Brinskmanship; The You You Are; AI-generated research: Newsletter 5 February 2025
Newsletter 81. Can you really win by threatening your negotiating partners? Plus, Simon & Schuster ditches blurbs, Ray Dalio dribbles out insights, three books to read and three people to follow.
The price of brinksmanship
Our president Donald Trump is adept at brinksmanship. Look at his actions over time and you can see a pattern: in a negotiation, he will often stake out a position that threatens disastrous harm the other side, even if it would also do harm to his own side. This forces the negotiating partner to back down, especially when the brinksman is in a position of power.
Trump’s recent threats to put in place 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico is a typical example. Such tariffs would have made many goods in the US more expensive; for example, one estimate said the increase in the cost of car parts from trading partners would increase the average retail price of cars for sale in the US by $3,000. But it would have done even more damage to the Canadian and Mexican economies, because the US is by far their largest trading partner.
The leaders of both nations gave Trump what he wanted (such as troops at the US-Mexico border and more border enforcement in Canada), and he put the tariffs on hold for at least a month. Many of the concessions that Canada and Mexico made were plans that were already in place, but the point remains: Trump strong-armed these nations into concessions, and made the point that he can make threats to get them to make further concessions in the future.
Put aside for a moment your perspective on the appropriateness of these particular moves. The fact is, brinksmanship works, especially when the party engaging in it has the greater power. Your negotiating partner — or if you prefer, opponent — is likely to back down, because the alternative is disaster for them. The more determined and heedless of consequence the brinksman appears, the more likely this ploy is to work. It’s generally effective.
So why shouldn’t we all embrace brinksmanship in all of our negotiations?
There are two potential reasons.
One is risk. Brinksmanship implies the willingness to accept an awful outcome so long as you come out better than your opponent. There is always the risk that the opponent will call your bluff. If they’re willing to be just as determined as you are, you may end up worse off, and the fact that you have wreaked havoc on your opponent will be cold comfort.
But the second reason is more compelling.
Brinksmanship destroys trust and damages partnerships.
Partners often act in altruistic ways, because there is a framework in place for them to work together. I work in partnership with my clients. Companies work in partnership with their employees, including in unions. Nations work in partnership in treaties that operate for the good of the participating nations and the world as a whole. Those trusting relationships are not without guardrails — we negotiate contracts that include both rewards for fulfilling our obligations and penalties for failing to do so. But parties that work together can build great things. And partners who benefit from partnerships tend to be generous — as Canada was when it sent firefighting units to help fight the southern California wildfires.
Consider the position of the party that’s been strong-armed in a brinksmanship display. Pulled back from the brink, they still lose somewhat in the short term. But more importantly, brinksmanship destroys trust. Partners look ahead and think, I’d rather not experience being strong-armed in the future. I can no longer trust this partner. Our relationship is going continue to consist of power moves against me. And the partner then looks for other potential partners with whom they can build a more mutually beneficial relationship with fewer threats.
The brinksman is thus left with power, but few trusting partners. Former partners are likely to join forces to strengthen their position. Consider the attitudes of the nations that the U.S. formerly helped through the US Agency for International Development — USAID — that the Trump administration is in the process of shutting down. They are now more likely to turn to China or Russia for help. Brinksmanship leaves the brinksman increasingly alone and threatens the future of their ability to create productive long-term endeavors together with anybody.
People with power can often get what they want by going it alone. But in business, and in international politics, we are all interconnected. Brinksmanship can often get you a short-term advantage. But as a long-term strategy, it leaves you very alone and ultimately vulnerable.
News for writers and others who think
On Apple Books and Apple audiobooks, Apple released the first eight chapters (just 39 pages) of The You You Are, the self-help book that figures in the plot of the Apple TV+ series Severance. The author is the uber-egotistical Severance character Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, Ph.D. (yup, he uses both “Dr.” and “Ph.D.” in his title). Shades of Fake Steve Jobs. What’s next? Personally, I’ll be looking for the book that Thelonious Ellison wrote in American Fiction.
Simon & Schuster will no longer ask authors to solicit blurbs, because it creates “an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent.” Hmm. Blurbs don’t make a huge difference, but they can push potential readers that haven’t decided toward purchase. That said, they’re usually a vacuous, fake exercise in author camaraderie. Except for the ones on my books, those are real.
Bestselling author Ray Dalio is releasing chapters of his book How Countries Go Broke on LinkedIn, for free. Once he’s got you hooked, you’re supposed to order a copy, but it won’t be out until September. I like this strategy, but the timing is wrong: it’s a big ask to make people wait eight months for the final book.
OpenAI announced Deep Research, which creates industry research reports for you. HubSpot cofounder and CTO Dharmesh Shah thinks its awesome. The highly formulaic approach used in research reports makes them excellent fodder for pattern matching. However, I don’t think Gartner and Forrester are quaking in their boots yet. People don’t buy research, they buy expertise and insight, and that comes from interactions that human analysts have with humans in industry. So far, at least, AI can’t do that.
Three people to follow
Dawn Chmielewski , Reuters entertainment reporter and sometime ghostwriter.
Roger Dooley , author and marketing futurist.
Jane Rosenzweig , director of the writing center at Harvard.
Three books to read
Rethinking Work: Seismic Changes in the Where, When, and Why by Rishad Tobaccowala. (HarperCollins Leadership, 2025). Far-reaching insights on the future of work from one of the 21st Century’s most profound thinkers.
Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience by Terry Szuplat (Harper Business, 2024). Public speaking secrets from Barack Obama’s speechwriter.
No Fear Networking: A Guide to Building Connections for the Socially Anxious Professional by Michaela Alexis (Wiley, 2025). A former agoraphobe explains how to psych yourself up for the schmooze.