gary69 said:
Although your latter posts in this thread give a better reading, you are giving here in this post only an account of what appears "on the surface" (unless if you were present in the negotiation room yourself, of course). Or at the very least you are oversimplifying things.
Negotiations end up hardly ever as an achievement of only one person, and Bettman surely couldn't have been the only person to learn things from the past. Surely the other negotiators and outside counsillors were there for more than just an appearance, don't you think?
As you claim to have negotiatated 100's of "big" contracts, IIRC, (which implies 1000's of average and lesser contracts, although your scale might be different from other people), surely you know that nobody can claim to know the exact strategy which will work every time in every situation. At this moment it seems that the PA and Goodenow gambled and lost, wasn't the first one ever and won't be the last one either, too bad for the losers but that happens.
You are correct, of course, that I am simplifying things somewhat.
While many negotiations (particularly those commercial negotiations of this level of complexity) do involve teamwork, in most cases it is driven by the guy in charge - whether that be the CEO, CFO, general counsel, salesman, or whomever. That guy sets the strategy and makes the calls. I have been in both the position of being the guy in charge and the guy who executes the strategy. Certainly in some cases (including some that I have done), there are two guys who work closely enough together that they determine and execute strategy together. For all i know, Daly and Bettman may be like that. The outside counsel are almost surely mere support, given the fact that the two top execs are both lawyers themselves. THey would be there to provide the necessary legal support involved in actually constructing a CBA document out of the "deal".
In Bettman's case, i am sure the achievements i listed were all executed in whole or in part by others in the NHL office. In fact, one achievement I thought about adding but did not was that Bettman turned what was essentially a hole-in-the-wall operation at the NHL head offices into a fully staffed professional organization.
My main point was that people often think Bettman did nothing. Far from it.
Regarding the contracts i have negotiated (which are not thousands, since I generally deal with bigger deals that can take months - and once even two years!! - to negotiate), the trick is always to get what the other guy can give. That being said, in some deals you don't necessarily want to get everything you CAN get (i.e., partnerships, Joint Venture agreements, consortiums, negotiations with contractors with whom you frequently do business). The trick is judgment. Assessing your own position correctly and the other parties' position is paramount. If you can't do that correctly (or at least within a reasonable degree of corectness), you cannot be good. Goodenow was so spectacularly wrong. I have never seen such horrendous misjudgment.
Regarding what strategy will and will not work, you are correct. It varies form deal to deal. That is why experienced and competent dealmakers and negotiators have a full arsenal of styles and tricks. Competent dealmakers can play it sweet or sour, do it fast or slow, do it simply or with all the bells and whistles, or whatever style is needed. Eventually you instinctively or reflexively do what is needed. Goodenow clearly has only one thing in his toolbox. Bettman et al clearly understood that and set out to counteract it and, if Goodenow truly could not change, take advantage of it. That strategy would have left it open for Goodenow to snap out of his foolishness or else be burned irreparably. That is what happened. It was a standard methodology for addressing a wait-for-the-fold guy like Goodenow. i am sure the NHL was probably surprised Goodenow did not recognize what they were doing and take another tack.