Learning

I just finished a multi-variable negotiation exercise in my negotiation course at Stanford LEAD. Classifying issues was the hard part. Congruent ones, where both sides want the same outcome. Distributive ones, pure zero-sum. Integrative ones, where different priorities create value neither side sees alone. I didn’t know my counterpart’s interests, so I was probing for information while sorting at the same time. Once something looked integrative, the instinct was to build on it. But asking invites giving. If you ask for something, your counterpart expects something back, and if you hand over too much information, they might piece together your reservation price without you ever stating it. ...

I was on my way to my first negotiation assignment from my Stanford LEAD class about negotiation: start a negotiation in a place where negotiation is not expected. I’d never done something like this before. I’d done the research. I knew the exact price, my alternatives, that no discounts were listed. I arrived, walked the aisle, and stood in front of the salesperson. Simple ask: the item, plus a discount. The system did not allow a discount on that item. It was not that the salesperson did not want to help, there were other blockers around what I was asking for. We circled for a few minutes and got nowhere, then they offered something else, not a discount, but still useful to me. I raised my offer and asked for more. ...

I’m in the middle of a deployment right now. Someone handed me a project I did not build. Pressure is on, and the timeline is short. The fastest path: tell an AI agent to deploy it, walk away, and come back once it’s ready. That’s the pitch, anyway. In practice this could work or not. In both cases, I’ll still be accountable for the output. So I’m not doing that. I’m spending the first hours asking it to explain the architecture, the dependencies, and why things are where they are. It feels slower. It probably is slower, today. ...