Hidden Victories and Losses

Over the years, I've made it a practice to analyze the decisions made at important meetings and have developed several ground rules:

1. The side that lost today may have achieved what will really be important five, ten or twenty years from now. Ignore how much they may pretend to have lost. They may not even know they won.
2. Always compare the status of the parties prior to the meeting with their status at the end. For example, if the purpose of the meeting was to remove control of a project by Department A and Department A still has effective control of the project at the end, then despite all of the words to the contrary, Department A has probably prevailed.
3. Know the alliances and whether they have changed.
4. Underline the weasel words and the little statements blanketed in fog. Determine if the deadlines are truly deadlines.
5. Identify the preferences for inaction and the issues that spark uneasiness or passion.
6. Analyze the process and the substance, then analyze the logic and your intuition.
7. Review your initial analysis three days later.
8. Look for comparisons of apples with oranges.
9. Look for "good cop, bad cop" routines.
10. Always read the minutes and the footnotes.