Co-Opetition - Adam M. Brandenburger [34]
Rules: Put yourself in the shoes of other players to anticipate reactions to your actions.
Perceptions: Put yourself in the shoes of other players to understand how they see the game.
When you put yourself in other people’s shoes, you’ll find that they come in all different sizes. They certainly won’t all fit your view, and allowing for these differences isn’t easy. It can be uncomfortable giving credence to someone else’s view of the world. There’s a natural bias to impute your own views to other people. In Getting to Yes, leading negotiation experts Roger Fisher and William Ury offer some advice on how to overcome this bias:
The ability to see the situation as the other side sees it, as difficult as it may be, is one of the most important skills a negotiator can possess. It is not enough to know that they see things differently. If you want to influence them, you also need to understand empathetically the power of their point of view and to feel the emotional force with which they believe it. It is not enough to study them like beetles under a microscope; you need to know what it feels like to be a beetle. To accomplish this task you should be prepared to withhold judgement for a while as you “try on” their views. They may well believe that their views are “right” as strongly as you believe that yours are. You may see the glass as half full of cool water. Your spouse may see a dirty, half-empty glass about to cause a ring on the mahogany finish.8
There’s an even more fundamental challenge when you try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You know too much. It’s like trying to play yourself in chess. You know what your own strategy is, but now you have to pretend that you don’t in order to step into the other player’s shoes. It’s almost impossible to pretend that you don’t know what you know.
The same issue arises when you try to figure out how someone will perceive or misperceive your perceptions of the world. In doing this, you’re burdened by the fact that you know your own perceptions. Once again, how can you pretend that you don’t know what you know?
One solution for how to step into the shoes of another player is to have someone else assist you. Instead of trying to do it yourself, ask a colleague to role-play by stepping into that player’s shoes. Play out the game, see what you each do, and then debrief each other on what each perspective was like. What were the perceptions and misperceptions? Switch positions with your colleague and play the game again.
There’s much to be gained from doing this exercise more formally. A company sets up two teams: one team plays out the company strategy, and the second plays the role of a competitor. The second team is given no advance information about the company’s proposed strategy. It sees the strategy only as it unfolds and then must react to it. Quite often, the response is not what had been anticipated. Going through this exercise with clients, we’ve been able to help them avoid surprises in the real game.
Most of the time, putting yourself in other people’s shoes helps get you where you want to go. Most of the time, but not always.
Crazy Driver There is a now somewhat infamous—yet true—story about one of your authors and a late-night taxi ride in Jerusalem. Some time ago, Barry and a colleague, John Geanakoplos, got into an Israeli taxi and gave the driver directions to their hotel. The driver headed off but didn’t turn on his meter. When they asked him about this, he explained that he loved Americans and promised them a special fare. Special, huh?
As Barry and John sat in the backseat, they did their quick-and-dirty game theory analysis. They realized that if they bargained hard now and negotiations broke down, they might have to find another taxi, not an easy task. But, they reasoned, their position would be much stronger if they waited until they arrived at the hotel. Then the driver should be willing to take whatever they offered.
They arrived. The