A Seller has many stakeholders. These include all her line managers, the marketing department, operations and finance functions, and probably others.
A Buyer has an equivalent multifarious spectrum of interested parties, internal to their own organisation.
When these two gladiators enter an arena, they battle for the good of their careers and their respective companies.
Or so it seems…
What would you do?
There are many unknowns in each contest and there are many contests; so staking too much on any one confrontation would be a foolish risk, would it not? Better to limit the hazard and the gamble, don’t you agree?
Buying and selling is not heavyweight boxing. A professional boxer has only two to three fights each year. They need time to recover; a boxing match is a hard-fought clash whose outcome is career-determining or even existential.
Buyers and Sellers need to manage their events differently. They need to restrict the stakes and contain the risks whilst still putting on a great performance. The audience, for both seller and buyer, is their own stakeholders so they have everything in common. Indeed, they have the same objective: both have to put on a great show without actually doing much damage to the other.
So, back to the question, ‘What would you do’.
It should be obvious. Turn the contest into a show, like WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment).
Whereas a professional boxer has 2-3 fights a year, WWE professionals have that many in a week! Their objective is not to damage each other but to entertain the audience. It is a choreographed sham, a piece of fun that everybody enjoys.
It is the same for successful buyers and sellers. It is all about illusion and artifice. Stakeholders, the audience, are willing and eager dupes. They know it is not real but, if their organisations say there must be a battle, then let’s sit back and enjoy it.
Allow the executives to believe what they like.