商務談判英語:Typical Hardball Tactics (5)

Chicken

The chicken tactic is named after the 1950s challenge, portrayed in the James Dean movie Rebel Without a Cause, of two people driving cars at each other or toward a cliff until one person swerves to avoid disaster. The person who swerves is labeled a chicken, and the other person is treated like a hero. Negotiators who use this tactic combine a large bluff with a threatened action to force the other party to “chicken out” and give them what they want. In labor-management negotiations, management may tell the union representatives that if they do not agree to the current contract offer the company will close the factory and go out of business (or move to another state or country). Clearly this is a high-stakes gamble. On the one hand, management must be willing to follow through on the threat – if the union calls their bluff and they do not follow through, they will not be believed in the future. On the other hand, how can the union take the risk and call the bluff? If management is telling the truth, the company may actually close the factory and move elsewhere.

The weakness of the chicken tactic is that it turns negotiation into a serious game in which one or both parties find it difficult to distinguish reality from postured negotiation positions. Will the other party really follow through on his or her threats? We frequently cannot know for sure because the circumstances must be grave in order for this tactic to be believable; but it is precisely when circumstances are grave that a negotiator may be most tempted to use this tactic. Compare, for instance, the responses of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to Iraq’s defiance of the United Nations weapons inspection program. It appears that Iraq felt it could “stare down” President Bush because it had successfully avoided outright conflict during President Clinton’s term. The subsequent war in Iraq demonstrated the error of this assessment.

The chicken tactic is very difficult for a negotiator to defend against. To the extent that the commitment can be downplayed, reworded, or ignored, however, it can lose its power. Perhaps the riskiest response is to introduce one’s own chicken tactic. At that point neither party may be willing to back down in order not to lose face. Preparation and a thorough understanding of the situations of both parties are absolutely essential for trying to identify where reality ends and the chicken tactic begins. Use of external experts to verify information or to help to reframe the situation is another option.