07 7 / 2010
2x2 Framework Tool For Negotiation and Politics
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are condemned to being governed by those who are dumber” - Plato
Awhile back I found a really great article from McKinsey describing a framework tool for negotiators planning strategy for dealing with multiple parties regarding biz dev, sales, or simply internal company politics.
Basically, you list out all stakeholders that are involved or affected by deal or issue. Then on that particular issue (there can be multiple issues to a situation), you decide whether you label them as ally, neutral, or opponent. Then you can score them from 1-100 on two other characteristics: Power and Importance (how big of a deal is it to them). From there you can plot them out on a two by two matrix like above.
This way you can better visualize on how you should approach each stakeholder regarding to each issue to the situation you have to deal with. You’ll better realize how the relationships are between each stakeholder, what the general landscape looks like, and what are the possible outcomes for each will be.
I found this particularly useful if you’re stuck in the middle of multiple conflicting parties and have to find solution for everyone to be okay with.
