation with a tone and spirit of friendly collaboration, and to maintain that tone and spirit for as long as the course of the negotiation allows, tends to create and preserve productive momentum and inspire confidence in all principals and representatives that a deal can be reached, especially when the parties’ starting positions are very far apart.10 That confidence alone is enough to make it more likely that a deal will be reached, or that it will be reached more quickly and satisfyingly than a negotiation that is adversarial from the outset.
As for the reassurance that “There Will Be Plenty of Time for That Later,” the point is not that being nasty is OK but only sometimes. Rather, it is a reminder that, to paraphrase media commentator Marshall McLuhan, “The delivery is the message.”11 Yes, tone and tenor are a matter of personal style; but they are also another channel of communication which, deployed properly, can help effectively convey the importance or urgency of one’s own positions or provide critical feedback on the substance and delivery of the opposing side’s positions. But communication is only effective if it is legible, which requires that it be clear, meaningful, and unambiguous.
Maintaining a generally calm, friendly, and personable affect can therefore make one a more effective advocate and communicator in the toughest and highest-stakes situations. A negotiator with a reputation for a constructive, solution-oriented approach to dealmaking is more likely to be believed when drawing a firm line on an issue that may be hard for the other side to accept. A negotiator with a reputation for a calm and friendly demeanor commands more respect and greater impact on the rare occasions when they do allow sharpness or emotion into their tone. And a negotiator who is willing to acknowledge (and even apologize) when they have crossed a line of basic courtesy or professionalism — as everyone does at one time or another in these stressful jobs — earns trust and grace that will pay dividends in future negotiations.
On the other hand, those who are quick to aggression and vitriol have a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” problem: they don’t have a higher gear to communicate those things when they really matter. If everything is important, nothing is important; if everything gets you fired up, then being fired up doesn’t mean much of anything. The result of such tactics is often a quick devolution into positional bargaining that ultimately disservices everyone.
vi. There’s No Such Thing as “Winning the Deal”
Perhaps the most pernicious myth about negotiations is that somebody must “win the deal” (and therefore, your job as a negotiator is to make sure that “somebody” is you). In this worldview, “winning” can be defined in any number of ways — by reference to a theoretical baseline outcome, according to each side’s satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the outcome, or perhaps simply by the juicy knowledge that you were totally prepared to give up more than you ultimately had to. But the whole concept reflects an essentially zero-sum view of business (and perhaps of the world more broadly) — for somebody to gain, someone else must lose.
In my experience, the most effective negotiators realize that there is no such thing as “winning a negotiation” or “winning the deal” — or at least, that it does not mean what people usually use it to mean. Deals happen because both sides believe they are better off making a deal than not making one. Frequently, those parties will have to negotiate and make a deal again in the future. Even if they don’t, in our industry, the negotiators who represent them will.
“Winning the negotiation” isn’t about somehow beating the other side — it’s about making a deal that’s good for both sides, not leaving anyone feeling burned, and being right about everyone being better off for having made it.
vii. Play the Long Game
In Hollywood, there is virtually no such thing as a one-off interaction. A small number of companies dominate the overall volume of production, distribution, and exhibition. A small community of professionals, with long careers across multiple major employers, sits at the center of much of the industry’s activity. Any time two parties of any kind make a deal, there is a good chance that it won’t be the last time. And even if it is, whatever professional negotiators personally negotiated that deal, there is a good chance that they will cross paths again in the future (maybe in the same jobs, maybe in new ones). This has at least two key implications.
First, the most effective negotiators tend to be the ones with the best reputations. Some liars are better than others,12 but it does not take long for people to figure out who can be relied on for honesty and who cannot, or who can be trusted to hear sensitive truths and who cannot. There are few things negotiators love to talk about over drinks more than the person they just caught in a lie — it is both a narcissistic act of self-congratulation and a public service of warning. Stick around long enough and negotiators you have never met will know (or think they know, or be able to find out) plenty about you before the first time you get on the phone with them. If they view you as unworthy of their trust before they’ve even spoken with you, that assumption will color every interaction they ever have with you, unless and until you can convince them that they had it wrong all along. On the other hand, a negotiator with a reputation for honesty and fairness enters every negotiation with an advantage, able to quickly build trust and rapport with their counterpart, and from there, to deliver great results while developing great relationships, which can deepen and multiply over a long career.
Second, take extra care when your actions — in ruthlessly exploiting a position of leverage, going “behind the back” of a direct negotiating counterpart, or otherwise — may cause your counterpart real personal or professional distress. To say nothing of the moral implications of intentionally (or at least knowingly) putting someone in a bad position,13 it tends to have long-term consequences that outweigh the immediate gains. Whether or not you act with malice, people have long memories for those whose actions (in business or otherwise) have caused them personal or professional distress. Someone (whether principal or representative) who has been needlessly pulverized or otherwise embarrassed in a negotiation while in a position of weakness will have little hesitation in returning the favor when the tables are turned, as they so often are.14 And of course, one’s willingness to put others in such positions becomes a significant part of that reputation I said was so important.
In the end, the professionals who deliver the best results — and who usually rise the highest in their fields — are those whose value comes not only from their superior skill, knowledge, and experience, but from the superior ease with which they can conduct business with key people around town.15 It’s never “just one negotiation.” Your career is long (we hope). Play the long game.
viii. The Best Way to Negotiate Is as Yourself
A common misperception among early-career professionals is that there is a single “right” or “best” way to negotiate, or a perfect model of negotiating excellence to emulate. Although I obviously advocate for certain shared values that I think promote a thriving and efficient marketplace for our deeply interconnected and interdependent industry, those values are compatible with any negotiator’s personal style and strengths.
Early-career professionals should look for opportunities to observe and learn from negotiators who reflect a variety of styles and approaches. Listen in on calls with particular attention to the models of negotiation you see and hear around you, among colleagues as well as counterparts. In your early, low-stakes negotiations, try a few models on for size if they seem like they might be a good fit. Mix and match elements of them, playing to your strengths. You’ll start by performing the role of professional negotiator, with a bunch of different acting coaches. Although you may start out mimicking these various coaches, over time, you’ll learn to combine influences, prescriptive and proscriptive, from each of them into an integrated version of that role for yourself. Eventually, as your style naturally evolves and grows more comfortable and authentic to you—and probably without you noticing it at first—you won’t be playing a role anymore.
That will be the right and best way for you to negotiate.
D. Final Thoughts
If the advice contained in this chapter comes from one basic assumption about the world, it is that “we are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”16 The entertainment industry seems to attract (not to mention mint and reward) difficult and performative personalities, which can sometimes make basic decency feel strangely hard to come by. The negotiation philosophy set out here is one of basic thoughtfulness, forthrightness, creativity, and collaboration. It’s a humanist approach to doing business. A lot of it is basic “Golden Rule” stuff. It calls for us to extend to others a presumption of good faith, while making it our job to continuously figure out who is and remains worthy of that trust. It is never going to be universally embraced by those who would deride it as naïve or idealistic.17 Carefully and skeptically applied, however, it is still resistant to those cynics—though of course, not invulnerable to those with a bad attitude and a loose relationship with the truth who wield leverage unhesitatingly and without consideration of downstream impacts. It presupposes that doing business the “right” way, doing business the effective way, and doing business the pleasant way can all be the same thing. If lived successfully, I think it can make for a pretty satisfying career; and the more people who embrace it, the better it works for everyone. That may be an awfully aspirational line, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
It’s just like my friend said: “Our careers should all be a paradise! We get to tell stories and do cool shit for a living. This should be a Shangri-la.”18
You’ve made it to the end of “On Negotiation” — but not to the end of this secretly FOUR-part series on my favorite “words of wisdom” about negotiation. Come back on Friday for a sneak peek — three to five years ahead of release! — of two more adages I’ll be adding in the next edition of The Business of Television.
I also suggest printing out physical copies of your most significant draft(s) and annotating them, at least in brief, by hand.
Weird.
Technically, in December 2023. I would not bother to include this clarification, but I specifically mentioned it in the introduction to last Monday’s post, and then decided to simplify my description of the writing/editing period for the chapter for clarity purposes above. And let’s face it, the kind of close-reading pedant who would notice such a thing — probably with a slight disapproving scowl on their face — is exactly the kind of close-reading pedant who would bother reading this footnote.
A phrase that, after much deliberation, I have decided is only somewhat cringe-inducing.
Is “philosophy” really the right word here? Is all of this hanging together? I’m not sure. (If I was, I’d have gone further with the “four pillars are more stable than three” thing.) Luckily, I’ve got a couple of years to figure it out before sitting down to write that third edition. And if you’re the kind of close-reading pedant who would bother reading this footnote, then you’re the kind of close-reading pedant from whom I would value feedback about this. (Hope to see you in the comments?)
Or a four-day weekend it couldn’t turn into a five- or six-day one.
Or a “standalone” post or two-part series I couldn’t turn into a three- four-part series.
Easterbrook usually directs this advice at teams that are losing badly at halftime, as a reminder that they have every bit as much time to climb out of their scoring deficits as they spent falling into them. I mostly use it to advise colleagues to keep calm in the face of crisis or adversity, and to remind them that no one ever solved a major problem faster by freaking out about it. Fun bonus fact: polymath Gregg Easterbrook, known for years on ESPN.com as “Tuesday Morning Quarterback,” is primarily a scholar of economics and political science, and is the brother of famed Seventh Circuit jurist Judge Frank Easterbrook. Must be quite a table at Thanksgiving.
Again, see “Every Negotiation Has Three ‘Teams’” and “Every Negotiation Is Three Negotiations.”
Few things can derail a negotiation more quickly than an extremely aggressive counter delivered extremely aggressively, which tends to send the message between principals, “This isn’t a priority for me, so I only want to enter in this deal if the terms are ridiculously good for me, and I don’t care if that means they are ridiculously bad for you.” I sometimes call this the “eff you” counter. If that is indeed the message that you as a negotiator are trying to send on behalf of your client, then well done and message received. But usually that is not the case; a person or company can push hard for a “great” deal without being indifferent to the fact of making a deal or to the interests of the party on the other side. Some negotiators are known and admired specifically for their ability to deliver even the most aggressive position — one which could easily offend if delivered inartfully — with a smile and a laugh that gets their position across without diluting it but also without antagonizing the other side into digging in its heels or delivering its own “eff you, too” response.
The rare philosopher and public intellectual who achieved mainstream notoriety — including a cameo as himself in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, in which he appears out of nowhere to silence a pompous academic by telling him, “You know nothing of my work” — McLuhan is known as the “father of media studies” and is best remembered today for coining the phrase “The medium is the message.”
And pretty much everyone is an exaggerator at some time and in one way or another.
Almost certainly a total career-obsessive who would be fairly devastated by any chastisement from a boss, colleague, or client, and who would experience substantial anxiety at the thought of any loss of professional status.
Some might argue that a negotiator has a duty to maximize their client’s outcomes, which supersedes any notions of professional courtesy. Even if that is true, in my view, maximizing a client’s outcomes in the long run does not mean maximizing their outcomes at every opportunity presented. Actions that create grudges or damage credibility — whether for the client, the representative, or both — have very real costs, and the gains and costs of engaging in unapologetically ruthless and/or dubiously ethical behavior are not distributed evenly, consistently, or even justly. The bad feelings you engender while overzealously advocating for one client might come to badly haunt you at the expense of a totally different client who received no benefit from the first transaction. For principals and representatives alike, I find that the surer path to a quick rise that isn’t followed (even if belatedly) by an equally quick fall, is not crushing others just because you can. Or, to quote another close friend (and prominent business affairs leader): “If you don’t make any friends on the way up, you sure as hell ain’t gonna have any on the way down.”
I would propose that if you want to really test someone’s bona fides in this regard, ask them if they’ve ever functionally “pre-negotiated” a deal in a single phone call, more or less scripting some “negotiation theater” over a few formal rounds of negotiation toward a result they’ve largely outlined from the outset.
Oscar Wilde. (I know, I know.)
It is already — not unfairly, and even among sympathetic readers — generating rolled eyes right now.
Please remember this warm feeling when you start reading the considerably bleaker Conclusion section that immediately follows this chapter.