What are my goals? What are their goals? (How to prepare for that meeting.)

Corresponding with someone who had a difficult meeting coming up, where she was not sure how much to trust the person she was meeting with, I gave the following advice:

Proceed under the assumption that they want to do things right. I say this because if they’re gonna be defensive, then it doesn’t matter what you say; it’s not like you’re gonna sweet-talk them into opening up. But if they do want to do better, then maybe there is some hope.

My correspondent responded that the person she was meeting hadn’t been helpful up to this point: “I always assume (and hope for) good intentions and a desire to do better. But I’ll admit I’m feeling less positive after a few days of not getting an answer.”

I continued:

Many of these sorts of meetings require negotiation, and good negotiation often involves withholding of information or outright deception, and I’m not good at either of these things, so I don’t even try. Instead I try some of the classic “Getting to Yes” strategies: (1) Before the meeting, I ask myself what are my goals: my short-term goals for the meeting and my medium and long-term goals that I’m aiming for. (2) During the meeting, I explicitly ask the other parties what their goals are.

When I think of various counterproductive interactions I’ve had in the past, often it seems this has come in part because I was not clear on my goals or on the goals of the other parties; as a result we butted heads when we could’ve found a mutually-beneficial solution. I’m including here some interactions with bad actors: liars, cheats, etc. Even when working with people you can’t trust, the general principles can apply.

It does not always make sense to tell the other parties what your goals are! But, don’t worry, most people won’t ever ask, as they will typically be focused on trying to stand firm on some micro-issue or another. Kinda like how amateur poker players are notorious for looking over and over again at their own hole cards and not looking enough at you.

The above advice may seem silly because you’re not involved in a negotiation at all! Even so, if you have a sense of what your goals are and what their goals are, this could be helpful. And be careful to distinguish goals from decision options. A goal is “I would like X to happen”; a decision option is “I will do Y.” It’s natural to think in terms of decision options, but I think this is limiting, compared to thinking about goals.

Anyway, that’s just my take from a mixture of personal experience and reading on decision making; I’ve done no direct research on the topic.

The above techniques are not any sort of magic; they’re just an attempt to focus on what is important.