I hope by now you have signed up for my Success Seminar because it is really shaping up to be a good one. I’m speaking to 200 high school football players on Thursday of this week and one of the things I intend to relate to them is how they can become successful using the same Bible based principles that I use. Many of them come from a single parent, poverty stricken environment and up to this point in their young lives have had little to no training in this important area and I hope and pray it has an impact on them for the rest of their lives.
I have found that there is a need for Bible based success training in virtually all levels of our society and this need is not just restricted to those who are uneducated or poverty stricken by any measure. Even educated folks of substantial means often miss the mark when it comes to enjoying the true success in life that God desires for every one of us.
Throughout my life and career I have been referred to many times as a “rainmaker” by my strategic partners, employees, and friends and even diffidently by my adversaries and critics. I am one of those individuals that can make things happen, be it salesmanship, negotiating and closing a big deal, completion of a project on time or ahead of schedule, or achieving goals ranging from staying fit to overcoming adversity. I take no credit for it whatsoever and freely admit that I owe it all to Jesus Christ and His Holy Bible.
I use a system that I developed over my lifetime using the Bible as my guide. I often find that wannabe rainmakers lack skills in the very important area of negotiating and closing a good deal for all concerned. We all have to negotiate in virtually every area of our lives, be it buying or selling something like a home or automobile, skillfully working out agreements with friends, employees, employers, vendors, and even our kids and family members, or most importantly convincing someone to go to church with us or read the Bible.
After successfully negotiating the contract for the multi-million dollar sale of our company’s software to the second largest school district in the nation, Los Angeles Unified School District, their negotiating team paid me a nice compliment by attempting to hire me to negotiate contracts for them in the future. They had an entire department consisting of attorneys and professional contract negotiators that did nothing but negotiate contracts who to a person told me that I negotiated the best deal for our company that they could recall ever being negotiated in their mega school district. Best of all there was no bitterness or sour grapes about it, rather grudging admiration of the deal that our team forged with them and a feeling of now being good partners with us and committed to our common goals.
So what was my secret to success? I picked up on something I read years ago, (I believe it was published by the YMCA), that I live and die by when it comes to negotiating a deal. It is simply that one must be fair, friendly, but firm. All three ingredients are essential and I firmly believe are biblically based.
As with everything in life we are to use Biblical principles along with our God given intellect, and in negotiations it is essential to use some psychology along the way as well. I’m smart enough to know that I can’t end up with everything that I want when I negotiate a deal, even though I definitely put it all on the table.
I even ask for some things that I’m fully aware that the other side will never agree to in a million years. Nonetheless I will battle over those items as though the world will end if I don’t get them, and then only reluctantly give in and concede them to the other side, but only if they give me something that I really want in return.
An example of this in the LA Unified deal was jurisdiction for contractual disputes. I asked for jurisdiction to be in Georgia knowing full well that their attorneys would insist that it be in California. We battled over it and battled over it and finally I reluctantly relented, but only after winning a key point for my side that was used to win something else that I really wanted.
Early on I decide what I must have out of the deal and what I can yield on. I try to be consummately “fair” in that I always look to the other side and try to put myself in their place and structure a deal that is fair to them as well as to me. What may seem fair to me may “seem” unfair to them, but that is only natural and a key factor is selling them on the fairness of my proposal and that is where the “friendly” aspect of my success strategy comes in.
A ridiculous example of abject failure in utilizing friendliness during negotiations is with our own inept president and members of congress and their vain attempts to govern this great nation in a professional manner especially in regard to our current debt and overspending crisis. President Obama makes his points by ridiculing and insulting the other side and pitting what he refers to as the “working class” against those whom he calls the “business owner elite class”. (He doesn’t seem to understand that those business owners that he detests are the hardest working people on the planet and if there ever was a working class it is them.)
It is no small wonder to me that he fails miserably and alienates everyone within earshot with his poisonous rhetoric and insults. If I used that tactic during negotiations I couldn’t sell a Bible to a preacher.
Ronald Reagan was gifted in disarming opponents through his congenial friendly demeanor and was liked even by his most ideological opposite opponents such as uber-liberal House Speaker Tip O’Neil. They could overcome their ideological differences through passionate but friendly negotiations to get the important deals done in the best interest of their country and not solely upon political ambition.
The third part of being a good negotiator is to be firm in negotiations. We must stand on our principles and in my estimation no deal is better than a bad deal. You must be prepared to walk and mean it. If I were negotiating the debt crisis I would not blink on serious cuts to spending, period. My tactic has always been to point to my eyes and say: “Look right here, I’m not yielding on this point. Negotiations will end right now if we cannot agree on this issue. It is non-negotiable and we must have this.” I do not overuse this and anytime this tactic is employed and they look into my unblinking unwavering eyes, they know I mean business on this point. I will never compromise my core principles.
Reagan was also endowed in the “firm” portion of the “fair, friendly, but firm” equation and when he told Soviet Union leader Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall there was no mistake about it to “Gorbie” that he meant business. The same with John F. Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis with Nikita Khrushchev (whose approach when he heard something he didn’t like was to take his shoe off and bang it on the conference table like a four year old child).
One of Khrushchev’s quotes was: “Do you think when two representatives holding diametrically opposing views get together and shake hands; the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of a daydream is that?” Another was: “I once said, ‘We will bury you’, and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.” Sound like the familiar class warfare that is being invoked today by our illustrious leader? After watching Obama’s press conference I’ve been expecting him, Harry Reid, and Pelosi to try some shoe banging of their own any day now. This three shoe banging syndrome might even provide fodder for a good “Three Stooges” rerun. (I know – I know – that is not exhibiting friendliness and was somewhat mean-spirited. Sorry but they make me really mad sometimes. Gr-r-r-rrr!)
Getting back to Kennedy, he meant business, even if it meant nuclear war. Khrushchev finally understood that and blinked and nuclear war was averted. He and his communist working class theories and country eventually fell and good won out over evil. I like those stories where the good wins out over evil.
Fair, friendly but firm, is the way to negotiate. If we study the Bible we cannot come away without realizing that God epitomizes these characteristics. He defines fair and in fact His grace is far beyond our limited comprehension of what fairness should be. He is friendly and welcomes with loving open arms even the vilest sinner (of which I am one of the chiefs). And make no mistake God is firm and one day will judge the world and it will be a day of reckoning and vengeance that is frightening just to think about. God is patient but will not be mocked.
We must remember that love is the supreme value with God. Anger and conflict block out love and in so doing God. There is probably no greater challenge to spiritual growth than how you handle anger and conflict in negotiations or anything else. Be fair to others but also to yourself. Be friendly even when it’s difficult. And be firm and don’t compromise your principles even in this politically correct – reality incorrect society.
I love God and I love His Bible. It contains so much knowledge that we can utilize every single day of our lives. I appreciate what He has taught me about success in life and I urge you to do as I have done and open your Bibles up and start reading today. Success will find its way into your life and take root as you nourish it with food and water from the Bible.
Matthew 18:15