Modern Selling

In business we're used to negotiating over price, specification or delivery times. But how does it compare with the heady world of international relations, where the currency is not mere money but lives? Here, in the first of a two-part interview discussing politics and business, LORD OWEN talks to Nick de Cent about the art of negotiation.

David Owen, one-time leader of the SDP, remembers negotiating in the late 1970s as a youthful Labour foreign secretary with the South African apartheid regime over Namibia. The negotiations were tough, not least because of the cast of characters present.

On the South African side, these included the then prime minister PW Botha, whom Owen describes as a 'very hard, uncouth man', and his foreign minister Pik Botha, supported by a coterie of ministers, generals and civil servants.

Opposing them was a ministerial-level contact group made up of five members of the UN Security Council, with the three permanent members - Britain (represented by Owen), France and the United States (represented by secretary of state Cyrus Vance) - joined by Canada and Germany.

'These were very difficult and tough negotiations,' Owen reveals, 'because PW Botha was, quite frankly, a shit on two legs. He really was a tough, hard nut.

'At one stage he made a remark about how he wasn't going to be lectured to on human rights by a German [the then West German foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher] given their record, which considering his own relationship with Germany during the Second World War, was a pretty ripe comment. It was very interesting. Genscher - I don't think he lost his temper - but he decided he wasn't putting up with it.'

Owen recalls Genscher hammering on the very fragile long mahogany table, shouting 'I... am... the... deputy... federal... chancellor... of... Germany and I will never be spoken to like that'. He interspersed each word with another fist to the table, while the wine glasses jumped and rattled about. 'It was very interesting because this bully, which PW Botha basically was, backed off. It was quite extraordinary; I wasn't at all sure which way he would go, whether he would respond in kind.'

Owen flags up the incident as 'an interesting example of controlled anger being used as a negotiating technique'. Whether we could get away with this in the commercial world is a moot point, but clearly, knowing when to stand your ground is a vital skill.

Another key point is the importance of allowing sufficient time to pass in negotiations. 'Sometimes, particularly in international affairs, but at other times too, negotiations need time to mature.' Owen cites the case of UN-supervised elections in Namibia, which saw the country move to independence a full 12 years after a 1978 UN resolution initiated the move.

The Namibian experience offers a third valuable lesson for budding negotiators, according to Owen. At the time, negotiations (which had been continuing at foreign minister-level after PW Botha had absented himself) completely broke down: the South Africans were refusing to shift their ground even after two days' hard bargaining.

'We did something that we did not do for theatre; we told the aircraft that we were flying out (and, you know there are sometimes stories about people warming up a jet to make a point). We had literally reached the end of the road.

'And having reached the end of the road, we went back in to say goodbye to PW Botha. Vance said to him: "We're very sorry. We've tried very hard for two days but we're not able to reach agreement. We've asked a simple thing, Mr President, that you would accept UN elections and we would accept internal elections."

'And PW Botha said: "Oh, I mean, what's wrong with that? I have no problem with that, Mr Vance." And I watched Pik Botha, and, you know that expression "your jaw drops"? His jaw utterly dropped. Two or three years later I went back after [Nelson] Mandela was released and I talked to Pik Botha. I said "Do you remember that moment then in those negotiations?" and he said "Yes ... I'd been trying to persuade PW Botha hour after hour that we had to shift our position, and he had not shifted, and he had not shifted before you came into the room. He shifted in that moment." And he said "That's why my jaw dropped like that; I was absolutely astounded." That was the boss pulling the rug from out from under his negotiator.'

Owen continues: 'And Vance's reaction - he was speaking for all of us, so we just had one spokesman - Vance said "Well, Mr President, that's fine. If that's the situation, we can go back into the negotiations and we can reach agreement." But he never said "Look here! We've spent two days frustrating over this." He never did any recrimination. He didn't blink an eyelid. He just took the offer (which he had helped to clarify) and we filed back as if nothing had happened; we went back into the negotiations as if nothing had happened and we reached agreement.

'Here was an autocratic leader [PW Botha] able to switch policy literally in front of you, ditching his own negotiator [Pik Botha] in the process, and then treated with courtesy and respect, no recriminations. I would have been tempted to say "Look here! We've been sitting here for two days" but Vance just took it.'

So was Cyrus Vance the master negotiator? 'I think he was a very good negotiator. I learnt a lot from him. He had been a very high-powered New York, Wall Street lawyer. He had served in the Kennedy administration and the Johnson administration.'

Owen notes that one of Vance's qualities was always to be courteous: 'That's another good recommendation for negotiations - the negotiator should always, I think, treat the parties to the dispute with courtesy. Vance would always get up, meet them at the door, escort them to their chair, go back after the meeting, go back to the door, shake hands with them... and I think these little courtesies are quite important in preserving a civilised atmosphere in what, after all, can sometimes be quite difficult negotiations.'

Roll forward some 15 years and Owen was to work with Vance again in the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan war of the 1990s, although this was to be a less satisfactory experience for the Vance/Owen negotiating team. It was the first time Owen actually experienced having to negotiate in an active war zone and he recalls being woken in Sarajevo by the deafening explosion of an artillery round - 'the loudest noise I've heard in my life' - aimed at the French HQ, where he was sleeping.

'We were frequently in dialogue while shelling was going on. They would all sign up for ceasefire agreements but, while the ink was still drying, they would go off on the phone and tell people to start opening up fire. These characters were just strangers to the truth: they had no concept of what the truth is or was.'

So, much like an ordinary day in the office, then.

Which of these characters was the toughest negotiator? 'General Mladic was probably actually the toughest, but we're not sure if he was actually ever negotiating! From the summer of 1993, Mladic was an unguided missile on his own taking no account of anyone.

'Mugabe [president of Zimbabwe] was a very tough person to negotiate with. I spent hours with [Robert] Mugabe and [Joshua] Nkomo, sometimes with them together, sometimes with them on their own.'

Owen tells how he was tipped off by a priest that Mugabe, who was trained by the Jesuits, was still going to mass, despite being a communist. With the story checked out by MI6, this information was fed into Mugabe's profile - an important part of any negotiation. 'I do believe that it is very helpful when you are negotiating to try and establish a profile of who you are negotiating with - what is their background, where do they come from?'

Asked for advice on negotiating, Owen sums up: 'First of all, choose a style of negotiating that suits your own temperament... that you are happy with. And then stick with it because, broadly speaking, people get to know about your negotiating technique - just as you're making a profile of them; they're making a profile of you.

Owen goes on to differentiate between two types of negotiating style: the first involves starting with an unreasonable position and being prepared to move a long way - 'but there's something basically dishonest about this and it raises problems of your bona fides' - while the other way is to head straight for the fairest compromise and be prepared to move a little but not much. 'But I think if you mix those two approaches up, you lead to terrific disillusionment,' he warns.

Beyond that, according to Owen, there is a difference in view about how essential it is to understand the wording of any agreement. 'The Kissinger approach is to be very relaxed about ending with different interpretations.' However, Owen is quick to acknowledge that this could simply be a matter of different techniques. 'Kissinger could say "But, well, you get them over the hurdle; you get the agreement, then later you sort out different interpretations of the wording as they come up." I think there are no absolutes in this whole issue and, again, it's a personality style - horses for courses.'

So, what in the end is the difference between political and business negotiations? Owen pauses before answering: 'In political negotiations, I suppose the currency is lives, and in business negotiations the currency is money.

'But I don't think they're that different. You'll see in business all these different techniques that are happening in diplomatic negotiations; they're also used by business people' - for instance the surprise attack - 'when you suddenly bring out a new initiative. And the timing of concessions is also quite important'.

Finally how then would Owen negotiate from a position of weakness? 'Well, I wouldn't over-call it; I wouldn't go in for bluster. I think if your case is a weak one, you're in much more danger of being found out if you start having to retreat from your position. I think, if you have a weak position, it's better to go as far as you can go and then stick.'

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