Can negotiators learn from Cricket?

It is dangerous to read too much into what the newspapers write about business negotiations. This is how it was reported in the SMH.

And it is very hard not to poke fun in the present fraught environment that Australia's "favourite" sport finds itself. I cannot resist, with apologies to those who hate "Dad Jokes". Bad puns abound and this is worthy of a couple.

What on earth is the Chair doing, playing the man and not the ball. Perhaps a cheap shot, but when you are negotiating with two out of three of the nations free to air television networks and you say to management of one of those networks that their operating model is "anything other than bottom feeders in this market" I wonder whether too many years of insults in the mining industry (and that was just the insults of the government) has meant that the Chair has lost sight of one of the basic premises of any negotiation. As Roger Fisher and Bill Ury put it in Getting to Yes it pays to be "hard on the problem, soft on the people".

And of course timing is everything. Just when you sling the insult, your product loses a serious amount of sheen at the hands of a piece of yellow sandpaper.

BTW nobody says that you need to be best friends with the purchasers of your product. You need to demonstrate that you are serious, but not nasty. Respectful not sycophantic. "Just because you disagree does not mean that you need to be disagreeable" as Fisher said once in a video! You can be firm AND respectful, in my view.

Insulting a potential buyer? How can that help? Especially when the the pool of possible buyers is so small. What if the one you insult "Picks up their bats and balls and goes home"?

Everyone knows that the owner of rights wants to maximise return. Usually all we hear about is money. While the broadcaster wants to minimise the price, both want best value for their organisations, so that for cricket and broadcasters there is always more to the deals than the topline dollars. The extent of rights, the possibility of working together to maximise sponsor and advertiser revenue, the extent of rights, geographically and media wise. These are all points where value can be created.

How can organisations collaborate and create that value when insults are flying at one of the only buyers in the market? Of course CA may have another buyer in the background, and might be trying to create competitive tension, that may be a good thing if they do so in ways that don't upset one buyer to the point that they withdraw. When you are trying to create a 5 year "partnership". Enough said.

It is the email (or speech) you shoot off in anger that will be the best you ever regret. In this case, the timing makes the damage even more profound.

Cricket Australia was also accused of damaging relationships with the players in their recent pay dispute, so now (we are told) they have upset their "product" and their "buyers". And then the players upset the fans.

So here we go again in the macho "winning is everything" environment of sport. Little wonder that if winning is not the most important thing, but the only thing, that not only sportsmanship and integrity disappear, but intemperate language is broadcast for all to see.

What are we teaching the players and business leaders of tomorrow?

How can the Chair recover? Serious and sincere apology is needed and a communique that seeks to reset the negotiation to one in which all parties are trying to create value. It is wise to apologise if our behaviour is less than expected. This might be something that the Chair could learn from the former captain of the Australian men's test team.