127 Hours and the importance of a "walk away position"

Very few of us plan to cut our own arm off, eat a friend or walk away from our largest customer, but for negotiators defining their Must Achieve or Must Avoid position is critical.

The movie “127 hours” is based upon the true story of Aron Ralston a hiker whose arm becomes trapped under a boulder while canyoneering alone in Utah. It comes down to a choice of cutting off his arm to escape or starving to death.

In 1973 a flight carrying the Old Christians Rugby Team bound for Santiago crashed into Andes at 12,000 feet. The survivors were not found for over 2 months and resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.

If you feel that you cannot afford to lose your largest client then you are risk of becoming a victim; every time they demand a concession you agree, rather than risk losing them. If the hiker or the rugby survivors had delayed a decision on the extreme action they eventually took, they would have been too weak to have taken any action, and so perished.

In business you have to contemplate and define the action you would take in extremis.
You hope never to find yourself in that situation, but simply thinking it through reduces the fear factor. Understanding your walk away point affects your negotiating behaviour in a positive way. You will be sending signals to the other party that you are not prepared to be a victim and, if they continue to demand concessions, you are prepared to walk away. This in turn reduces the chances that you will end up at your limit position.

You should never fear walking away when you have reached your carefully considered limit. On the contrary it can make you feel really good when you finally tell your biggest client to “go take a running jump”. Sadly few of you will have that opportunity because, if you have sent a clear signal beforehand, the other party will have drawn back from the brink.

Aron Ralston lived to achieve his true “walk away position”.

John McMillan. Managing Partner
© 2011, Scotwork Negotiating Skills, www.scotwork.co.nz