Managing Leadership^®

I mentioned yesterday the events leading up to a negotiation I witnessed earlier this month. It involved a man who wanted to take over control and credit for organization of an event that a woman, on proper authority, had already been busily arranging.

The man resisted having a meeting about it, since doing so would have constituted an acknowledgment that he lacked the standing in the issue that he claimed for himself. The woman nevertheless managed, with personal tact and professional focus, to obtain his agreement to attend.

At first, he objected to my presence, stating with an unsettling frankness that he had hoped to speak with her alone. The woman pointed out that he had brought a colleague, who was sitting next to him, and he yielded the point. When he indicated that he had no new ideas to offer to resolve the situation, she began to present her proposal.

She first explained the reality of the situation as it had developed up to that juncture. She then used this to carefully outline what the unavoidable implications were as to what could practically be coordinated and what could honestly be claimed regarding any role ultimately offered him.

On the basis of that explanation, she made her proposal. It was actually quite generous, extending some considerable status and publicity to him in exchange for little more effort on his part than attending the event. However, it was indeed a role considerably less substantive than he had assumed, for whatever reason, was his right.

There then followed the most remarkable part of this remarkable episode. He commenced a sort of rear guard action, once again claiming that everything had already been decided by him previously. She reminded him as tactfully as possible of the inaccuracy of that, and without going into an argumentative recitation of why that was so.

He then switched to a sort of rhetorical reconnaissance by fire, lobbing objections, distractions, claims of superior ability or resources, and the like into the discussion, looking for vulnerabilities he hoped he could exploit to rattle her into submission. He adopted a deprecatory expression, leaned forward in agitation, and at one point even threatened to leave.

She spoke softly but firmly, and worked quietly to keep him on topic. She helped to keep the excitement under control and the meeting on track toward its goals by consciously working to dampen his emotional behavior with her own self-composure. When he suggested he might walk out, she simply adopted an unperturbed manner in acknowledgment that the meeting was thus closed, and said nothing, allowing the implications of his threat to dawn on him of their own accord.

He didn’t stir. In the end, he asserted with breathtaking audacity that what she wanted was actually precisely what he had meant all along. He then accepted her proposal in every detail, declared victory, and quickly left.

In the end, then, these two people of distinctly different personality and approaches to professional conduct, were able to overcome the difficulties those differences presented and agree on a solution that was reasonable, fair, and in agreement with the facts.

It wasn’t easy. But it must nevertheless be admitted that, despite their contrasting approaches and perhaps aims, neither of them actually gave up short of a successful result.

What do you suppose are the lessons in this as to why and how the satisfactory outcome was obtained in the face of what appeared right up to the end to be such long odds?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of the acceptance of women in positions of responsibility and authority, please see this Business Week article about the still too-small number of women directors in the United States.

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