The Real Trump Deal. Martin E. Latz
The Taj Construction Catastrophe
The catastrophe at the Taj was a symptom of [Trump’s] sudden inability to focus—he’d visited the site rarely and lost contact with the detail work that was once his trademark…. By and large, he’d transcended his Hyatt and Trump Tower days of creating value and repositioned himself as a player in the far less demanding league that merely traded in it. [Emphasis added.]15
Trump’s loss of focus and attention to detail became increasingly problematic.
Second, Trump would likely indicate that negotiation leaders should delegate to take advantage of their team’s strengths. Doing detail-oriented homework is neither his strength nor in his interest, he might note. That’s why you hire experts and lawyers, right?
Ross would again agree with Trump, noting:
To my knowledge, Donald Trump has no negotiating weaknesses except maybe the fact that he doesn’t like to discuss minor details. He lacks the patience to work on unimportant paperwork, because he likes to focus on the big picture as a more productive use of his time…. Being a smart deal maker, Donald has learned to see the forest and let his subordinates see the trees.16
Delegation is a critical negotiation strategy. Negotiation leaders should rely on experts and others. But effective negotiation leaders still need to understand the interests, details, and interconnections between the issues to fully appreciate the strategic negotiation landscape.
RESEARCH: Professors Roy Lewicki, David Saunders, and Bruce Barry, co-authors of Negotiation, the world’s bestselling business school negotiation textbook and the gold standard, wrote:
We cannot overemphasize the importance of preparation, and we strongly encourage all negotiators to prepare properly for their negotiations…. Preparation… should be right at the top of the best practices list of every negotiator. Negotiators who are better prepared have numerous advantages.17
One final note on preparation. So far, we have focused on the substantive preparation for negotiations. Learn the facts.
You also need to do your homework on the negotiation process. Most successful professionals do their due diligence on the facts. But they give short shrift to the process and wing it when it comes to preparing for the actual moves in the negotiation. Do both.
How well has Donald Trump prepared on the substance and process in his negotiations over the years? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most prepared, I would give him a three. I expect he would agree he’s not much for preparation.
His gut dominates.
Trump’s Win–Lose Mindset Impacted All His Business Negotiations
“We are going to start winning again…. We are going to win so much.”18
“I have a winning temperament. I know how to win.”19
“I’m not big on compromise. I understand compromise. Sometimes compromise is the right answer, but oftentimes compromise is the equivalent of defeat, and I don’t like being defeated.”20
“We [the U.S.] don’t win anymore. We don’t beat China in trade. We don’t beat Japan, with their millions and millions of cars coming into this country, in trade. We can’t beat Mexico, on the border or in trade.”21
“I win, I win, I always win. In the end, I always win, whether it’s in golf, whether it’s in tennis, whether it’s in life, I just always win. And I tell people I always win, because I do.”22
“If I’m President, we will win on everything we do.”23
“My life has been about winning. I like to win. I like to close the deal.”24
—Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump’s favorite word may be “win.” Implicit in how he uses “win” is that someone must lose, get defeated, or get beaten. Merriam-Webster defines “win” as “to gain in or as if in battle or contest” or “to gain the victory in a contest.”25
Negotiation has traditionally been viewed as a competitive contest in which you win or lose. Not both. And not win–win.
This is an essential part of Donald Trump’s life. And it permeates his business deals and way of thinking.
Where did it start? It may simply be in his DNA, but this attitude first openly manifested itself at the New York Military Academy, where he was sent at age 13. As noted in Trump Revealed,
Donald’s competitive drive took over as he learned to master the academy. He won medals for neatness and order. He loved competing to win contests for cleanest room, shiniest shoes, and best-made bed. For the first time, he took pride in his grades; he grew angry when a study partner scored higher on a chemistry test, even questioning whether he had cheated.26
He learned much of this from World War II combat veteran and the Academy’s baseball and football coach Theodore Dobias. As Dobias in 2014 told Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Michael D’Antonio, author of The Truth about Trump, he “taught [his players] that winning wasn’t everything, it was the only thing.”27
This winning “was the only thing” quote from legendary Green Bay Packers’ coach Vince Lombardi greatly impacted Trump. Dobias told D’Antonio, “Donald picked right up on this. He would tell his teammates, ‘We’re out here for a purpose. To win.’…. He would do anything to win…. [Trump] just wanted to be first, in everything, and he wanted people to know he was first.”28
Trump recognized this, believing that “his ball-field experiences were formative because they made him locally famous and because they instilled in him the habit of winning,” according to D’Antonio.29
Trump also became a lifelong sports fan, where “in Trump’s zero-sum world of winners and losers, sports always held a special place.”30 Sports is the quintessential zero-sum environment, where individuals or teams win or lose.
Of course, a win–lose, zero-sum mindset can be positive or negative in negotiations and life. Sometimes both.
For instance, Donald Trump’s dominant win-at-almost-all-costs attitude was reflected in his purchase of the United States Football League’s New Jersey Generals in 1983 and his effort to parlay it into an NFL franchise.
Trump’s Win–Lose Approach to Get into the NFL
Donald Trump bought the USFL’s New Jersey Generals in 1983 with two goals in mind: own a successful NFL team and stadium, and mass market the Trump brand. How did he intend to do this? And how did his win–lose attitude figure into it?
Three elements of his effort illustrate his intentions and win–lose attitude:
Trump needed to win games right away,
Trump needed the USFL to compete with the NFL in the fall, and
Trump’s last shot to win—sue the NFL.
Trump Needed to Win Games Right Away
In 1983, Donald Trump had just opened Trump Tower, a 58-story tower in New York City with his name emblazoned in big gold letters above the entrance. And he was selling Trump Towers condos at a great clip and receiving loads of positive publicity for its design and as the luxury place to live in Manhattan. Trump Tower was a “win” right away.
Next up—he bought the Generals in late 1983 and immediately went on a spending spree with a series of high-profile negotiations for current NFL players and coaches.31 This generated a ton of media coverage for Trump and the USFL, as the two-year-old league was about to start its second season. (It played in the spring so