Negotiation - nature or nurture?

Yesterday my wife completed a tricky, complex negotiation successfully. As a result my seven year old son found himself eating an additional helping of his "five a day" every day for a week, in return for a limited increase in his PS2 (PlayStation to the uninitiated) time. However he turned the tables shortly afterwards in a gloriously intricate manouevre that secured a trip to the Pier at the weekend AND some goalkeeping gloves. The strategy involved a 24 hour charm offensive and some reverse psychology followed by the ultimate close - flowers (bankrolled by dad in a separate but no less impressive negotiation founded in emotional blackmail)and the unprompted tidying of his room.

I shouldnt be surprised. He spends alot of time with his mother. He's learnt from the master.

The Leaders and the Led

There is often tension betwen marketing and other disciplines as the battle to decided how an organisation should be "led" is played out. Should the organisation be true to itself or simply follow the latest research-led finding on audience attitudes? The truth is the two are not mutually exclusive. A successful organisations believes in itself, its values and finds compellingly different and special ways to articulate them - to find fulfilment both for itself and its audience. Its not led, it leads.

Marketing Myopia

A company I had hoped to work with contacted me last week to say that their biggest client had gone into administration and that it was " all hands to the pump" at the moment. As a result they couldnt undertake the marketing planning exercise we had talked about. Is my world just so marketing-centric I've lost touch with reality, or should they have been saying "can we bring the marketing planning exercise forward as now more than ever we need the right strategy to deal with our difficult challenges"? I dont understand why people dont understand - when your market is contracting you either need to take business from your competitors to survive at their expense,find new products to sell or markets to sell into, or sell more to existing customers. The success of any of these strategies is dependent upon your ability to get your marketing strategy and tactics right. Or is it just me?