(originally published in 2008, this is an updated version...)
My lovely and talented wife sent me this word of the day, found on a blog about Agile software development teams.
Equipoise is the equilibrium formed by offsetting conflicting forces.
What a great word for negotiators!
Now, my style of negotiations is very different from most. During my formative years in the profession, I was always negotiating on behalf of one team, with another team. Many corporate negotiators have a similar challenge - so, where most negotiation classes assume:
MOTIVATION -> YOU || OTHER <- MOTIVATION
Reality is more like:
MOTIVATION -> Stakeholder \
MOTIVATION -> Stakeholder -> Negotiation Team -> YOU || OTHER <- Similarly communal structure
MOTIVATION -> Stakeholder -> Controls Auditors /
MOTIVATION -> Stakeholder /
When I was a government contracting officer, at least I had the advantage of controlling the money. Groups that wanted to buy something gave me their money (allocating it to the buy in the finance system), I then committed the funds by completing the negotiations and signing the contract.
...but I digress.
My view of negotiators for both buyers and sellers is that we are standing on a 10 foot tall 4"x4" pole, surrounded by pitchfork and torch-wielding stakeholders. Our job is to quiet down our mob, so we can shout across at the other pole-standing negotiator from the other side. Equipoise is a perfect word for succeeding in that environment!
Before you can start shouting across the divide, you must achieve equilibrium between the competing forces inside your own company: sales, manufacturing, finance, legal, environmental, diversity, marketing, some guy on the board a vendor knows, subcontractors, etc. Let's call this internal-equipoise (EPi).
Now you are ready to take this shaky set of negotiation points and work with your counterpart to match it up with their similarly shaky internal-equipoise. Success here means achieving external-equipoise (EPe).
Finally, you need to take the resulting deal and pass through its requirements to your vendors, sub-contractors, etc - I'd call this relational-equipoise (EPr), because everything built to date can be shattered by a key sub refusing to agree.
I've been doing yoga (well, my wife's Wii Fit does Yoga, I try not to fall off the board) - and so many of the positions involve achieving a state of relational balance. Do this with one leg, and that with your arm, now achieve balance in that position, with the conflicting forces trying to throw you off balance.
Equipoise.
- Stephen Sopko
