Aristotle

384-322 B.C.

Negotiation Strategy and Aristotle’s Rhetoric

by

Dr Leslie J. Shaw

Professor of Negotiation

ESCP-EAP European School of Management

Dr Leslie J. Shaw

ESCP-EAP European School of Management

Paper submitted to the Second International Biennale onNegotiation

NEGOCIA-PARIS November 17-18, 2005

Abstract

Aristotle’s place in Western thought and his relevance today.

The Rhetoric, three modes of persuasion. Rational, Ethical and

Emotional. Application to selected cultures - Europe, Asia,

Latin America. Illustration by case studies. Dominance of USA

in negotiation studies. Business ethics, emotional

intelligence, artificial intelligence. Technology applied to

negotiation. Need to balance encroachment of automated

negotiation with the human factor epitomized in Aristotle’s

work.

Key Words: Aristotle, negotiation, strategy, rhetoric, intercultural, automated.

 

Contact:

Dr Leslie J. Shaw

Professor of Negotiation

2

ESCP-EAP, 79 avenue de la République, 75011 PARIS

Email: lshaw@escp-eap.net

 

Negotiation Strategy and Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Dr Leslie J. Shaw

 

Introduction

In this digital and high-speed age I would like to pause for a

moment and turn to the past. Let us cross Europe to Athens,

where Aristotle founded his Lyceum in the year 335 B.C.

In our headlong plunge into the future, we seem to have

forgotten our intellectual and moral roots, unlike our

neighbours in Asia, for whom the teachings of Confucius and

Buddha still provide practical guidance for worldly affairs.

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Confucianism, a form of moral ethic, emphasizes moral cultivation and lifelong

learning. Sincerity, trust and righteousness are important qualities to be human.

Legal power does not feature at all in Confucianism.

(Bui Thi Hoa Hong)

During her long history of 5000 years, China has developed her own unique

civilization and culture, which are deeply rooted in every aspect of the society and

still very important factors in influencing Chinese people’s behaviour, including

international business activities, in spite of the effect of globalization.

(Muyu Chen)

Aristotelian ideas are embedded in Western thought. He

developed a philosophical and scientific system that dominated

Europe for two millennia. He was the first to establish

academic disciplines, such as logic, biology, physics,

psychology, politics and economics. Like his master Plato,

Aristotle was first and foremost a teacher. He believed that

one can not know a subject unless one is capable of

transmitting knowledge to others.

I suspect that were Aristotle alive today, he would extend his

activities from academia to management consultancy. In On

Kingship he wrote that

A king should take the advice of true philosophers. Then he would fill his reign with

good deeds, not with good words.

For king, substitute Chief Executive Officer or Chairman of the

Board.

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One may observe the current fashion for university professors

and management gurus to write books and deliver courses on

subjects such as wisdom, ethics and even spirituality. The

wheel would appear to have come full circle as the problems of

the postmodern world require a reevaluation of capitalism and a

quest to reunite economics and ethics.

Ethics has become a central plank of negotiation studies, as we

expound fairness, principle and win-win approaches and express

distaste for one-shot deals and predatory negotiation styles.

The most widely-read book on the subject is Fisher and Ury’s

Getting to Yes.

The Rhetoric

Aristotle, we learn from his contemporaries, was lucid and

persuasive - qualities essential in a negotiator. In this talk

I would like to propose a consideration of his Rhetoric, a

treatise on the art of persuasion. Its relevance to negotiation

is obvious, and I believe that the present day negotiator,

equipped with the rhetorical tools outlined by Aristotle, will

have the capability of building an appropriate strategy for any

negotiation, anywhere in the global marketplace.

Aristotle considered rhetoric and persuasion to be identical:

The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is

merely accessory ... Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most

fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

(Rhetoric, Book I, Chapter 1)

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Aristotle goes on to define three categories, or modes of

persuasion:

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The

first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting

the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof,

provided by the words of the speech itself. (I, 2)

The three modes available to the speaker are then described and

labelled:

Ethical : his power of evincing a personal character that will

make his speech credible.

Emotional : his power of stirring the emotions of his hearers.

Rational : his power of proving a truth by means of persuasive

arguments.

I believe that these three modes of persuasion are identical to

those used by all negotiators. I have been unable to discover a

fourth one.

Now, let us look at each of these modes of persuasion in more

detail, beginning with the last, as it is the one most commonly

used in the modern world of business and politics.

The Rational Mode of Persuasion

We tend to take our thought processes for granted, forgetting

that they are a product of our personal education, in itself

the result of centuries of philosophical and scientific

enquiry.

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Most negotiators take it as given that they can not hold

contradictory points of view simultaneously, that basic logic

must be adhered to in their discourse and that verifiable facts

must be put forward to support their propositions. They also

presume that each party in the negotiation will strive to

maximize his utility.

These thought processes are typically Aristotelian.

The first thing we have to remember is this. Whether our argument concerns public

affairs or some other subject, we must know some, if not all, of the facts about the

subject on which we are to speak and argue. Otherwise we can have no materials out

of which to construct arguments. (II, 22)

Among the techniques Aristotle recommends the speaker use in

the Rational mode we find Demonstration, Refutation, Possible

vs. Impossible, Facts past and future, Example, Parallel and

Degree. In Book III, which deals with style, he insists on

Clarity, Avoidance of ambiguity and Interrogation.

These terms are the stock-in-trade of the negotiator who has

received an education grounded in Aristotelian logic and the

empirical scientific tradition. It follows that when such a

negotiator is engaged in dealing with another party who

subscribes to this system of thought, his strategy and

discourse must adhere to the principles embedded therein.

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Rational Mode/Case Study 1: Irish Social Partnership

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Until the end of the 1980s, relations between Irish unions and

employers were adversarial. Free pay bargaining was the norm

and this contributed to high inflation. The government realized

that wage inflation was the underlying cause of the country’s

economic ills. The union leaders needed to be convinced that

accepting tough macroeconomic measures, such as spending cuts,

was in their members’ interests, because increases from short-

term pay claims were being eroded by tax and inflation. The

government proposed tax cuts in return for pay restraint, a

deal the unions bought. This radical change in union thinking

and behaviour laid the groundwork for what was to become the

Irish economic miracle. The labor movement came to recognize

that foreign direct investment was the motor of growth and

employment. This more pragmatic attitude on the part of the

unions was made possible by a progressive leadership open to

rational argument.

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____________

The rational mode poses a problem when the negotiator steps

outside his own territory, for the other party may not share

the rational system underlying his strategy and discourse. Even

within a relatively homogenous zone such as Western Europe, we

find subtle variations in thought processes between nations.

The French are notoriously Cartesian and their understanding of

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rationalism, inspired by mathematics, based on distinct and

universal ideas and tolerant of abstraction may prove

problematic when dealing with the Irish or British, whose

empirical outlook requires a more down-to-earth and concrete

style of demonstration.

Aristotle himself recognized this difficulty and was probably

the first theorist of intercultural communication:

… individual cases are so infinitely various that no systematic knowledge of them is

possible. In the same way the theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems

probable to a given individual … but with what seems probable to men of a given

type. (I, 2)

Though the Rhetoric was intended to provide tools for political

orators, Aristotle saw that his ideas could also prove useful

to the businessman and noted the importance of data collection:

With regard to the Food Supply: he must know what outlay will meet the needs of his

country; what kinds of food are produced at home and what imported; and what

articles must be exported or imported. This last he must know in order that

agreements and commercial treaties may be made with the countries concerned.

(I, 4)

The first item in the toolbox of the orator, or negotiator, is

thus to use reason to set objectives, build a strategy and

formulate arguments to reach his goals. A perfectly competent

negotiator may, however, fail to reach agreement if the

rational approach is used in a culture where it is

inappropriate. A Chinese business person pointed this out to me

recently:

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Traditional Chinese culture has a relatively weak attitude toward scientific truth.

Therefore, generally speaking, except for those educated in the West, most Chinese

businesspeople largely rely on subjective feelings and personal experiences in

making decisions and solving problems rather than objective facts such as figures

and empirical evidence.

(Muyu Chen)

Next we shall take a look at Aristotle’s second tool.

The Ethical Mode of Persuasion

Aristotle advises the speaker that gaining his counterpart’s

trust requires going beyond the simple presentation of fact and

arguments.

There are three things which inspire confidence in the orator's own character -- the

three, namely, that induce us to believe a thing apart from any proof of it: good

sense, good moral character, and goodwill … It follows that any one who is thought

to have all three of these good qualities will inspire trust in his audience. (II, 1)

As a negotiator, convincing the other party of one’s integrity,

showing one can be trusted, is the key to obtaining agreement,

above and beyond the quantitative arguments. This requires

meeting expectations or, as the Americans put it, “walking the

talk”, establishing credibility, keeping promises and

developing a good reputation.

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Ethical Mode/Case Study 2: Jimmy Carter, the world’s most

respected mediator

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Jimmy Carter is a master negotiator whose guiding principles

are justice for all parties and reconciliation between them.

His most famous success in using these methods was the Camp

David Accords where he bridged the gap between Israeli Prime

Minister Menachim Begin and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat,

leading directly to the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978, the

most enduring peace treaty in the history of the Middle East.

During his presidency, Carter also successfully negotiated the

SALT II arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union and laid

the groundwork for future arms reductions. He has been a

successful mediator in Haiti, North Korea, the Balkans and

Africa.

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Such a strategy would be appropriate when negotiating with

Chinese, Vietnamese and Indians:

If they don’t know you well, it will be very difficult to build trust and it is unlikely they

will work with you. The more they know about you, the more they will trust you. If you

can win trust from Chinese people, it will be easy to do business with them.

(Yu-Ting Chen)

The closer the relationship is, the more successful the negotiation will be. One of the

main reasons is that Vietnamese people’s behaviors are mostly driven by trust

among each other.

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(Ngo Duc Vu)

Traditionally, Indians deal favorably with those they know and trust - even at the

expense of lucrative deals.

(Vikas Verma, Ambrish Mathur)

In general, Indians tend to take larger risks with a person whose intentions they

trust.

(Parul Mankotia)

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Ethical Mode/Case Study 3 : Robert Maxwell, the unethical

negotiator

Acquisition of the Daily Mirror from the Reed group

From humble beginnings in Czechoslovakia, Robert Maxwell became

one of Britain's richest men. He enlisted in the British army

during World War II and was decorated for bravery. He

subsequently worked for the Foreign Office before building his

business empire. In 1984 he achieved a long-held ambition to

own a national newspaper when he bought the Daily Mirror.

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In 1983, the Daily Mirror was selling more copies than any

newspaper in Europe, but earned only £1m profit on turnover of

£200m. Why? Because the paper’s 13 trade unions were

responsible for a series of abuses in the machine rooms, such

as the presence of staff who played poker and drank, and who

often clocked in under two names (and so were paid double for

no work). Interference with these practices resulted in the

sabotage of print runs.

The Reed group decided to sell the paper, but only to a

publicly owned company, since a private owner could interfere

with the staff’s journalistic integrity. This excluded Robert

Maxwell’s company, Pergamon Press.

The Reed board decided to float the paper on the Stock

Exchange. But while the company had originally been valued

internally at £100m, an independent valuation by Warburgs in

1984 valued the Mirror at most at £60m, when they discovered the

union abuses.

From the start, Robert Maxwell pursued a strategy of fear in

negotiating the purchase of the Mirror. He probably had an

informer among the Mirror’s executives and he made sure to

demonstrate that he had inside knowledge of their plans. One

example was his discovery of the ‘15% rule’, where one entity

could not possess more than 15% of Mirror stock.

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Warburgs advised the Reed board to go ahead with a flotation.

Maxwell knew straight away, and immediately seized the chance

to make his interest in the paper apparent.

In the absence of a response, he cranked up the pressure by

sending a constant barrage of phone calls and faxes to the Reed

board demanding meetings and issuing ultimatums. Adding more

pressure, he made a statement to the press proposing “a formal

offer of not less than £80m cash… If justified by the

financial… information on the group, Pergamon will increase its

offer to a sum not exceeding £100m.”

The publicity of this onslaught added an extra dimension to the

pressure. The sense of fear is made apparent by the testimony

of Reed executives Jarret and Carpenter: “We refused to take

any of his phone calls but you could feel his presence

everywhere …it felt like a bombardment.”

They were reluctant to do business with Maxwell since they had

previously sold Oldhams Press to him at a giveaway price and

were unhappy with the deal. They continued to ignore his

offers. As a result, Maxwell raised his offer to £100m cash

with another £20 million available. To add further pressure to

begin negotiations, Maxwell sent a letter to Reed, claiming

that Warburgs was misrepresenting them. Maxwell decided to

increase the pressure another notch by occupying a suite in the

Ritz Hotel across the street from Reed’s Piccadilly

headquarters.

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The tactics were beginning to work. Reed sent Maxwell some

draft agreements ‘without commitment’. Maxwell then added

political pressure to the equation. The Mirror was affiliated

to the Labour Party, so Maxwell, a former Labour MP, convinced

Labour’s ex-leader, Michael Foot, to back his proposal. Foot’s

support was communicated to Reed executives, adding further

pressure to sell to Maxwell.

Finally, the Reed executives gave in, feeling they had to

accept Maxwell’s offer, which would provide twice as much money

as a public flotation, despite their earlier ethical promise

that one man would never own the paper.

Carpenter was determined that Maxwell’s offer of £100m would be

accepted immediately and that he would not be given the chance

to bargain. The Reed executive felt that they had sold Oldhams

much too cheaply. However, one element of Maxwell’s negotiating

strategy was to misconstrue previous concessions or proposals

to his advantage. This case was no exception. He claimed that

the £100m offer contained a provision for a £23m loan owed by

the Reed group to its Mirror interests (a fact he had gleaned

from his insider at the Mirror building), Therefore, his offer

stood at only £77m. This was an extremely clever move. The

ambiguous nature of his initial offer was the only reason the

Reed executives negotiated with him in the first place (they

would not have negotiated if they had realised that his opening

offer was only £77m). However, now that the negotiation had

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begun, Carpenter was forced to continue, leaving Maxwell with

an extremely advantageous opening position.

After some discussion, Maxwell raised his bid to £84m, claiming

it was his final offer. Carpenter pushed for £90m, £10m less

than what he had initially expected to receive. Carpenter used

the technique of issuing an ultimatum: using body language, he

walked towards the door, saying: “It’s ninety or nothing”

Maxwell attempted to counter with an emotional argument: “I

just don’t have that last six million”. This was successful in

extracting a final concession from Carpenter, who agreed to

lend the £6m to Maxwell at the bank’s rate of interest.

Indeed, it appeared that Maxwell again got great value for

money. The Mirror building had been undervalued and there was a

surplus in the pension fund. In addition, the value of the

Mirror’s share in Reuter’s was unknown to the Reed executives.

Maxwell’s Negotiations with Unions at the Mirror

Once in place as owner of the Mirror, Maxwell set about ending

the shopfloor abuses and firing workers. This involved a series

of negotiations with union leaders. His main strategy here was

to pose a series of escalating threats until the unions ceded

to his demands. When issuing threats and ultimatums, the most

important t thing is to have credibility. This Maxwell had, as

he had carried out similar threats at the British Printing

Corporation.

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He began by using the new trend of union-free printing to

threaten job security of the Mirror’s printers. Maxwell called

all chapel leaders of the Mirror group unions for simultaneous

negotiations. He demanded that Sporting Life be printed separately

by one of his own subsidiaries. While the secretary of the NGC

accepted Maxwell’s package, its shop stewards refused and

disrupted the Mirror’s production. Maxwell retaliated by

stopping production and threatening to fire the employees. This

failed, so he made an announcement to the press that he was

relocating the Mirror’s place of production and selling off

Sporting Life.

Maxwell then called in the union leaders to renegotiate the

workers’ future. He booked a suite of rooms and began

simultaneous negotiations.

He succeeded in changing some of the abuses mentioned earlier

(including automatic replacement of dismissed staff) and

obtained agreement to maintain the uninterrupted production of

the Mirror. When this agreement was broken, Maxwell issued his

final ultimatum: the Mirror would close unless 30% of staff was

cut within 2 months. The union leaders met with him again for

negotiation. Again, Maxwell was successful with his high-

pressure strategy and the unions gave in to his demands.

Analysis of Maxwell’s Negotiating Strategy

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While, the two negotiations above appear to show that Maxwell’s

unethical and aggressive style paid off, this is far from true.

Firstly, this style is only successful when short-term success

is sufficient. However, this is rarely the case. In the Mirror

acquisition, one could argue that only short-term success was

necessary. But in securing the newspaper through aggression and

in using underhand techniques to achieve his goals, Maxwell

earned the reputation of a sly, aggressive negotiator and so

deterred later potential sellers. He thus failed to acquire

Waddingtons, the Express and the Sun. These underhand techniques

such as making concessions and later reneging on them, using

insider information and playing those involved off against each

other only allow short-term success but in the long term lead

to mistrust.

Secondly, negotiations using these tactics will not succeed if

a long-term relationship is at stake. Many of Maxwell’s most

talented staff became disillusioned with his ruthless tactics

and left his company.

After his death it emerged that the Mirror Group's debts vastly

outweighed its assets and £440m was missing from the company's

pension funds. In 2001 the Department of Trade and Industry

released a report into the Maxwell affair which said "primary

responsibility" for the collapse of the Maxwell business empire

lay with its founder.

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Should neither the rational nor ethical mode of persuasion work

for the orator, Aristotle provides a third rhetorical

technique.

The Emotional Mode of Persuasion

Aristotle’s first example of the use of emotion in oratory is

quite simple - getting the other party to like you.

We may describe friendly feeling towards any one as wishing for him what you

believe to be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, so

far as you can, to bring these things about … Again, we feel friendly to those who

have treated us well … also to those who we think wish to treat us well. (II, 4)

In contemporary terms, we call this building rapport and

relationships. Aristotle goes on to describe the types of

personality and behaviour that are likely to elicit positive

feelings and attitudes in the other party:

those with whom it is pleasant to live and spend our days: such are the good-

tempered

those who are not too ready to show us our mistakes

those who are not cantankerous or quarrelsome

those who have the tact to make and take a joke

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those who praise such good qualities as we possess, and especially if they

praise the good qualities that we are not too sure we do possess.

those who do not reproach us with what we have done amiss to them or they

have done to help us, for both actions show a tendency to criticize us.

those who do not nurse grudges or store up grievances

those who are not evil speakers and who are aware of neither their

neighbours' bad points nor our own, but of our good ones only, as a good

man always will be.

those who do not try to thwart us when we are angry or in earnest

those who have some serious feeling towards us, such as admiration for us, or

belief in our goodness, or pleasure in our company; especially if they feel like

this about qualities in us for which we especially wish to be admired,

esteemed, or liked.

those who are like ourselves in character and occupation, provided they do

not get in our way or gain their living from the same source as we do (II,

4)

This reads like a classical version of Dale Carnegie’s 1936

classic How to Win Friends and Influence People.

As with the rational and ethical modes, the emotional approach

may be particularly appropriate in certain cultures, such as

Latin America, India and the Middle East.

Mexican negotiators are very formal and they give a lot of importance to personal

relations. We can say that Mexicans feel uncomfortable negotiating with people they

do not know, so the beginning of every negotiation is really tough for us. That is why

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we spend a lot of time talking about irrelevant things before a negotiation starts; we

can talk about common interests and family.

(Angeles Juarez)

We Argentinians are very sociable, and try to make the others participate and feel

comfortable in our presence. We are warm and friendly, not cold and calculating.

(Natalia Kostoff)

Indians do not directly jump into business negotiations; in fact, that may be seen as

rude. Building a relationship is often considered a prerequisite to doing business.

Meetings normally start with small talk about non-work-related topics (ranging from

weather to whether your journey was comfortable), before people start talking about

business issues. Compared to many other cultures, relationships and feelings play a

larger role in decisions in India.

(Parul Mankotia)

The Lebanese way of doing business is based on emotions. They make the foreigner

feel comfortable first , let him trust them and like them before getting the job done.

(Maya El Nouery)

Lebanese people are very warm and sociable people. They privilege communication

and trust. They like to establish friendly contacts with the people they are dealing

with. They only feel at ease once they become close to the person, and consider

21

him/her as a friend. They tend to get more into friendly relationships with the people

they work with, rather than having purely professional relationships with them.

(Carla Khair)

I just came back from an interesting negotiation with a Saudi. After 3 hours of

religious discussion regarding Ramahdan and their Iftar, we finally got down to

business and everything happened really quickly. Many Westerners would probably

have gone out of the house hours before, counting the alternative cost of staying.

(Gustaf Asp)

However, such a strategy may be counterproductive in Mr Asp’sown country:

Swedes are looking for detailed information, precision, logical arguments and don’t

like to be interrupted or spend time on small talk. They often tend to jump right into

negotiations without even trying to get to know the counterpart at first, a cultural

peculiarity which goes along with their time efficiency and focus on doing what

brought them to the meeting. Swedes find time crucial and precious. It should be

spent on doing business instead of socializing

(Gustaf Asp)

The Finns, like the Swedes, prefer logic and facts, yet their

Russian neighbours are reputed to be highly emotional

negotiators. In the Middle East, both the Israelis and

Palestinians are confrontational and passionate negotiators.

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In addition to a positive emotion such as friendliness,

Aristotle also suggests that negative emotions may be used by

the speaker to attain his objectives.

He defines Fear as the expectation that something destructive will happen.

(II, 5)

In a negotiation where the balance of power is unequal, the

dominant party may pressurize the weaker into accepting what is

an unfair deal, by threatening to break off the negotiation and

go to a competitor. If the weaker party has no alternative at

hand, he will be inclined to give in to the threatening

behaviour.

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Emotional Mode/Case Study 4: P&G Joint Venture Company, the

strategy of fear

In 1994 Procter & Gamble and Phuong Dong Soap & Detergent, a

Vietnamese state-owned enterprise, set up a joint venture to

produce soap products. The P&G Joint Venture Company started

with an investment capital of $14m. The US partner owned 70%,

the Vietnamese 30%. A factory was built near Ho Chi Minh city.

As soon as the JV was established, serious conflicts emerged as

a result of incompatibility in management styles and business

practises. The partners tried to conduct a negotiation within

the Board of Directors. P&G adopted an offensive strategy from

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the start. They insisted on concessions from the Vietnamese,

applying pressure and making threats.

The conflict peaked when Alan Hed, General Manager of P&G

Vietnam sent a letter to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in

October 1997, saying that the venture would be forced to file

for bankruptcy if the sides could not agree on the capital

increase. P&G's deadline was July 1998, after which it claimed

it would liquidate the venture.

High startup expenses and a smaller market than forecast were

cited by the company as reasons for its difficulties.

As a rescue plan, P&G requested the Government of Vietnam to

allow it to inject another $60m to save the JV from bankruptcy.

It outlined three options for the Vietnam Government’s

consideration:

1. Allow P&G to buy back the Vietnamese partner’s 30% share

2. Make the Vietnamese and US investors inject $18m and $42m

into the JV, respectively

3. Make the Vietnamese partner buy out P&G’s 70% share

Initially, officials from Phuong Dong’s parent company Vinachem

responded that they would inject an unspecified amount of cash

through a government-backed loan. However, given its weak

position and lack of negotiating room, the Vietnamese side

changed to a more flexible strategy, suggesting a reduction in

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its stake from 30% to 20 % and rejecting P&G’s offer of a buy-

out.

The negotiation was then widened to include representatives

from the US Embassy and Vietnamese Government in an effort to

save the JV, which was considered a flagship for business co-

operation between the two countries. In March 1998, after

intense negotiations and heavy involvement from government

officials and the US ambassador to Vietnam, both partners

gradually softened their positions and finally reached a

compromise. The new agreement permitted P&G to raise its stake

in the JV from 70% to 93%, while Phuong Dong’s share was scaled

back from 30% to 7%. Phuong Dong also reduced its

representatives in the JV’s six-member board from two to one.

At one stage in the dispute, officials from Vinachem and

Vietnamese Government officials accused P&G of deliberately

losing money in the JV to force the local partner to relinquish

its stake, now that P&G had built brand recognition in Vietnam.

This was a reaction to a statement by the US Ambassador, who

defended P&G’s position by saying that “P&G will get what it

wants as no one has ruled out 100% ownership”.

The US company’s strategy in this negotiation was obviously

designed to inspire fear and aquiescence in the weaker

Vietnamese partner.

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Fear may also be used in a more subtle, tactical way. A

potential risk for the other party may be alluded to by a

negotiator, who then proceeds to allay the fear he has aroused

by providing a solution - at a cost. A negotiator from a French

defence provider told me this strategy had been successfully

used to win a contract for the sale of a missile launching site

to a Middle Eastern country. He described how the superior

safety features of the French company’s proposal were

instrumental in persuading the client to pay a premium for

reducing the risk of accidents.

Such techniques involve an obvious calculated risk, and

negotiation trainers tend to advise their students to avoid

using them or to do so with moderation.

The opposite of fear is Confidence,

the expectation associated with a mental picture of the nearness of what keeps us

safe and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible. (II, 5)

We feel confident when

at the outset of an enterprise, we believe that we … shall succeed completely. (II,

5)

This form of the emotional strategy is commonly used in the

initial stages of a negotiation, where optimistic opening

statements focus on the benefits both parties will derive from

a successful outcome.

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Aristotle summarizes the three modes of persuasion in an

Epilogue, which is short enough to quote in its entirety (we

may substitute the word competitor for opponent):

The Epilogue has four parts. You must (1) make the audience well-disposed towards

yourself and ill-disposed towards your opponent (2) magnify or minimize the leading

facts, (3) excite the required state of emotion in your hearers, and (4) refresh their

memories.

(1) Having shown your own truthfulness and the untruthfulness of your opponent,

the natural thing is to commend yourself, censure him, and hammer in your points.

You must aim at one of two objects - you must make yourself out a good man and

him a bad one either in yourselves or in relation to your hearers. How this is to be

managed - by what lines of argument you are to represent people as good or bad -

this has been already explained.

(2) The facts having been proved, the natural thing to do next is to magnify or

minimize their importance. The facts must be admitted before you can discuss how

important they are; just as the body cannot grow except from something already

present. The proper lines of argument to be used for this purpose of amplification

and depreciation have already been set forth.

(3) Next, when the facts and their importance are clearly understood, you must excite

your hearers' emotions. These emotions are pity, indignation, anger, hatred, envy,

emulation, pugnacity. The lines of argument to be used for these purposes also have

been previously mentioned.

(4) Finally you have to review what you have already said. Here you may properly do

what some wrongly recommend doing in the introduction -- repeat your points

frequently so as to make them easily understood. What you should do in your

introduction is to state your subject, in order that the point to be judged may be

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quite plain; in the epilogue you should summarize the arguments by which your case

has been proved. The first step in this reviewing process is to observe that you have

done what you undertook to do. You must, then, state what you have said and why

you have said it. Your method may be a comparison of your own case with that of

your opponent; and you may compare either the ways you have both handled the

same point or make your comparison less direct: “My opponent said so-and-so on

this point; I said so-and-so, and this is why I said it.” Or with modest irony, e.g. “He

certainly said so-and-so, but I said so-and-so.” Or “How vain he would have been if he

had proved all this instead of that!" Or put it in the form of a question. “What has not

been proved by me?” or “What has my opponent proved?” You may proceed then,

either in this way by setting point against point, or by following the natural order of

the arguments as spoken, first giving your own, and then separately, if you wish,

those of your opponent.

For the conclusion, the disconnected style of language is appropriate, and will mark

the difference between the oration and the peroration. "I have done. You have heard

me. The facts are before you. I ask for your judgement.” (III, 19)

Conclusion

Bertrand Russell once remarked that the whole of Western

philosophy was a footnote to Plato. The modes of persuasion

outlined in the Rhetoric are timeless and are perhaps more

useful in today’s global marketplace than they were in

Aristotle’s day, when they were reserved for an intellectual

elite of lawyers and politicians.

Aristotle is not easy to read, but the Rhetoric is lively and

accessible and should be required reading on any academic

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course on negotiation. We in Europe need to revitalize our rich

intellectual heritage and apply the body of knowledge produced

by classical thinkers to modern day moral, social, economic and

political issues.

The art of negotiation has tended to be dominated by work

carried out on the other side of the Atlantic. There is no

doubt that despite the admirable contributions of Old World

scholars, management and business research are essentially

American inventions.

Yet Aristotle’s thought is as relevant and useful today as it

was in Ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe. His three modes

of persuasion find their parallels in current concerns such as

business ethics, emotional intelligence and applied artificial

intelligence.

Current developments in AI technology risk shifting the focus

in the practice of negotiation towards a purely rational mode.

Tuomas W. Sandholm, Associate Professor of the Computer Science

Department at Carnegie Mellon University, describes his

research agenda thus:

…constructing software agents that will optimally negotiate on behalf of the real

world parties that they represent. That will put experienced and poor human

negotiators on an equal footing, and save them negotiating effort.

This is an astounding step forward for our discipline. The

advent of automated negotiation, where numeric utility

functions form the basis for decision-making, will

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fundamentally alter the way we think about and teach our

subject.

Yet wherever this technological revolution may lead, I believe

the human factor will continue to be at the centre of

negotiation praxis. The next generation of negotiators will be

required to operate in a truly global marketplace, dealing with

business partners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures.

They will need to be adaptable and have at their disposal a

variety of negotiating strategies and styles that fit the

situation at hand.

Quantitative issues may lend themselves to resolution by

machines, but qualitative variables will continue to require an

understanding and mastery of Aristotle’s three modes of

persuasion.

Sources

Aristotle - Rhetoric (online version

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/)

Bower, Tom - Maxwell, The Outsider (London, 1988)

Author’s private correspondence

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