Negotiating with power craving, proud folks: case study

#1 · December 27, 2020, 11:18 pm

This type of personality, at the extreme, is not very common.

But it won't hurt you to know about it and, in milder forms, it's present in most people. Especially high-power, driven ones.

John Gotti had that type of personality that he had to always win.
Probably, similar to Donald Trump.

Franzese knew there was no way he could reason with Gotti without either making him feel he'd have won, or escalating.
So he thinks the options are two:

Buying Gotti out
Letting Gotti buy him out

But Gotti was never going to allow Franzese to buy him out. And Gotti was also going to refuse to buy Franzese out if Franzese told him "buy me out" (remember the power dynamics of tasking and persuasion: both are power-up, and would make Gotti feel like he's being disempowered).

Solution?
Franzese tells Gotti:

Franzese: I'll buy you out.

Franzese knew exactly what Gotti was going to do at that point:

Gotti: You don't buy me out, I buy you out

Which is exactly what Franzese wanted.

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#2 · December 28, 2020, 3:52 am

Which is exactly what Gotti wanted

You mean Franzese

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#3 · December 28, 2020, 10:22 am

Thank you, Stef, fixed!

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