Walter White could teach us many things: how to read the periodic table; how to destroy a tub with hydrofluoric acid; how to build a battery; how to make poison out of castor beans; how to build a bomb under a wheelchair; how to use the remote control of the car to operate a machine gun; and how to coordinate multiple assassinations of prison informants within thirty seconds of one another. But these are niche skills at best. Is there anything useful we can learn from Walter White?
As it turns out, Walter White can also teach us how to negotiate— or, to be more precise, watching Walter White negotiate in Breaking Bad helps us think more clearly about what we are doing when we negotiate. For the student of negotiation, Breaking Bad is an absolute treasure trove, producing an incredibly complex and varied array of bargaining parties and negotiated transactions, episode after episode. What’s so fascinating about these transactions is that they draw on familiar, foundational negotiation concepts in the service of less familiar, usually illicit ends. Put another way, when we watch Walter White negotiate, we watch a mega-criminal anti-hero implement the same “value-neutral” strategies that we teach lawyers and businesspeople. Learning to negotiate from Walter White, therefore, allows us to engage in an analytical exercise that explores the conventional wisdom around negotiation in a fresh, modern context, while implicating more critical conversations around value neutrality and other normative concerns in negotiation theory and practice.
Breaking Bad ran for five seasons. This article examines five negotiations, one from each season, each featuring Walter White. The close readings provided show how the five negotiations demonstrate and/or disrupt foundational negotiation concepts or skills. The Article then suggests some possible takeaways for negotiators and analysts and concludes with a brief thought about ethical implications in negotiation theory and practice.
I. LESSON ONE, SEASON ONE: BE TRUSTING–– BUT NOT TOO TRUSTING
A. The Rule
Experienced negotiators say that the ability to build rapport and trust promotes success in negotiations. Although trust is not always necessary to arrive at a negotiated agreement, the quality of outcomes generally correlates with the level of trust between the parties. This is because high trust and good relationships often equate to high levels of information sharing, which in turn makes value creation possible. Parties who can share information are better equipped to develop creative options that address both sides’ interests. Additionally, negotiating parties who trust one another are better positioned in the distributional phase of the negotiation. To the extent that parties can frame the distributional question as a joint problem to solve, it is more likely they will come to creative and fair apportionments. By contrast, parties who do not trust each other are less likely to share information, which can lead to bargaining over positions, haggling, impasse, strained relationships, and/or suboptimal agreements that leave money on the table.
People who trust one another are more likely to share information and, conversely, people who share information are more likely to trust one another. This is true not only of information related to substantive interests within the proposed transaction but also of information that is more personal and social in nature. Negotiators sometimes refer to this latter type of information as the “schmooze factor”––the strategic deployment of small talk in the early stages of negotiating. Friendly small talk fosters trust, in part because people tend to want to trust and do business with friendly people. In literature related to conducting email negotiations, commentators recommend that email negotiators be extra solicitous and warm in their email exchanges to compensate for the lack of personal interaction and thus cultivate trust between the parties.Doing so promotes creative problem solving and helps prevent the other side from drawing negative conclusions about one’s motives and trustworthiness.
From the foregoing discussion a general rule emerges: early in the negotiation, share personal information and small talk with a negotiating counterpart in an effort to develop trust and create the conditions for information sharing, option generation, and joint problem-solving around distributional questions. Generally speaking, this approach will make it easier to reach an acceptable negotiated agreement.
B. The Set-Up
Consider the application of this rule in one of the most high-stakes negotiations imaginable: bargaining for one’s life. In an episode titled “. . . and the Bag’s in the River,” Walter and his partner Jesse Pinkman capture and imprison a rival methamphetamine dealer named Krazy-8 in Jesse’s basement. Convinced that Krazy-8 (whose real name is Domingo) will kill them if they let him go, Walter and Jesse flip a coin to decide which of them will commit murder. Walter loses the coin flip and reluctantly prepares himself for the task. His heart is not in it, though, and after bringing Krazy-8 a sandwich and a beer, Walter engages him in conversation:
Walter is not as certain. Accepting Krazy-8’s logic means that he must commit an act (murder) that he would rather not do. In the above exchange, Walter is wondering if he can trust Krazy-8. Trust has been defined as “a willingness to become vulnerable to another based on confident positive expectation of the other’s conduct.” Freeing Krazy-8 indeed would make Walter vulnerable, so Walter is looking for evidence that he can reliably have a “confident positive expectation” of Krazy-8’s promises not to harm him and to forget the whole thing. If Walter can trust Krazy-8, then he can let him go and avoid committing murder. Hence Walter’s attempt at a more personal, trust-promoting conversation—and Krazy-8 quickly catches on:
Viewers of the show know what happens next. While retrieving the key from the kitchen, Walter notices the shards of a dinner plate that he accidentally dropped in the basement earlier, before the beers and the conversation. A hint of doubt forms in his mind. He fishes the shards out of the trashcan and fits them together like a puzzle. All the pieces are accounted for except one: a large pointy piece shaped like a knife blade. Having thus “put the pieces together,” Walter concludes that Krazy-8 was deceiving him all along and hiding the shard in order to kill Walter as soon as he was unlocked. Applying this additional information to the situation, and believing that he has exhausted the possibilities offered by negotiation, Walter returns to the basement and chokes Krazy-8 to death.
Note that Walter’s conclusion that Krazy-8 intends to kill him is not the only possible conclusion supported by the evidence. Krazy-8 is relatively immobile given that he is secured to a metal pole with a bike lock around his neck. The shard may have skittered across the basement floor when the plate smashed. The shard may have cracked into multiple pieces when it broke off the plate, making it unusable as a weapon. The shard may indeed be in Krazy-8’s possession, but only for defensive reasons— after all, Krazy-8 is the one locked to a pole by his throat. Of course, when Walter starts choking Krazy-8 with the bike lock, Krazy-8 pulls out the shard and swings it wildly around, stabbing Walter in the leg. Even that action, however, could be justified as a normal response to being choked.
But Walter has no interest in thinking through alternative explanations. For him, the missing shard can mean only one thing: Krazy-8 is hiding information and therefore cannot be trusted. Trust was absolutely necessary to any agreement here, because Walter had no other leverage or post-deal protections. The trust that grew out of Walter and Krazy-8’s basement conversation was fragile, and it disappeared the moment Walter realized that the shard was missing.
This scene illustrates how an otherwise good person may start “breaking bad.” To survive in the underworld, Walter must learn whether and how he can trust others. In terms of the narrative arc of the show, Walter’s decision to piece together the plate and interpret the hidden shard as evidence of hostile intention symbolizes the early stages of his transformation into a criminal. When situations are ambiguous, given the deadly nature of the drug trade, distrust is the safer course.
by Jennifer W. Reynolds, New Mexico Law Review | Read more: (pdf)
[ed. More NM Law Review, Special Edition related to Breaking Bad]
Image: Breaking Bad
h/t New Shelton Wet/Dry
As it turns out, Walter White can also teach us how to negotiate— or, to be more precise, watching Walter White negotiate in Breaking Bad helps us think more clearly about what we are doing when we negotiate. For the student of negotiation, Breaking Bad is an absolute treasure trove, producing an incredibly complex and varied array of bargaining parties and negotiated transactions, episode after episode. What’s so fascinating about these transactions is that they draw on familiar, foundational negotiation concepts in the service of less familiar, usually illicit ends. Put another way, when we watch Walter White negotiate, we watch a mega-criminal anti-hero implement the same “value-neutral” strategies that we teach lawyers and businesspeople. Learning to negotiate from Walter White, therefore, allows us to engage in an analytical exercise that explores the conventional wisdom around negotiation in a fresh, modern context, while implicating more critical conversations around value neutrality and other normative concerns in negotiation theory and practice.
Breaking Bad ran for five seasons. This article examines five negotiations, one from each season, each featuring Walter White. The close readings provided show how the five negotiations demonstrate and/or disrupt foundational negotiation concepts or skills. The Article then suggests some possible takeaways for negotiators and analysts and concludes with a brief thought about ethical implications in negotiation theory and practice.
I. LESSON ONE, SEASON ONE: BE TRUSTING–– BUT NOT TOO TRUSTING
A. The Rule
Experienced negotiators say that the ability to build rapport and trust promotes success in negotiations. Although trust is not always necessary to arrive at a negotiated agreement, the quality of outcomes generally correlates with the level of trust between the parties. This is because high trust and good relationships often equate to high levels of information sharing, which in turn makes value creation possible. Parties who can share information are better equipped to develop creative options that address both sides’ interests. Additionally, negotiating parties who trust one another are better positioned in the distributional phase of the negotiation. To the extent that parties can frame the distributional question as a joint problem to solve, it is more likely they will come to creative and fair apportionments. By contrast, parties who do not trust each other are less likely to share information, which can lead to bargaining over positions, haggling, impasse, strained relationships, and/or suboptimal agreements that leave money on the table.
People who trust one another are more likely to share information and, conversely, people who share information are more likely to trust one another. This is true not only of information related to substantive interests within the proposed transaction but also of information that is more personal and social in nature. Negotiators sometimes refer to this latter type of information as the “schmooze factor”––the strategic deployment of small talk in the early stages of negotiating. Friendly small talk fosters trust, in part because people tend to want to trust and do business with friendly people. In literature related to conducting email negotiations, commentators recommend that email negotiators be extra solicitous and warm in their email exchanges to compensate for the lack of personal interaction and thus cultivate trust between the parties.Doing so promotes creative problem solving and helps prevent the other side from drawing negative conclusions about one’s motives and trustworthiness.
From the foregoing discussion a general rule emerges: early in the negotiation, share personal information and small talk with a negotiating counterpart in an effort to develop trust and create the conditions for information sharing, option generation, and joint problem-solving around distributional questions. Generally speaking, this approach will make it easier to reach an acceptable negotiated agreement.
B. The Set-Up
Consider the application of this rule in one of the most high-stakes negotiations imaginable: bargaining for one’s life. In an episode titled “. . . and the Bag’s in the River,” Walter and his partner Jesse Pinkman capture and imprison a rival methamphetamine dealer named Krazy-8 in Jesse’s basement. Convinced that Krazy-8 (whose real name is Domingo) will kill them if they let him go, Walter and Jesse flip a coin to decide which of them will commit murder. Walter loses the coin flip and reluctantly prepares himself for the task. His heart is not in it, though, and after bringing Krazy-8 a sandwich and a beer, Walter engages him in conversation:
WALT: So, Domingo, you from around town here or someplace else?Here Krazy-8 neatly lays out the obstacle to any negotiated agreement: the only reason Walter will let Krazy-8 go is if Walter believes that Krazy-8 will not hurt him or his family afterward. But there is no way for Krazy-8 to make that case convincingly since he and Walter have no preexisting or ongoing relationship. They have no reason to trust the other’s character and no stake in the other’s well-being, as one might trust or have a stake in the continued well-being of a friend, relative, or business partner. When Krazy-8 evaluates the probable bargaining outcomes, he concludes that Walter will kill him; indeed, that is the action Krazy-8 himself would take under the circumstances.
KRAZY-8: Look Walter, you getting to know me is not going to make it easier for you to kill me. Not that I mind, you understand.
WALT: You know, you keep telling me that I don’t have it in me. Well maybe, but maybe not. I sure as hell am looking for any reason not to. I mean, any good reason at all. Sell me. Tell me what it is.
KRAZY-8: [Pauses] I guess I’d start off by promising that if you let me go, I won’t come after you. That you’d be safe. I guess I’d say what happened between us never happened, and what’s best for both parties is we forget all about it. But you know that anybody in my situation would make promises like that. Even though in my case they happen to be true, you never know for sure. So what else can I tell you?
WALT: I don’t know. But you gotta convince me, and you’re going nowhere until you do.
Walter is not as certain. Accepting Krazy-8’s logic means that he must commit an act (murder) that he would rather not do. In the above exchange, Walter is wondering if he can trust Krazy-8. Trust has been defined as “a willingness to become vulnerable to another based on confident positive expectation of the other’s conduct.” Freeing Krazy-8 indeed would make Walter vulnerable, so Walter is looking for evidence that he can reliably have a “confident positive expectation” of Krazy-8’s promises not to harm him and to forget the whole thing. If Walter can trust Krazy-8, then he can let him go and avoid committing murder. Hence Walter’s attempt at a more personal, trust-promoting conversation—and Krazy-8 quickly catches on:
KRAZY-8: Hey yeah, yeah. I’m from here in town, man. ABQ. Born and bred. Never left. Studied business administration over at UNM. Got my degree.As it turns out, the reason Walter knows Tampico Furniture is that sixteen years ago, he and his wife Skyler bought their son Walter Jr.’s crib there. Krazy-8 observes that he worked at the store every day after school and may have helped ring up Walter at the checkout line. Walter and Krazy-8 then sing the store’s late-night commercial jingle together. As they drink another beer, Krazy-8 gently asks whether Jesse or Walter’s family knows that Walter has been diagnosed with cancer. Walter admits that the only person he has told is Krazy-8. Krazy-8 again encourages Walter to let him go, this time as one friend to another: “Like I said Wal ter, this line of work doesn’t suit you. Get out before it’s too late.” Walter agrees to get the key.
WALT: Really? [Chuckles] Does that, uh, come in handy in the drug trade? [Sits back down]
KRAZY-8: Doesn’t hurt. I was gonna study music originally. Maybe even try out for Oberlin or Berkeley. My pops talked me out of it. Said there was no money in it unless I wound up some bullshit rockstar, and I had a snowball’s chance of that.
WALT: What does your dad do?
KRAZY-8: He owns Tampico Furniture over on Menaul.
WALT: Wait a minute. I know that place.
Viewers of the show know what happens next. While retrieving the key from the kitchen, Walter notices the shards of a dinner plate that he accidentally dropped in the basement earlier, before the beers and the conversation. A hint of doubt forms in his mind. He fishes the shards out of the trashcan and fits them together like a puzzle. All the pieces are accounted for except one: a large pointy piece shaped like a knife blade. Having thus “put the pieces together,” Walter concludes that Krazy-8 was deceiving him all along and hiding the shard in order to kill Walter as soon as he was unlocked. Applying this additional information to the situation, and believing that he has exhausted the possibilities offered by negotiation, Walter returns to the basement and chokes Krazy-8 to death.
Note that Walter’s conclusion that Krazy-8 intends to kill him is not the only possible conclusion supported by the evidence. Krazy-8 is relatively immobile given that he is secured to a metal pole with a bike lock around his neck. The shard may have skittered across the basement floor when the plate smashed. The shard may have cracked into multiple pieces when it broke off the plate, making it unusable as a weapon. The shard may indeed be in Krazy-8’s possession, but only for defensive reasons— after all, Krazy-8 is the one locked to a pole by his throat. Of course, when Walter starts choking Krazy-8 with the bike lock, Krazy-8 pulls out the shard and swings it wildly around, stabbing Walter in the leg. Even that action, however, could be justified as a normal response to being choked.
But Walter has no interest in thinking through alternative explanations. For him, the missing shard can mean only one thing: Krazy-8 is hiding information and therefore cannot be trusted. Trust was absolutely necessary to any agreement here, because Walter had no other leverage or post-deal protections. The trust that grew out of Walter and Krazy-8’s basement conversation was fragile, and it disappeared the moment Walter realized that the shard was missing.
This scene illustrates how an otherwise good person may start “breaking bad.” To survive in the underworld, Walter must learn whether and how he can trust others. In terms of the narrative arc of the show, Walter’s decision to piece together the plate and interpret the hidden shard as evidence of hostile intention symbolizes the early stages of his transformation into a criminal. When situations are ambiguous, given the deadly nature of the drug trade, distrust is the safer course.
by Jennifer W. Reynolds, New Mexico Law Review | Read more: (pdf)
[ed. More NM Law Review, Special Edition related to Breaking Bad]
Image: Breaking Bad
h/t New Shelton Wet/Dry