Intel Deadlines Drive Negotiations

I recently met a highly successful businessman, I will call him John, who negotiated a lot of lease deals with Intel in the 1980s and 1990s. And he shared a few negotiation lessons he learned which have universal applicability. Here's one.

Know your deadlines - they can drive the process.

John owned and leased to Intel two 40,000 square foot buildings with relatively short fixed rate one year leases with one year options. The options had a fixed deadline by which they needed to be exercised.

So on a fairly consistent basis, John was invited to Intel to negotiate a new lease. Each time he showed up at Intel, he was escorted to one of a small number of conference rooms at the facility, and they always started promptly on time.

They also always ended the negotiation exactly one hour later, when other Intel employees invariably showed up to use that conference room.

What did John learn from this? Given the lease deadline and the conference room use deadline, the Intel folks always had a firm deadline in which to conclude the negotiation. This critically important strategic information allowed John to manage his moves so he ended up at his goal right at the deadline.

Given his knowledge of this deadline, he could also better evaluate Intel's moves throughout the process.

Our lesson? Find out and manage, if you can, the deadlines in your negotiation. They can drive your negotiation success.