“It was incredibly intense,” he said. “We had a huge conference area set up like a war room, with each party’s representatives lined up on either side of the table. For five days we worked around the clock negotiating to close the deal.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, imagining the excessive hot air with all those $600-per-hour egos clogging up the room.
He then looked cautiously to both sides, leaned forward and lowered his voice as if he was about to reveal some unfathomable mystery: “You won’t believe this,” he started, letting the words carefully slip out of only one side of his mouth, “but it was one of the nicest, most pleasant negotiations I have ever experienced.” He leaned back into his chair to survey the shock value of his statement.
Contract negotiations are typically a complex and unpleasant process, even if both parties are keen on closing. But, really, nice? Pleasant? Perhaps he was mistakenly confusing this meeting with his daughter’s recent girls scouts gathering.
“Seriously,” he continued, seeing my skepticism. “The two lead negotiators on each side set a very polite tone, right from the start. Everyone else just went along with it.”
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