The shocking events last week in the White House, when the leader of the free world and his sidekick bullied the leader of an invaded country, supposedly an ally, will live in the memory for a long time. I’m not going to comment much here on the wider issues, or Trump and Vance. But just as Trump’s apparent capitulation recently to Russia in terms of negotiating position provided interesting lessons on negotiation strategies and approaches, so we can look at how Zelensky handled last week’s disastrous session and see if there is anything for procurement professionals and others who negotiate professionally to learn.
This was a negotiation in which one party, Ukraine, represented by Zelensky, wanted something from the other party, the USA. But although Zelensky was treated with disrespect, he did make some errors himself.
- Going into the Oval Office alone to face two opponents immediately put him at a disadvantage. It Is not just the psychology of being outnumbered; two negotiators can apply different strategies, whether that is the traditional ‘good cop, bad cop’ approach or something more straightforward and brutal as we saw with Vance. Zelensky should have had someone up there with him – how about Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv and ex world boxing champion? That would have changed the dynamics significantly.
- The first press question sounded idiotic but was clearly planned and designed to undermine Zelensky, asking why he wasn’t wearing a suit. This is where perhaps the disadvantage of working in a second language also comes into play. Sometimes if you are being attacked in a negotiation, particularly if it is not actually around a serious point, turning it around to humour can be effective. There was an obvious answer here – ‘Well, actually, I borrowed this outfit from Elon Musk’! That would have raised a laugh and actually put Trump on the back foot.
- There has been much debate about who was to blame for the escalation of the discussion into hostility after 30 minutes or so of reasonable discussion. Some blame Zelensky, others Vance, who certainly was taking an aggressive role. Zelensky was clearly irritated that he wasn’t getting what he wanted out of Trump – security guarantees against future Putin aggression if a cease fire was agreed. But he was and is in the weaker position in this negotiation. It is rarely sensible for the weaker participant to raise the heat in a negotiation – if you don’t hold the power, then staying calm, even under provocation, and sticking with a structured approach is generally sensible.
- Zelensky may not have had much option, but trying to conduct serious negotiations and draw out concessions from Trump in the full glare of the cameras was unlikely to work. All the serious discussion should have been held in private, then a short and pleasant photo-opportunity could take place once the real work was completed. I think Zelensky did perhaps think that the public nature of the meeting might help him ‘bounce’ Trump into giving him what he wanted, but of course it just went the other way.
- As we’ve said before, there is no sign that Trump is a brilliant negotiator. In fact, he is pretty easy to understand. You have two tools to use against him – power and his own narcissism and ego, his desire to be seen as a genius and sit at the centre of everything. Keir Starmer played this quite well in his discussions, I thought, with the invitation from the King and so on. I totally understand why Zelensky struggled to ‘pay tribute’ to Trump, but a good negotiator can swallow a bit of personal pride to get better results. A few more compliments and a little more grovelling might have helped, however distasteful for Zelensky (and for us as observers).
A quick agreement and the Nobel Peace Prize were clearly Trump’s aims in terms of Ukraine. Now that is proving difficult, I suspect he will lose interest and move on to who knows what – invading Greenland maybe? But he has to blame someone for his Ukraine failure, so the narrative is about Zelensky being difficult.
As Trump said, the meeting was ‘great television’. He seems to see his life as a reality TV show, so there has to be action, and he has to look like the star all the time. Maybe nothing Zelensky could have done would have made any difference, maybe Trump had already written the script. But whilst we can have huge admiration and sympathy for Zelensky (and I certainly do), he arguably still did not play his negotiation cards as well as he might have.