Negotiation Is Closer to Magic Than Chess
One of the things I’ve always loved about magic, especially card magic, is that it doesn’t feel like control.
I’m not particularly good at it. But I’m fascinated by how it works.
The magician never tells you what to do.
They never tell you that you made a bad choice.
They don’t force the outcome.
They just keep adjusting what happens next.
In a good card trick, the magician already knows which card is going to be yours.
Not because they’re psychic, but because the structure was designed that way from the start.
You’re shown four cards.
“Pick two.”
If you pick the card the magician wants you to end up with, they say, “Great, let’s keep those.”
If you don’t, they say, “Perfect, we’ll get rid of those.”
Either way, nothing breaks.
You still feel in control.
And you’re still being guided toward the same ending.
Why this doesn’t feel deceptive
When you watch a magic trick, you’re entering a social contract.
You want to be entertained.
The magician wants to entertain you.
You’re aligned on the outcome before anything begins.
That’s why it isn’t harmful that you don’t know how the trick works.
And it’s why the trick collapses the moment someone refuses to participate.
“Pick a card.”
“No.”
At that point, nothing is wrong. The performance just ends.
Negotiation works the same way
Negotiation only exists because both people want a resolution.
If you didn’t want an outcome, you wouldn’t be there.
When negotiations fail, it’s rarely because someone made the wrong move.
It’s because someone stopped believing the outcome was worth pursuing.
Refusal doesn’t usually look dramatic.
It looks like disengagement.
Someone stops caring whether the ending works.
They accept a loss just to move on.
That isn’t a negotiation breaking down.
That’s a negotiation ending.
Guidance vs. manipulation
The difference matters.
Guidance is helping someone arrive at a conclusion you both want to reach, even if you describe it differently.
Manipulation is steering someone toward an outcome that isn’t in their best interest.
That’s where it stops being ethical.
And that’s usually where it stops working.
If someone has to be cornered for the outcome to happen, it wasn’t guidance.
Control isn’t the point. Structure is.
In a good magic trick, the magician doesn’t actually control the audience.
The structure does.
The magician is just responsive enough to keep the performance inside a space where the ending still works.
Control looks rigid.
What’s really happening is adjustment.
Negotiations fail when people mistake rigidity for strength.
Walking away is not failure
Walking away from a negotiation is almost always a success.
You may not get what you want.
But you avoid getting what you don’t want.
An agreement you’re unhappy with isn’t a win.
It’s just a delayed cost.
The ability to walk away is the leverage.
The moment you believe you can’t leave, participation stops being voluntary.
And once participation isn’t voluntary, it isn’t a negotiation anymore.
Consent isn’t something you grant once.
It’s something you keep granting by staying.
Why “chess” is the wrong metaphor
We like to describe negotiation as chess.
A battle of minds.
Someone wins because someone else loses.
That metaphor sticks because negotiations are rare, uncomfortable, and high-stakes. Something matters.
But most negotiations don’t fail because someone outplayed the other person.
They fail because the process stopped feeling safe to participate in.
People remember when they felt cornered.
And if you ever have to deal with them again, you pay for that.
Forcing a favorable outcome might work once.
It’s almost never sound long-term strategy.
The quiet truth
Negotiation only exists while both people believe the outcome is still worth pursuing.
The best ones don’t feel like battles.
They feel more like a shared performance.
Everyone wants the ending to work.
And the real skill is designing the path so it still can.
Still thinking about where that applies — and where it doesn’t.