Self Help

As you prepare for a negotiation, be alert to the fact that everything is not always as it seems. Maybe, besides buying what you have to sell, the buyer wants to establish a relationship with your company. Maybe the buyer wants to know how your business runs in order to enter the field as well. Maybe the buyer wants to teach another supplier a lesson. In the world of negotiating, these ulterior motives are called hidden agendas.

Hidden agendas are difficult to ferret out - that’s why they’re called “hidden” agendas! Without introducing paranoia into the process, be mindful of the possibility of hidden agendas. You rarely uncover them early in the process - or by asking directly. As part of your ongoing preparation, gather all the information you can about motive. The more you know about the other person’s motive, the more you can create possibilities for yourself. Sometimes, you may even decide to walk away from a deal.

At work, the hidden agenda is sometimes hard to spot. On the surface, everyone should be working toward the same goal. The goals of the company are the goals of the individual: Better production, higher sales, or faster turnaround. But individuals within the company have personal goals in addition to the company goals. They want to get ahead within the company. Or they need peer approval. Or they desire neatness in the workspace. Their personal, secondary agenda is rarely stated. If it is, it is couched in the general statements about company goals. For example, someone wanting to get ahead in the company may volunteer to work overtime to get an important project done. Someone who needs to be liked may help a coworker attain a desired goal. These strategies aren’t good or bad - just reality. The trick is to recognize these hidden agendas as early as possible so they can be considered for what they are.

Family Hidden Agendas

Healthy families have little room for hidden agendas. However, children can often fall into manipulative behavior (which is just another label for working on a hidden agenda) when everybody else in the family is working on a family goal. Divorced parents often unwittingly promote manipulative behavior by being preoccupied with their own anger and hurt. For example, children of divorce often tell one parent that some activity is allowed at the other parent’s house as a way to get permission at the moment. The child can count on the bad communications between the parents to prevent detection. The soaring divorce rate is probably giving rise to a generation of manipulators. If you discover manipulative behavior in your own child, nipping it in the bud is important. This habit could plague your child throughout life.