In April 2023, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority blocked Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard, the company behind Call of Duty.
The deal was worth around $69 billion. It had already been agreed between the two companies. And a single regulator was standing in the way.
In October 2023, the same regulator approved it.
What changed? Not the persuasion. The deal.
The CMA’s worry was specific. It was concerned about the emerging cloud gaming market, and that Microsoft would control too much of it. So Microsoft restructured. It agreed to sell the cloud streaming rights for Activision’s current and new PC and console games, outside the European Economic Area, to Ubisoft. With that concern addressed, the CMA cleared the deal on 13 October and it closed the same day.
Microsoft didn’t take April’s decision quietly. It publicly criticised the ruling and appealed. But the route that got the deal done wasn’t louder argument. It was a different offer built around the exact objection.
Here’s what I find interesting about this.
When someone tells us no, our instinct is to treat it as a verdict on the whole thing. We either give up or argue with the answer, repeating our case with more force.
But a no is very rarely a no to everything. It’s usually a no to one part of what you’ve proposed. The regulator wasn’t against Microsoft buying a games company. It was against one specific consequence.
And this is where things get useful. A rejection is information. Often it’s the most precise information you’ll get in the entire negotiation, because it tells you exactly where the other side’s limit is.
The question that unlocks it is simple and slightly uncomfortable to ask: what would have to be different for this to be a yes?
It works for regulators. It works just as well with a client who turns down a proposal, a bank that declines a loan, or a teenager who refuses a curfew.
Treating no as the start of the conversation rather than the end of it is one of the ideas I explore in my book, Marta Skarbek’s This is Negotiation.
When someone turns you down, do you argue with the answer — or do you ask what the answer was really about?
Marta Skarbek’s This is Negotiation: https://www.amazon.com/Marta-Skarbeks-This-Negotiation-negotiator/dp/B0D7VXFV7S
#Negotiation, #Microsoft, #MergersandAcquisitions, #Regulation, #ProblemSolving, #Strategy, #Business, #Persuasion, #Leadership, #MartaSkarbek
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