Children Are Good At Negotiations
Last Modified: 15/10/2019
A personal manager explains why children usually get what they want.
- 1 You know more about negotiations than you realize.
- 2I say that because the one group of people that seem to be very successful in negotiation are children.
- 3Many of you in this room have children or at least you're a child yourself.
- 4Children are little people, wee people in a big person's world.
- 5They have no authority or very little, and no power,...
- 6...yet they seem to be able to get what they want and make things happen.
- 7Now, how do they do it?
- 8Well, number one: children aim high.
- 9They know that if you expect more, you get more.
- 10And so they seem to make outrageous demands, more than you will expect them to say.
- 11And because they somehow understand that it raises the expectations of parents.
- 12Second thing that children do or understand is that "No!" N-O,...
- 13...is an opening bargaining position.
- 14So when you say "no" to them, "That is never gonna happen,"...
- 15...they realize, "Well, that's his position at this point in time."
- 16"I'll ask him five minutes later and see how he feels.
- 17Or an hour later, or the next day."
- 18In other words, "no" doesn't mean they're gonna capitulate.
- 19"No" is the start of the negotiations.
- 20The next thing that children understand is...
- 21...who the decision makers are in a family and who influences those decision makers.
- 22So when the mom says "no" to them, "Absolutely, it's never gonna happen,..."
- 23...they wait for the father.
- 24They ask the father.
- 25For once, the two are united.
- 26Mom and Dad against them.
- 27"There's no way."
- 28Well, what do they do?
- 29They appeal to the next level, grandparents.
- 30And it's easy for them to form a coalition with their grandparents...
- 31...because they have common enemies, the parents.
- 32What children do is they persist, they persevere, they wear you down.
- 33My wife and I, we are the parents of three children.
- 34Our oldest child, we used to have standards and insist that she heeded those standards.
- 35Second child, we had the same standards but with a few more exceptions.
- 36We're a little flexible.
- 37Third child, we were tired people.
- 38I remember saying to the third kid, "Why don't you ask your brother and sister?"
- 39"They'll tell you how it used to be around here."
- 40And so, all of us can learn from our youngsters...
- 41...because a lot of the things that they do would be successful for us.
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