Thursday, May 10, 2018

Anchors and Angles

Donald Trump is often criticized for his outrageous statements and the demands he makes when negotiating any issue he is interested in.

What those critics miss is that Donald Trump wrote the "The Art of the Deal" and he understands how powerful "anchors" are in negotiating strategy. After all, he has been involved in thousands of negotiations in his career.

If you are not familiar with the effect of "anchors" on your mind you should be. It is a cognitive bias that resides in all of us. It is the tendency we have to move towards an adversary's position in order to strike a deal.

Once an anchor is established in a negotiation it is difficult to move away from it. All other bids and offers are negotiated relative to that initial position. It becomes a line in the sand that is difficult to move away from as it tends to "frame' the negotiation.

If you want to know more about how anchors can be used in negotiations, this article by Bob Sullivan on "The Art of Negotiating: How to use anchoring to your advantage" provides a good summary on the subject.

I just finished reading Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard's book on the American Revolution, "Killing England" where I learned that Benjamin Franklin also understood the power of anchoring.

Franklin (along with John Jay and John Adams) was tasked with the duties of negotiating the peace treaty with England upon the conclusion of the Revolutionary War in 1782.

Benjamin Franklin went into the negotiations with the mind that the British owed the Americans much more than merely giving the United States its independence. Franklin's opening request was that the British were also obligated to give Canada to the Americans for restitution for the atrocities perpetrated against the Americans during the war for independence. It was considered a pretty outrageous demand.

"We do not consider ourselves as under necessary bargaining for a thing that is our own -which we have bought at the expense of much blood and treasure-and which we are in possession of."

The United States did not gain Canada in the end but this opening anchor resulted in the United States gaining territory for the new country that went much beyond the 13 original colonies. The United States also gained fishing rights in Canadian waters that still exist today.

Benjamin Franklin was a statesman but Donald Trump is stupid?

This map shows you the original 13 colonies (light yellow) and the additional territory gained for the United States from the British as a result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. As you can see, this generally gave the United States all lands west  to the Mississippi River.






This historical background was helpful when I also ran across this interesting piece of geography trivia last week involving what is referred to as the Northwest Angle.

The Northwest Angle is the area protruding over the 49th parallel that generally establishes the border between the United States and Canada west of that point. Most of the area in the circle on the map below is made up of the Lake of the Woods but there is a small land area which locals refers to as "The Angle".






What is interesting about the land area comprising "The Angle" is that it only accessible by driving through Canada to reach it if by driving by motor vehicle. That may be one the reasons that it is only inhabited by 119 people as of the 2010 Census.





When I saw this geographic anomaly I began some research as to how this all came about.

That research led me the Treaty of Paris of 1783 that Ben Franklin had negotiated with his opening gambit in the negotiation being that he wanted all of Canada.

The final agreement in the Treaty of Paris allowed the British to keep Canada north of the Great Lakes. However, west of Lake Superior it was agreed that the boundary line was to run from the "northwesternmost" point of the Lake of the Woods to a point due west on a line to the Mississippi River.

There were two problems with this. At that time, the best map in use shows the Lake of the Woods to be an egg-shaped lake. It proved to be anything but as you can see in the image above. Because of its shape it was difficult to determine exactly where the "northwesternmost" point was on the lake. They also believed that the Mississippi River would be intersected if a line was drawn due west from that northwest point on the Lake of the Woods. It was discovered later that the beginning of the Mississippi River is actually almost due south of that northwest point on the Lake of the Woods--- a line drawn due west would never intersect the Mississippi River.




Cartographers later discovered the error in the maps that were in use in 1783. Therefore, this meant that what was agreed to in the Treaty of Paris was actually a geographic impossibility. Great Britain and Canada subsequently tried to change the border due to this fact. However, over the ensuing years the United States has stubbornly refused to relinquish what they had gained in the Treaty of Paris.

This is how an "angle" of land became a part of the continental United States even though it is not contiguous with the rest of our borders.

You can read all about the later developments that involved The Northwest Angle over the years including suggestions that Canada purchase the area from the United States in this story on the Angle in The Minn Post.

What is the lesson in all of this?

Learn something from Benjamin Franklin and Donald Trump. Understand how effective "anchors" can be in negotiating. You may be surprised at how effective that negotiating angle can be. That angle may even result in an extra bonue like The Northwest Angle for you.


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