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Dealcraft with Jim Sebenius

A weekly podcast featuring interviews with the world’s greatest dealmakers and diplomats, discussing their most challenging and complex negotiations.

From Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, to trade agreements with China, pivotal Blackstone deals, and the peaceful end of apartheid in South Africa, landmark agreements are often spearheaded by savvy negotiators who employ winning strategies and tactics. 

I’m Jim Sebenius, your host for Dealcraft. For decades, I've practiced, researched, advised high-level clients,  and taught effective approaches to complex negotiations.  These experiences led me to create Dealcraft.  I welcome you to join me each week as I share fascinating deal stories and distill practical insights for listeners to apply in their own toughest negotiations.

Here are a few of Season One’s featured guests:

• Blackstone Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder Steve Schwarzman on the early make-or-break negotiations that launched his firm that is now a financial juggernaut;

• Former Secretaries of State Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice,  Hillary Clinton, and Rex Tillerson on how they negotiated with Vladimir Putin – with implications for dealing with really hard bargainers; 

• Legendary entertainment attorney John Branca on how he negotiated the acquisition of the Beatles catalog for Michael Jackson at a bargain price, beating out rivals such as Richard Branson and others who made even higher bids for this prize;

• Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres on how she “saved” the Paris climate talks; and 

• Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on how he handled pivotal points in his critical negotiations with China, Russia, Egypt, Israel, and Syria.

SEASON 1 EPISODES

Episode 2: Critical Moments in Negotiation

Via dramatic interviews, the second episode of Dealcraft highlights how six­­­ remarkable negotiators handled pivotal points in their critical negotiations. Protagonists include former U.S. Special Trade Negotiator Charlene Barshefsky, former ExxonMobil head and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Blackstone Co-founder, Chairman and CEO Steve Schwarzman, an English property developer, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and key climate negotiator Christiana Figueres.

Episode 3: Negotiating At and Away from the Table

“At the table moves”—including establishing rapport, connection, and relationships—include Hillary Clinton dealing with Vladimir Putin, artist Jeanne-Claude, who with her husband Christo, won over countless stakeholders to build their massive outdoor art installations, as well as former Secretary of State James Baker, and Disney CEO Bob Iger.  Protagonists whose “away from the table” moves to shape the underlying situation in their favor include former Colombian President Juan Santos dealing with a guerrilla group, Christiana Figueres quietly building powerful external support prior to the Paris climate negotiations, former Goldman Sachs managing partner Steve Friedman, and music industry super-lawyer John Branca hit with a surprise buy-sell demand from Sony—that held all the financial and legal cards.

Episode 4: Steve Schwarzman I, “Become a Friend of the Situation”

While today’s Blackstone is a financial behemoth with over a trillion dollars under management, this episode takes us back to the days when the firm was a fragile startup and each deal had a make-or-break character.  In interviews with Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone’s co-founder, chairman, and CEO, this episode recounts several deals and analyzes them for their broader lessons in which Schwarzman needed to probe for the real interests of the parties and craft very creative solutions in order to succeed. 

Episode 5: Des Stolar: Negotiating with Sharks

Fresh out of Harvard Business School, entrepreneur Desirée Stolar and her co-founder must negotiate equity splits and a tricky manufacturing deal before they are unexpectedly chosen for Shark Tank.  They must prepare carefully—the numbers, the very different “sharks’” personalities, and the high-profile process—and ultimately receive an investment offer from Mark Cuban, after which some very unexpected negotiating twists and turns ensue.

Episode 6: Steve Schwarzman II: Hardball

While the hallmark of the first episode with Steve Schwarzman involved his probing deeper interests and forging creative solutions, this episode draws lessons from several negotiations in which Schwarzman either played hardball or was the target of hardball tactics. Broader lessons on handling such moves derive from how he dealt with these challenges.

Episode 7: Tommy Koh: Negotiating US-Singapore Trade

One of Singapore’s top diplomats, Ambassador Tommy Koh, has negotiated countless tricky issues during his illustrious career. This episode focuses on his role as Singapore’s chief negotiator in successfully crafting a free trade deal—via a complex “negotiation campaign”—with the United States. This agreement was especially challenging since Koh pulled it off over the opposition of the then-U.S. Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor.

Episode 8: John Branca II: Negotiating for the Beatles Catalog and Sony/ATV 

John Branca was tasked by his client, Michael Jackson, to buy the Beatles’ catalog. Jackson’s instructions: “under any circumstances, do not lose this catalog, but do not overpay and don’t over-negotiate.” To pull this off, Branca was soon embroiled in a fierce competition against record companies and individuals such as Richard Branson who also craved this musical prize. Ultimately, John Branca must negotiate with its then-owner, ruthless Australian billionaire, Robert Holmes á Court, who frequently made reference to how the clever North Vietnamese bested the vastly stronger Americans.  Via tactics that have broader implications for other negotiators, Branca was able to pull off this deal for a much lower price than offered by others and parlay it into an unprecedentedly lucrative joint venture for Jackson with Sony.      

Episode 9: Negotiating with a (Very) Hard Bargainer: Advice from Five US Secretaries of State Who Have Extensively Negotiated with Vladimir Putin 

When facing any negotiating counterpart, especially a very tough one, it is wise to learn as much as possible about their background, likely approach, and tactics that can turn the interaction to your advantage.  This episode uses Vladimir Putin as a prototypical hardball opponent and shows just how much one can usefully learn by speaking with others who have extensively and personally negotiated with this challenging Russian leader.  Via interviews with former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Rex Tillerson (who also carried out many negotiations with Putin when Tillerson was a top ExxonMobil executive), this episode gives valuable insights into dealing effectively with Putin, but more generally demonstrates a key element of preparation for tough deals. 

Episode 10: Colin Powell the Negotiator I: Best Practices from Successful Dealmaking and Dispute Resolution

Before a rapt Harvard audience, Colin Powell recounts his poignant and almost incredible life story and career before my colleagues and I probe his generally successful approach to negotiation via three short examples of success: dealing with Vladimir Putin over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, negotiating with the Chinese government in a tense incident over the release of the crew of a U.S. spy plane that crash landed on a Chinese island, and mediating an impending conflict between Spain and Morocco that threatened to escalate into a confrontation between the EU and the Arab League.  Via these three examples, I extract a number of principles and tactics of effective negotiation and leadership, many gleaned from Powell’s distinguished 40-year career in the military. 

Episode 11: Colin Powell the Negotiator II: Learning from Failure

Sadly, Colin Powell is best remembered in many quarters for deploying his immense personal prestige in giving what became his infamous speech at the United Nations. This speech purported to reveal evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, thereby building support for the disastrous U.S. invasion of that country.  Powell did not want to give this speech on the rushed timetable demanded by President George W. Bush along with neoconservatives Vice President Dick Cheney and others. Having “lost” this timing negotiation with the president, the die was cast.  We probe this episode for insight into how a more sophisticated approach to his “negotiation” with the president might have led to a very different outcome, in the process seeking to extract positive lessons from painful negotiating failures.

Episode 12: Season Finale: How to Think Like a Great Negotiator

In the final episode of Season One of Dealcraft: Insights from the World's Great Negotiators, I offer you several fresh negotiation insights plus a look back over the dealmakers and diplomats from whom we've heard during these last twelve weeks. Each of these negotiators has given us a master class in one or more of the “dimensions” that make up the “3D Negotiation” framework that David Lax and I have developed over the last three decades: Setup, Deal design, and Tactics.