In Venezuela in recent months, the opposition led by Mr. Juan Guaido has been working assiduously to remove President Maduro from office. Many western countries, including the United States recognize Mr. Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela while Russia and Cuba recognizes Mr. Maduro.
As part of this effort, and likely engineered by the United States, secret negotiations between the opposition and President Maduro’s inner circle were taking place to plot a coup to depose Maduro and to install Guaido. The premise was that this inner circle including top military leaders would support the coup.
A key figure in Maduro’s “inner circle” that was negotiating with the opposition was General Padrino Lopez, one of the most powerful men in the country with sweeping influence over the armed forces. The United States and the opposition firmly believed they he, among other powerful key figures, were strong supporters and negotiating partners with whom to work out a plan to overthrow Maduro.
These talks produced a 15-point plan for a peaceful handover of power that would be implemented by the military. Under the deal, Mr. Maduro would be allowed a dignified exit from the country. In fact, Washington believed that these talks were so far advanced that an aircraft was already waiting on the runway at the Caracas international airport to fly Maduro to Cuba.
Then suddenly, without warning, this negotiated agreement collapsed and President Maduro remained in power with full support of his armed forces with no signs of any breach whatsoever.
It turns out that the apparent conspirators on the Maduro side led by General Lopez were in fact double agents with no intent to ever negotiate a coup with the opposition. They were nefariously mining for information to channel back to President Maduro to help him crush any attempt to overthrow him.
Although this example is borrowed from a political landscape, we face similar nefarious negotiators in our business negotiations too.
Take for example, the top level executive of a Fortune 500 company, that was recruited to what he thought was a dream job, albeit at a start-up. He was lured with the promise of having broad decision-making authority which would allow him to guide and shape the industry.
Once brought on-board, he was quickly relegated to position of account manager and soon realized that the CEO of the start-up never intended to appoint him to the position of authority, but was rather only interested in his rich rolodex of contacts.
This CEO was playing the game of the nefarious negotiator, General Lopez, in Venezuela.
How then, can we protect ourselves from a counterpart who may not be negotiating in good faith?
