For the previous four steps in the “preparing for war” series, click here.
In a trading war, striking when your counterpart is most vulnerable is certainly effective, but can be seen as exploitative and unethical. Your reputation and relationships can be expensive casualties. Before you act, you must be able to justify your actions to three constituencies:
Internal: Fully engage your plan with anyone in your organisation who could undermine your position; you’ll need their support at some point
External: If your actions were to appear in the national press, make sure you’d be fully prepared to explain and stand by them
The other party: After the conflict, your relationship could just as easily emerge bitter and damaged as it could positive and invigorated. In order to give the trading relationship the best chance of surviving, and thriving in the aftermath, there are three critical areas to manage:
1 What you do: To have a chance of coming out well, it’s critical that the conflict is kept impersonal. Where possible, damaging actions and plans to “increase the pressure” should be locked in before the conflict starts. They should be seen as “things you might be able to change” rather than seen as your response to the escalating conflict itself.
2 What you say: Communications should always be cordial and focus on issues not personalities. Never take your counterpart’s actions personally. Use emotional language when it’s appropriate to send a strong signal over a point of principle, not because you feel emotional.
3 Roles you play: It’s in nobody’s interest to prolong a war, but neither is it in your interest to appear too anxious to resolve the situation. The key is to have different people in your business playing different roles in the dialogue. Next week we will cover the three critical roles required to build the tension while still retaining the trust you will need both to win the war and to retain the relationship.
BOTTOM LINE: The faster the relationship recovers after a trading war, the faster both sides will recoup what they lost in the conflict.