Hermes as Negotiation Choice Architecture

Hermes, the perceived underdog, was an astute negotiator with his older brother Apollo and walked away with the great deal he wanted and the friendship. Hermes designed the game, yet never had to choose between being good and winning. He refused the question. He engaged with many of the same dilemmas modern negotiators do: Claim the value, or keep the relationship? Can you persuade without being unethical? Is splitting the difference a quiet defeat? Hermes is a paradox: the tensions that paralyse most negotiators are exactly what fuel him to get a great deal. He has four faces — the astute negotiator, the psychopomp, the mediator, and the hermaion. Everything Hermes does is grounded in psychology and research, through a bio-psycho-social lens. The Hermes Framework engages with several historical figures — Socrates, Machiavelli, and Alexander the Great — examining their successes and failures, and the lesser-known details behind them. Things are not always what they seem.

Just like today, thousands of years ago, people used negotiation within a range of activities with varied scope: to preserve relationships, build alliances, avoid conflict, sign peace treaties and gain economic advantages. The Romans and the Greeks cultivated their persuasion skills through oratory and philosophy. The image someone might now have is boring old philosophy books. But the Greek philosophers developed techniques of asking questions and framing a problem out of the necessity to adapt to a world marked by political instability and conflict. What they were after was a good and meaningful life. As you will see later on, the socratic method is a powerful tool of persuasion.

Socrates himself followed the wisdom of Apollo, the god of rational thought. This Olympian was famously tricked by his much younger brother Hermes, who stood for negotiation. Unlike Apollo, he embodied a different type of wisdom, not abstract, but social and employed by those who were travelling and crossing boundaries: merchants, travellers and diplomats. The liminal aspect of Hermes did not include only physical borders. He also represented people who use persuasion and manipulation to cross the boundary of trust: tricksters and thieves. Perhaps even more than in the case of other Greek gods, Hermes has dual and complex symbolism. In sculptures, he is holding a caduceus, a rod with two intertwined snakes, representing fairness and balanced exchange. But his myths also describe him as a trickster, not malicious by nature, but able to steal and deceive. Thus he becomes a paradox, holding the tensions of human potential, for cooperation and competition, for good and bad. This is in fact, an accurate reflection of the two-sided coin of influence: it can be used to persuade and to trick; to build relationships and to exploit. Over two thousand years ago, Hermes walked in our shoes. Nowadays we try to solve the same negotiation dilemmas: will transparency make us vulnerable to exploitation? Should we gain as much value as we can? Is it wrong to split the difference? As we will see, Hermes holds the keys to his own paradox.

The Astute Negotiator

Unless there is an obvious reason to do otherwise, most of us passively accept decision problems as they are framed and therefore rarely have an opportunity to discover the extent to which our preferences are frame-bound rather than reality bound

Daniel Kahneman — Thinking, Fast and Slow

The Latin root of astute is astutus, from astus — cunning, craft, cleverness. By one old tradition, the Romans linked it to the Greek astu, 'town,' implying city-sophistication: street-smart, worldly-wise. Its old sense was crafty and cunning — cleverness deployed to outwit others. The modern sense shifted toward the perceptive and discerning, and in negotiation that becomes the cleverness to see through the deceit of others. The sense of the word astute was negotiated over centuries, with the positive meaning absorbing the negative connotation. The astute negotiator is where the old and new meanings meet: to design the frame (the old cunning, now skilled and ethical) and to see through the frames others impose (the modern perception). Astute has shed its deceptive sense. What remains is the clarity to set the terms — and to refuse the ones imposed on you.

The most prevalent symbol of Hermes is that of cleverness and balance, which makes a good description for an astute and ethical negotiator. Ancient sources, including Iliad and Odyssey, acknowledge Hermes’s ability to steal and deceive, but he never becomes a god who enriches himself. Rather, he assists the heroes on their journeys and defeats more powerful creatures. Hermes shows restraint and he is not using his power to steal in order to obtain everything he can claim. As the myth tells us, Hermes invented the lyre just after being born and then he used trickery to steal Apollo’s cattle to claim equal standing with his older and more powerful brother. The lyre, created out of a tortoise shell, proved its true worth when it was gifted to Apollo in exchange for his forgiveness. Hermes kept the cattle and his brother was so enchanted by the lyre that he became known as the god of music. Hermes earned his status among the Olympian gods. Despite the positive outcome, his nature is not ethical by default. He possessed the innate capacity to steal and he confessed to his mother Maia that if he wanted, he could have taken all of Apollo’s gold and left him poor. But his actions proved restrained, and in the context of his brother’s riches, the thievery was described as mischief. Even before he stole the cattle from his brother, Hermes had the means to preserve the peace with Apollo, by having already invented the lyre. The thievery was the move that allowed him to frame the game. He created and solved the conflict with his strong and influential brother. Alongside Apollo, he emerged as one of the twelve major Greek Gods, from a pantheon of hundreds of deities, each presiding over different aspects of life.

An astute negotiator knows how to frame the problem. The myth of Hermes is two and a half millennia old, but from the beginning till the end, it is based on the successful use of framing, an effective psychological technique employed by modern day persuaders. Framing is the opening move that sets the conditions in a negotiation. The person who frames the problem has an advantage because it requires the other party to argue within the boundary of the frame. For example, sellers who start by asking for a much higher price create a cognitive anchor that works in their favour by skewing buyers’ perception of the value, even though they know the actual worth is likely lower. Returning to the myth, Hermes framed the negotiation by making the first move and stealing the cattle. This captured Apollo’s attention who, all of a sudden, needed to engage with his much younger brother to recover his loss. Hermes had a lower status, but like many other underdogs, he had the power to inconvenience. The thievery was not about keeping the cows, but about earning the right to sit at the negotiation table with the major gods. When Apollo brought Hermes in front of Zeus, the god who maintained order over Mount Olympus was impressed by the trickster’s wit and mischief. By this point Hermes got some of the acknowledgement he wanted. And in order to preserve the peace and consolidate his status, he negotiated again, by offering the lyre in exchange for the cattle. Hermes made the first moves but Apollo was not constrained, he genuinely took great pleasure in the lyre. He had the choice to reject the gift and try to punish Hermes. But ultimately, Hermes designed the negotiation game, by making the first moves and creating the right gift that would compensate for Apollo’s loss.

As documented by Kahneman, in ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, framing is a reliable persuasive technique. Often enough, but not always, decisions are influenced by the manner in which the information is presented. For example, framing something as a loss rather than a gain triggers loss aversion. Losing £10 feels twice as bad than earning £10 and people put more effort to recover a loss. Intuitively, the ancient Greeks knew that. This is why Hermes stole the cattle first, rather than simply gifting the lyre to Apollo. The older brother negotiated with the younger one because he had something to lose. When Hermes entered the formal negotiation with Apollo in front of Zeus and the cattle were exchanged for the lyre, the trade was perceived to be fair, and both parties were happy. Hermes also claimed the status he wanted. But the results would likely have been different had he approached Apollo straight away and suggested the lyre for cattle swap. Even if the exchange was welcomed, Hermes would not have had the grounds to claim his position among the influential gods. The implication is that people work harder to negotiate when they have something to lose. Even in the hypothetical situation when Hermes would have approached his older brother to simply offer him the lyre, most likely the gift alone would not have been a strong enough incentive for status recognition.

The framing technique is not only effective but also highly versatile. Its effectiveness recommends it at the start of the discussion, to set the bargaining parameters. But seasoned persuaders are likely to use it again as the negotiation progresses and new topics are covered. As shown above, Hermes used framing twice to achieve three different things. The first time, he created an incentive to negotiate and the second time, he proposed an exchange that was not only fair, but also immediately available to him: the lyre versus the cattle. The results were that he got to keep the cattle, he elevated his status and he built a good relationship with Apollo. Hermes is not ethical by default and the myth is not advising modern negotiators to steal. The free translation is that someone reluctant to negotiate might become motivated when they are warned of what they stand to lose by not making a deal. Like most techniques of influence, framing is not inherently unethical. When the other party is aware of the framing and can reject it, the perspective shifting becomes an exercise of resisting persuasion and perhaps reframing the issue to your own advantage. A high asking price can be rejected. Anchoring is generally effective, but well informed buyers have better grounds to establish a fair evaluation. Framing becomes unethical when it operates below people’s awareness. In those instances it manipulates peoples’ unconscious motivations, drives, feelings and ego and it is generally difficult for people to recognise when they are manipulated.

The Psychopomp

Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ — Nature loves to hide.

Heraclitus

Psychopomp comes from two Greek words: psyche, the soul, and pompos, the guide — the one who guides the soul. That same first root, psyche, sits inside a word we all know: psychology — psyche plus logia, "the study of." So the two words share a beginning but part ways at the end: psychology is the study of the soul; the psychopomp is its guide. But to guide one must first know. In negotiation, the psychopomp is both — first knowing the soul, the inner drives and motivations beneath what people say, and then guiding it. Action grounded in knowledge. In the analytical tradition of Carl Jung, Hermes is the figure able to understand and integrate the unconscious drives rather than be ruled by them. Kerényi's Hermes is the guide who moves between worlds, the in-between figure — and set between the poles of total rationality (Apollo) and total indulgence (Dionysus), that makes him a third way. This is where negotiation stands: pursuing the deal you want as rationally as you can, without letting the other side charm or manipulate you. Naive negotiators buy significance; unethical influencers reach their goals by underhanded means. The psychopomp's remedy is simple — he asks. Is the charm genuine? What do you actually get? Is hostility really dangerous? Is the outcome really at risk, or is the intimidation just a tool of extraction?

Framing in negotiation doesn’t only operate at the conscious level where the price and options are discussed using objective criteria. Framing also happens at the unconscious level, when our motivations, hopes and fears influence the way we calibrate a price and perceive our options. A journey into our unconscious as Hermes descending to Hades is more than a beautiful metaphor. It’s about translating how certain behavioural patterns are triggered by emotions and drives. For example, feeling apprehensive or anxious during a negotiation is a very normal and common experience. People are aware of the dread they feel, but they don’t account for how their emotions make them vulnerable to exploitation.

One of the capabilities Hermes has is to cross boundaries. He travels between Mount Olympus, Earth and The Underworld, to deliver messages between the three realms. He is also a psychopomp, guiding the souls through Hades. Carl Jung interpreted the journey into the underworld as an investigation into the unconscious. Jung wrote about Mercurius — the alchemical counterpart of Hermes — as the spirit that integrates hidden drives from the unconscious with conscious processes.

The idea that our economic decisions are guided by rationality was challenged by two psychologists, Herbert A. Simon and Daniel Kahneman, who both won the Nobel Prize in Economics. People don’t always optimise decision making, often they go for something that is good enough. Sometimes they are also influenced by cognitive biases. Bounded rationality and the use of heuristics are not signs of low intelligence. The brightest of people are also vulnerable. Kahneman showed that even students from elite universities and accomplished professionals are influenced by cognitive biases. We go for a good enough option or we take mental shortcuts because that was evolutionary advantageous. But the result is sub-optimal decision making. Loss aversion was a successful adaptation for our early ancestors when food was scarce, but nowadays it causes an opportunity cost. Similarly, people evolved to have a better-than-average bias because a positive self image was evolutionary advantageous. High stakes situations have the potential to threaten peoples’ egos and make them vulnerable to manipulation. Machiavellians know that the need for validation is a widely human need, so they use it as a tool to extract concessions.

The embodiment of unethical framing is Machiavelli. He worked as a diplomat and political thinker and he is well known for writing “The Prince”. Machiavelli lived during the Italian Renaissance, an era of unprecedented economic flourishing, fueled by the trade networks, urbanisation, banking and commercial revolutions. Wealthy merchants sponsored artists such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, who were all contemporaries. Leonardo Da Vinci was also engaged in Florentine military projects where Machiavelli was instrumental. While the art drew heavily on classical antiquity, Machiavelli’s political thinking reflected the harsh realities of the power struggles between the Medici and rival dynasties. The fight for power in Renaissance Florence did not employ the Greek wisdom of Hermes. The manipulation and cruelty that helped leaders seize power, were the very mechanisms that ultimately destroyed them. Machiavelli himself was suspected of treason, imprisoned and tortured by the Medici family. He maintained his innocence, was released after a few weeks, but he was mostly excluded from office. He dedicated “The Prince” to Lorenzo di Piero de’Medici, duke of Urbino, as a desperate attempt to regain his previous political career. The inspiration behind the ideal leader carries many signatures, including Cesare Borgia, a ruthless military commander. Like many other tactical leaders who lived by the saying that it is better to be feared than loved, Borgia’s life came to a tragic end at the age of 31. But the opposite of bad is not necessarily good. The answer is neither black nor white, as there is always nuance. Julius Caesar, who famously showed mercy to his enemies, was betrayed by Brutus. A pro-social predisposition arguably leads to another failure mode, where trust and good faith are exploited by the more machiavellian among us. Hermes is often described as witty and cunning, which in itself, is the opposition of a naive inclination. Before earning his status in Mount Olympus, he was the underdog, but not the innocent and defenseless kind. Above all, he was confident and tactical, witty and capable of standing his ground.

A machiavellian is not primarily motivated to harm, but they hold the cynic world view that the end justifies the means. Harsh and scarce environments make some dark traits more likely to be expressed. Machiavelli himself was a product of his time, when power and glory were attainable through unscrupulousness but they were mostly short lived. Machiavellians don’t usually start by expressing hostility. That would allow their counterparts to recalibrate. The principle they follow is the iron hand in the velvet glove. The aggression is hidden until a decisive blow can deliver the fait accompli. At the beginning of a negotiation, machiavellians captivate and seduce. They are difficult to spot because they exploit people’s unconscious needs and motivations: to be liked, to be heard, to be seen. Machiavellians are able to create more perceived value at the negotiation table, because they trade their gratitude, esteem and recognition for tangible concessions. Their victims get an ego boost while they get the upper hand in the deal. The real difficulty is distinguishing a manipulator from someone who negotiates in good faith. Honest people are just as likely to appear warm and positive because they genuinely value good relationships. Deception-detection remains a humbling area of psychology. Individuals with expert-level knowledge, such as interrogators and judges correctly identify liars only about 54% of the time. They might as well toss a coin. But the key Hermes holds will first take us on a windy and scenic road before it will provide a solution that is almost brilliant in its simplicity.

Aggressive negotiators use hardball tactics because they work often enough. They put many people in fight or flight mode when the amygdala momentarily takes over and the cognitive capacity gets diminished. But a deal, even a high stakes one, is almost never a matter of survival. Even then, you live to fight another day. According to research, around half of negotiators use hardball tactics or deceptive strategies, while a small minority are truly aggressive. Chances are that in the past most of us encountered such a person. Sometimes people become aggressive when they get defensive, but more often than not, it is instrumental. The pay-off is big and the investment is minimal. The aggressive parties don’t try as much to come up with alternatives or create more value. They expect their fearful or pro-social partners will come up with the right solutions for them or they will hand them a great deal just to escape the pressure. It can be extremely difficult for someone to maintain their composure when they already dread the discussion. The alternative is to acknowledge that the feeling of fear is what enables an already unscrupulous party to gain more. They invest their energy to put on a good show of intimidation. Hermes offers the right read of a situation. Aggression in negotiation is most often just an act. If they shout you can stay calm. When they point their finger, you can stretch your legs and sit deeper in the armchair. If your heart beats fast and you feel yourself getting nervous, you can breathe slowly to activate your parasympathetic system and dampen your stress response. The danger doesn’t lie in their aggressive display — that is only uncomfortable. The real risk is that a good show of aggression might influence you to give them what they want.

How can someone come to terms with the fact that hardball tactics are fairly common? It could be reassuring that many aggressive negotiators don’t actively try to harm the other party. Some are individualistic and interested in getting a good deal. Likely they rationalise their behaviour as the nature of the game. Some work in environments where competitiveness is rewarded and they are afraid of being taken for a fool. Only a small minority — those high on sadism — are likely to humiliate or intimidate others because they find it pleasurable. Besides increasing the short-term odds in negotiation, truly aggressive techniques offer further payoffs for those high in sadism. Aggression and dominance are genuinely rewarding to their brain’s reward circuitry. High sadism is strongly and consistently correlated with other dark tetrad personality traits, such as machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Individuals with dark traits who operate in business can be both ruthless and charming, and there is a higher probability to find them among CEOs than in the general population. For example, various studies estimate that at least 3-4% of senior corporate professionals exhibit clinically significant psychopathy traits. Social media glamorises their success but research offers a more cautionary tale, because the kind of traits that help someone get at the top faster are the same ones that produce low morale, diminished trust, reduced productivity, instability within an organisation and long term losses.

Some of the CEOs with psychopathic traits are focused on personal wins, shift blame and leave behind a trail of chaos that ultimately makes their success short lived and they need to make their way up in another organisation. The clinical labels are assimilated into our everyday culture and some people in business are actively screening to find those high in dark tetrad traits. But the reality is that unless someone is a clinical psychologist with access to complete information, trying to label people is not even helpful. The big majority is still made up of people who fall within the normal range. People’s tendency is to try to explain the behaviour of ruthless adversaries by labelling them as narcissists or psychopaths. But a negotiator doesn’t need to be a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist to observe when the other party is trying to win at any cost, is being ruthless and manipulative and so on. The solution when dealing with a very selfish counterpart is considering whether you can do a deal with such a person, if you can protect your interests, if you see a long-term collaboration. Negotiators don’t need the psychiatric jargon to correctly identify when someone doesn’t care about creating more value, win-win and successful collaborations. The behaviour speaks for itself.

When Relationships Decide: The Mediator

Understanding is a two-way street.

Eleanor Roosevelt

The term mediator comes from medius, 'the middle.' Conventionally, mediation is reactive — a third party brought in to resolve a conflict, often through mutual concessions. Hermes inverts this: he mediates proactively. Before he ever faced Apollo, he had crafted the lyre he would trade — the gift that won him standing among the most powerful Olympians. He was ready for conflict because he already held the means to make peace. He internalised what is typically an externalised process, becoming the mediator himself. He used perspective-taking not to exploit but to expand the pie and build the relationship, reaching a genuine win-win by reading and engaging Apollo's interests. And this is not a naive stance: people are the uncertain but decisive variable in any negotiation — you can do your research and know your aspirations, but you cannot control others' reactions. People are not separate from the deal; they are the medium through which every deal is reached, be it fixed or expandable.

So far, it became clear that some negotiators rely on manipulation and aggressive tactics to maximise their wins. And as shown above, their reasons are varied. Some think that ruthless tactics are the nature of the game. A few are genuinely motivated to defeat their counterparts. But most often, the ones who achieve long lasting success in business understand the importance of mutual gains. Good collaborations are just as important as great financial outcomes if people want stable, long term partnerships. Manipulation and aggressive tactics only work on a short term basis when people are not aware of the deceit or don’t have good alternatives. But as research indicates, the risk of retaliation is real. And some punish in covert ways. They sabotage, warn others, or withdraw future cooperation. The cost of retaliation is very low or even net positive, as gossiping or the feeling of getting back — schadenfreude — can feel rewarding. The selfish party’s likelihood of future returns is diminished.

Some of those with more alternatives and resources also retaliate in direct ways, sometimes even when they incur economic losses. A broad segment of the population is altruistic punishers (Fehr & Gächter, 2002), meaning that they are willing to suffer a financial cost to penalise a selfish player. Across many cultures, people are guided by the principle of fairness. A type of behavioural experiment called the ultimatum game shows how people make economic decisions when they perceive the other party as unfair. To give an example of an ultimatum game, in an experiment with 2 participants, a researcher will offer £10 to one of them, who can then split the amount in any way desired. But there’s a catch. If unhappy, the receiver can reject the offer and neither of them gets anything. Since the 1980s, hundreds of ultimatum game experiments have been conducted and the results were consistent. On average, about 50% of individuals refuse offers that sit below 20% of the stake. In this way, they punish the self-interested players, who were willing to keep 80% of the share. But when the ultimatum game becomes iterative, proposers learn to increase their low offers to avoid the risk of rejection. After consecutive rounds of bargaining, those initially self-interested increase their offers towards a 40-50% split. The acceptance rate increases accordingly to over 90% of the time. It seems that many people don’t split exactly equally but they accept offers that are somewhat fair. In practice, earning £4 still feels good even when the other party has made £6. But there is an alternative explanation why fair is not synonymous with equal. People might also be ‘satisficing’, meaning that they accept something that is good enough. Our ancestors could not afford to be maximisers and to keep looking for the best shelter and the most delicious dinner. In harsh environments, they were willing to settle for satisfactory conditions. To keep looking would have required extra energy and calories they did not always have to spare. What do the principles of fairness and satisficing mean for modern day negotiators? Many people who get a genuinely good deal don’t mind if the other party gets an even better deal.

Most high stakes negotiations are rarely one shot deals. That is why relationships are so important. Successful collaborations can reduce business costs, accelerate market expansion and drive innovation. Retailers who have long standing relationships with suppliers ensure supply chain resilience, better quality control, operational efficiency and even better terms. When collaborations are strong, retailers don’t need to spend money and time to look for new suppliers and test new products. Their customers benefit from product continuity. A buyer who purchases a mango coffee table can go back in a couple of months and get the same matching bookcase. Some retailers who dispute the prices with manufacturers move towards finding new suppliers. But some product lines get abruptly discontinued. When the buyer returns, the mango bookcase is not available anymore and the initial investment in the coffee table seems like a bad decision. The whole shopping experience feels tarnished. Even in real estate, buyers do their due diligence and negotiate over multiple rounds before the final price is agreed on. Top estate agents who sell premium properties might not bump into their buyers anytime soon, but they cultivate their relationships. Their ethical conduct preserves their reputation which ultimately brings new clients in. Long lasting negotiation outcome needs to account for the relationship as well as for the monetary gains. It is actually in the bargainer’s self-interest to create a good deal and come up with strategic solutions that satisfy both parties.

The real tension people feel when they negotiate isn’t about lacking persuasive skills. Most deal makers know how much they want and how to frame the price. But people anticipate the risk of conflict. This is why many avoid negotiating altogether, even when they acknowledge potential wins. Such negotiators imagine the worst-case scenario where their counterparts become upset. They feel unprepared or powerless to deal with the psychological tension. But the feeling of unease or anxiety can be mitigated with pre-emptive mediation. Negotiators don’t need an external arbitrator. They can avoid conflict by taking the other party’s perspective — understanding what they want and need to create a deal that works for both sides. As established earlier, people are guided by the fairness principle, but they are also ‘satisficing’, so they don’t realistically expect to meet in the middle. They want a deal that meets their needs and some of their wants. The skill to successfully take the perspective of others varies from person to person. But theory of mind is the foundational capacity that lets us recognise people have distinct mental states. Children as young as four and five start to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from their own. That capacity continues developing through adolescence as individuals become more sophisticated in mentalising others’ internal states. Some people are more intuitive while others need to do a mental exercise of having to put themselves in the shoes of others. But through intuition or deliberate effort, almost everyone can grasp what their negotiation partners want.

The role of the mediator is to interpret the positions and interests of the deal makers. During negotiations, parties express demands that stake out their initial positions. It’s likely that their stated preferences are considerably more ambitious than what they hope to achieve, since most deal makers allow themselves some bargaining space. Going back to the example of a retailer purchasing in large volume from the manufacturer. The buyer would likely offer a smaller price by invoking high transport costs and a difficult market. The producer will want to sell the products for a higher price, stating the quality of the products. Likely, both parties have some alternatives. The manufacturer has other buyers and the retailer has other potential producers. When agreement isn’t possible, they are likely to walk away from a deal. The party that needs the deal most is more likely to compromise on price. After some give and take both sides might agree on a good or a satisfactory deal. The success of the collaboration depends on how well the parties fulfilled their needs and wants. When the deal is clearly advantageous to one side, the other one is likely to be resentful. And bitterness isn’t a private feeling without consequences. For example, a manufacturer can fight a greedy retailer by quietly restricting their inventory, delaying shipments or finding ways to sell directly to consumers. Similarly, small retailers can be agile in dealing with big and powerful manufacturers. They can source alternatives or develop white label products. That allows the retailers to create their own branded version, thus earning a good margin on those products.

In the myth, Hermes had to mediate as an underdog. Apollo, his older half-brother, was a gatekeeper to the Olympian status. He had no incentive to treat the newcomer as an equal. But Hermes had something genuinely valuable to offer: the lyre. In front of Zeus, he played the lyre thus making Apollo long for the instrument. And the gift became more than just a valuable possession. Apollo gained the lyre as a new attribute, deepening his association with music. In theory, negotiation is fair competition that allows each side to persuade and capture as much value as they can. But in practice, when people bridge their differences they tap into new opportunities and potential for future development. Moving from pure self-interest toward satisfying the needs and wants of both parties is genuine optimisation. As a mediator Hermes offered something of value. But the order of the events in the myth is significant as well. The first thing Hermes did after being born was to invent the lyre, which later on became an instrument of mediation. His actions are mirroring those of skilled negotiators who use perspective taking and cognitive empathy to mediate conflict. Hermes also conveyed warmth towards Apollo by telling him that he wanted to be friends with him in ‘both in thought and word’, meaning his intentions were genuine. The Hermes myth is an allegory because the theft is never about owning cows, but about two Olympian gods gaining new symbolism, status and starting a friendship. Unlike the dark empaths who use cognitive empathy to exploit, Hermes took the perspective of Apollo in order to trade something of value. The difference is in ethics, not in capacity. The ethical negotiator can use both affective and cognitive empathy together, achieving better results than relying on either one alone. Being able to take the perspective of the other is deeply useful. But affective empathy helps preserve the relationship while high stakes are discussed, as Hermes did.

One notable difference between deal makers with dark traits and the rest of negotiators, is a difference in empathy. The first category tends to have less affective empathy which is the ability to feel the emotions of others. There are a few anatomical and functional differences between people with dark traits and the rest of the population. For example, psychopaths tend to have a reduced amygdala responsiveness, and sometimes an underactive or structurally altered mirror neuron system (MNS). They logically understand how people feel without feeling the emotions of others. Emerging research brings some evidence that some dark empaths do in fact have affective empathy, but it is not their primary modus operandi. Rather, they can switch it on and off, meaning that they don’t rely on it nearly as much as the rest of the population. Affective empathy is not there just to make people bond, help each other and cooperate. It can also detect a threat. It’s true that people with dark triad traits can be more cynical, thus less inclined to trust others. But they lack that early signal detection affective empathy offers. As they rely mostly on cognitive empathy, they use logic to understand people’s threats. That can make them vulnerable because they don’t get that eerie feeling when other psychopaths try to take advantage of them. People who are not on the psychopathy spectrum might become highly apprehensive when they deal with predatory behaviour. They get a gut feeling or an intuition that requires further investigation. They can safeguard their deal better or make an exit strategy. But psychopaths are vulnerable to their own kind.

A balanced approach to relationships maintains the awareness that relationships can become damaging. Sometimes blindness to danger does have negative effects, as with Caesar, who was betrayed by the very person he forgave: Brutus. But history tends to favour those whose leadership is lasting and inspiring. Like all rulers of his time, Caesar was sometimes ruthless, but his reign was not based on fear. Alexander the Great provides a similar example to Caesar. He is known as one of the most successful strategists of all time. And by the standards of his time when glory consisted in conquering other territories, he created an empire that expanded into Asia and Africa. But the stability in the new territories also depended on the acceptance of Alexander’s rule. The Greco-Macedonian king treated those willing to accept his rule with respect. His ruthlessness was reserved for those who resisted. The example of Alexander the Great is not meant to rationalise or justify his imperial ascension. And those who resisted him were entitled to defend their freedom. But Alexander’s willingness to build a relationship with some of his former rivals was not just a sign of kindness. Above all, it was a strategic move that ensured more stability in the newly conquered territories. In our modern business world, it’s not the harshness and cruelty that lead to lasting results, but the ability to bridge differences. A social media portrait of the psychopath CEO has an edge and a coolness to it. But leaders who fail to inspire and invest in relationships alongside their vision for success, rarely have a lasting legacy. Caesar’s family name was adopted as Kaiser in Germanic languages and Tsar in Slavic languages. And the rest of us continue to acknowledge Julius Caesar every year, as July carries his name. In the Roman calendar the year started in March, so the fifth month from March was called Quintilis, which meant the fifth. But in the year 44 BCE to celebrate Julius Caesar, the name of the month was changed to Julius, which in English is July. Ironically the leader who was forgiving of his enemies became the symbol of ultimate power.

The Hermaion

le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés — chance favours only the prepared mind

Louis Pasteur

Hermaion derives from the name of Hermes and means a lucky find from the god — a sudden, unexpected good fortune. Hermaion is literally 'of Hermes'; over time, the Greeks used it for what he gives — the lucky find, the unexpected good fortune. The Hermaion face is where the two meanings meet: the capacity that belongs to Hermes, and the gift it delivers. For the ancient Greeks, luck was sent by the gods. In modern statistical terms, luck is probability, and it is influenced by the environment you operate in. Business survival, for example, depends on the country a business operates in: after three years, about 70% of new firms in Sweden are still going, compared with around 55% in the Netherlands — and not because Swedes are smarter than the Dutch. The difference is the environment: access to finance, support structures, regulation, and market conditions.

But the odds also increase with the number of tries, even when they are against you. In venture capital, most investments return less than the money put in; a small fraction, around 4%, return more than ten times it. Yet the Limited Partners who back venture funds aren't irrational, and they aren't gambling — they're taking calculated risk. By spreading their money across a portfolio rather than betting on any one company, they rely on the power law: a handful of big winners more than make up for the many that fail. The high failure rate isn't recklessness — it's the price of catching the rare outliers that generate the returns.

Opportunity can also be manufactured. Negotiators raise their chances by giving first and expanding the pie. Hermes gifted the lyre to Apollo, and Apollo reciprocated — but had the older brother spurned the gesture, the lyre was a loss Hermes could absorb. Crafty as he was, he could have made another gift for another Olympian. His real skill was never the lyre — that was just an asset — but the ability to generate more value. He could not guarantee the windfall; he still had to persuade Apollo. But he raised the odds through preparation and value creation.

A significant portion of the negotiation outcome depends on personal skills to play a good and fair game, to protect against influence and manipulation and to build strong relationships with people. But one element seems to escape our personal control: luck. Even Kahneman acknowledged that success was a combination of talent, effort and luck. In the ambitious negotiation pursuits, the odds are stacked against us. Statistically speaking, all grand achievements are outliers. On a graph of accomplishments, the extraordinary attainment sits isolated in the far right of the distribution. Kahneman himself worked against some unlikely probabilities. Prospect theory, developed with Amos Tversky, changed how we understand human rationality in decision-making. The work earned Kahneman the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. Most people who put their mind to achieve extraordinary things will inevitably fail. Not because some of them are not smart or capable enough, but because in many industries there is such a small window of opportunity. And the pattern is obvious across many domains. The vast majority of researchers who try to develop vaccines and find cures to illnesses fail. Most have PhDs and they all are highly trained people. But even when they fail, the work they did was not in vain. They expand the statistical pool from which innovation eventually emerges. Even the creative mind of Leonardo da Vinci needed access to paper to draw his sketches. His father was a legal notary and the young Leonardo had access to paper that back then was expensive and not widely available. The same talent in a poorer Florentine would have lacked the opportunity to develop.

But fortune also favours the brave. In the negotiation context, success increases with the number of tries. And people need to be able to absorb the shock of failure in order to risk new attempts. Most famous actors auditioned many times before they landed big roles. Some of them, like Marilyn Monroe, slept in their cars. During her lifetime she was not even close to being the highest paid actor in Hollywood. In ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’, Jane Russell, who was an established star, earned about ten times more than she did. But through her lifetime, Marilyn Monroe landed good roles that allowed her talent and charisma to shine. Not everyone is able to throw caution to the wind. Single mothers don’t have the same ability to leave a low-paying job and risk pursuing more rewarding careers. Some don’t have the psychological resilience to handle failure. And often enough repeated failure precedes success. Kahneman and Tversky struggled to get their first papers published because they challenged established models of thinking. Yet, statistically speaking, every innovation that changes how we see the world or how we live happened against the odds, against probability. And those who succeeded were lucky and able to tolerate uncertainty. Their egos survived rejection and they absorbed financial uncertainty. And those who pursued greatness and failed had still chosen adventure — lived and failed on their terms.

From the outside we perceive others striving to succeed as one linear attempt. In reality, the vast majority of winners don’t move fast and break things. Individual negotiators don’t have angel investors. Even with great talent they rely on grit and marginal gains. When we study the biographies of successful people we are affected by hindsight bias. We think that they were born under a lucky star, with exceptional talent. And some had amazing abilities. But attributing good fortune in retrospect does not explain why many others who were equally talented never made it. In the 1920s, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman conducted a longitudinal study of 1,500 children with genius-level IQ. Their achievements, physical health and life satisfaction were tracked over 80 years. On average, they lived longer than their peers. Conscientiousness is a psychological trait that emerged as a strong predictor of longevity within the group. Most of them had successful careers but none achieved ground-breaking success. Ironically, two of the children whose IQ was not high enough to be included in the study were Luis Alvarez and William Shockley. Both went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in separate years. When Terman started his study he assumed that the children selected by him would become the future geniuses of America. But many of them acknowledged later in life the psychological burden to achieve greatness. Neither Alvarez nor Shockley directly addressed how the rejection from the Terman study affected them. A plausible explanation, as their biographers suggested, was that the rejection fuelled them to work hard. But hard work alone can’t explain high achievement, just as talent alone can’t. Intelligence and determination matter for the general quality of life. But very high achievement depends on many other unknown variables that are messy and difficult to quantify.

Luck does not only operate at the individual level, but also inside the environment. Even the cultural transmission of Socrates’ method depended on luck. But first, it’s worth knowing a bit more about Socrates and how he operated. The philosopher did not write anything. He was asking his fellow Athenians questions about life and philosophy. Socrates was genuinely unassuming, admitting that he did not know anything. Using the enquiry method people could get closer to finding the truth. Socrates asked questions about morals and virtue. If the philosopher were to use his method in negotiation, the dialogue between him and his adversaries would go something like this:

The negotiator: take it or leave it (The Statement)
Socrates: What do you mean by take it or leave it? (Challenging the premise, asking the other to explain)
The negotiator: I really can’t budge on those terms. (The negotiator explains)
Socrates: If both of us are seasoned negotiators, can we not find another solution? (Socrates discovered a gap in the statement of a deadlock. Experienced negotiators are supposed to come up with solutions)
The negotiator: Hmm… I need some time to think… (The negotiator buys time)
Socrates: Tell me what terms are the most important for you and let’s see how we can work something out. (Socrates expands the scope, by asking the other party to demonstrate why the deadlock is the only possible solution.)

Socrates frames the negotiation by asking the right question to test the premise, to discover gaps in the other party’s arguments and expand the scope. But at the same time, the cognitive load of explaining falls on the negotiator. By default, framing the negotiation through asking the right questions is an effective strategy. The other negotiator bears the cognitive load. It is a lot easier to probe than to prove something to be right or to be true. Socrates was asking the Athenian elites questions. He was finding flaws in their argumentation, but he also put them at a clear cognitive disadvantage. Socrates assumed he knew nothing, which he probably believed to be true. But the stance was also convenient: the others were presumed wiser than Socrates, so they had to demonstrate that wisdom. They were supposed to do the heavy lifting of philosophical reasoning and demonstrate what was true, valuable or beautiful. Socrates was skilled at finding flaws in their argumentation. He concluded that the high-ranking Athenians were in fact not wise at all, since they were not wiser than him. If anything, Socrates was aware of his lack of knowledge. He knew that he knew nothing. The philosopher was prevailing in his arguments, but he also attracted envy and resentment. Ultimately, Socrates was brought before a jury, accused of impiety and corrupting the youth with his philosophy. The charges were mostly unfounded and grounded in resentment rather than reason. They were motivated by the Athenian intellectuals wanting to prove Socrates wrong, for once.

The Socrates method is an effective argumentation tool because probing is easier than proving. But in doing so, Socrates took the underdog stance by questioning others to prove they were wiser. This put everyone else at a cognitive disadvantage — they had to reason about deep philosophical questions while he simply asked. Just like Hermes with Apollo. The younger brother negotiated for his status soon after being born — and because of that, neither Apollo nor Zeus assumed he was capable of being strategic in his attempt. As an underdog, he was not taken seriously. And, ironically, that allowed Hermes to gain everything he wanted out of the deal. Similarly, Socrates was unassuming, rather modest and noble in his pursuit. But Socrates negotiated with his fellows, who, unlike the Olympian gods, took offense at being proven stupid. Making a negotiation partner feel less capable or intelligent is rarely a wise choice. But Socrates’ attempt is more noble than it seems. He questioned people because he genuinely wanted to find someone wiser than himself. He was trying to challenge the prophecy of the Delphi Oracle that said Socrates was the wisest man. The Oracle had the reputation to have never been wrong. And the god presiding over it was none other than Apollo, the Greek deity of rational intellect. Taking it upon himself to challenge the prophecy, Socrates ended up fulfilling it. The philosopher failed to find a more astute Athenian. And he was also somewhat unsuccessful in convincing his fellows of how important philosophy was. Nearly 2500 years ago, Socrates negotiated with reason. But back then, just like today, the most brilliant argumentation is rarely enough. People have rich emotional lives, egos and interests to protect. In the long run, they are not going to keep agreeing to give someone a good deal only because they can’t win an argument.

Today, Socrates method of asking questions is used across many domains: law, police, FBI negotiations, psychology, business, journalism, sales and in scientific inquiry. Karl Popper proposed that questions should test whether a hypothesis withstands scrutiny. In the 1870s, Christopher Columbus Langdell from Harvard Law School used it to help students develop legal reasoning. In the courtroom cross-examination, Socrates method is used to expose witness contradictions or to guide testimonies. Aaron Beck, who developed cognitive behavioural therapy, explicitly drew on Socrates method. He used the technique of asking questions for ‘guided discovery’ to help the clients examine their thoughts and spot their cognitive distortions like catastrophising. But Socrates method alone, without the use of affective empathy, can backfire. Rationality is not enough to convince someone to cooperate. People who are perceived to be competent but cold, are more disliked than those who are warm but not very capable. The social psychologist Bogdan Wojciszke found that warmth is the primary criterion by which people judge others. Competence is secondary. Susan Fiske’s Stereotype Content Model examines the interaction between warmth and competence; she found that those who are highly capable but cold provoke envy. In contrast, high competence and high warmth are reserved for allies, respected leaders and in-groups. For trust and likeability, people perceived as competent but cold are more disliked than those who are less capable but warm. When the relationship matters in a negotiation, the other parties need to get something genuinely good and tangible out of a deal. Often, the stress of getting a good deal is so intense that many negotiators focus exclusively on their end of the bargain. In the long term, coming up with solutions that serve others’ interests is the smart move. The alternative is to negotiate in an adverse environment. People with dark tetrad traits fake warmth, interest and care to achieve their objectives. But as discussed, when people fail to accomplish most of their needs and some of their wants in negotiation, they are likely to retaliate.

In most real-life negotiations the environments can be hostile or supportive. In the case of Socrates, the environment defeated him: the jury found him guilty. In defending himself Socrates was not able to rely as much on his method of questioning assumptions as before. Proving something is more difficult than probing. During the trial he needed to prove his innocence. Socrates did not actually want to die, he just valued philosophy more than his life. He tried to make the jury understand his life story and he wanted them to appreciate the importance of philosophy. He was appealing for his life as well, but most of all, he did not want to live at the price of having to stop his teachings. His decision not to compromise was not a failure, it was a strategic choice. But he did not write anything, so his wisdom survived mostly because of Plato. Aristophanes satirised Socrates in his plays and Xenophon wrote about Socrates, but not at great length. Plato, who was one of his students, preserved Socrates’s legacy. He became the lucky transmitter who followed him and wrote about him in history. He shaped what we think of Socrates and the raw version of Socrates’ thoughts never survived. And the luck is also that someone as brilliant as Plato, who was a great philosopher in his own right, chose to write about Socrates. That illustrates how luck is not only a one-off event, but that it also compounds over time. Even one of the greatest philosophical methods can depend on chance for survival. But Plato was also strategic to build on the shoulders of Socrates. Arguably we wouldn’t have had Plato without his teacher. And Socrates’ work outlived the immediate failure.

The most powerful strategist of the ancient world received his analytical tools as a kind of ‘hermaion’: Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle, who was the student of Plato. This also makes Socrates the intellectual great-grandfather of Alexander. His tutoring lasted between 2 and 3 years and it included philosophy, ethics, sciences and literature. Plutarch, an ancient biographer and philosopher, reported that the future king received from Aristotle an annotated copy of the Iliad. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the two Homeric epics, were the basis of Greek education in Alexander’s time. The future king modelled his behaviour after Achilles, who was a demigod and had unmatched strength. In the Iliad, the Greek hero is depicted as brave and chasing glory. But the Odyssey offers a cautionary story when the ghost of Achilles is rejecting the idea of a glorious end saying that “By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man— / some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive— / than rule down here over all the breathless dead.” High rewards also meant high risks. In statistical terms, Achilles was an outlier. In our modern times, he is the prototype of the entrepreneurs chasing a unicorn and possibly risking their wellbeing and health in the process.

Luck is a mixture of timing and proximity that is out of people’s control. It’s a type of random, messy variable that is difficult to quantify, but it works and compounds nonetheless. Alexander had a strong and organised army from his late father King Philip Ⅱ of Macedon. But through his education, he inherited the analytic tools to frame a problem, lessons about virtue and Achilles as a role model. Without his intellectual inheritance, Alexander might not have kept the unity of the Greek city-states and conquered Persia. Even the most powerful figures in history inherited the intellectual transmission. And the hermaion went back to Socrates. Alexander’s tutoring was not a personal choice — it was arranged by his father Philip. Aristotle inherited Plato’s Academy training. And Socrates method was transmitted all the way down to us and it still remains one of the most powerful persuasion tools.

The Hermes Paradox

Contraria sunt complementa — Opposites are complementary.

Niels Bohr, motto of the coat of arms he designed on his admission to the Danish Order of the Elephant, 1947

The word paradox has Latin origin paradoxum: para means beyond and doxum signifies belief, opinion or expectation. Doxum in turn originated in the Greek doxa, which derived from the verb δοκεῖν (dokein) — to think, to suppose, to seem. Paradox translates as contrary to belief or opinion. Its meaning evolved into something impossible to solve or self-contradictory. But over time, puzzling paradoxes in maths or sciences have been solved — by rejecting the premise, clarifying the definitions, or using a different method.

Similarly, in negotiation, management and organisational theory, theorists have identified many tensions: collaboration and competition, emotions and logic, and others. One response is to try to transcend the tensions and integrate them; another, suggested by Hermes, is to keep hold of them rather than dissolving them.

In this framework, the tension is not only between cooperate and compete, between Astute and Mediator, but also inside each capacity. A classical cooperate-versus-compete framing assumes that all deal-makers have the capacity to be good at both. Yet the bargaining reality is a matrix of possibilities. Someone could be genuinely bad at competition and at collaboration: they might try a very high and unrealistic price anchor that is rejected straight away, and also be unnecessarily adversarial. Or a negotiator could be genuinely good at anchoring the value (compete) while failing to communicate well with the other party (collaborate), and might get manipulated into costly compromises (Psychopomp) that eventually erode the revenue.

Besides, tensions in negotiations may stem from stable psychological traits or deep negotiation structures, so a quick resolution can be a short-term satisfactory solution while the same tensions are likely to resurface. For example, one side might try to build a collaborative, win-win deal with another party who is psychologically more adversarial and comes from an organisational culture that treats ruthlessness as the rules of the game. The win-win proposer might secure the terms of a genuine win-win deal, but the more adversarially inclined side might not honour them, or might pressure for a renegotiation — invoking, for instance, false costs or conditions beyond their control.

When Hermes keeps the tensions, he accepts that the deal can be genuinely good, but that it also needs to be carefully managed. He doesn't drop the defence. And he accepts that the absolute perfect deal is very hard to achieve: an agreement that is financially advantageous but also a genuine win-win, achieved with no manipulation attempts on either side, built through a great partnership in a very supportive environment, is an ideal.

As an archetype, Hermes is complex, multifaceted and atemporal. It holds the same negotiation tensions people try to solve nowadays. People assume that making great deals requires painful or unethical trade-offs. Or they think that one needs a lot of leverage to win. But Hermes transcended the apparent dichotomies. Negotiation underdogs can still use persuasive techniques to their advantage. And the ability to persuade is not limited to monetary gains — it extends to mediating relationships. Disagreements happen, but skilled negotiators are not helpless. They can use their social skills to take the perspective of the other party to create value and build the relationship. And when they feel very uneasy in a negotiation they don’t have to rush and discount their emotions. It is not a weakness. The pain is not a necessary trade-off for a great deal; it is diagnostic information and threat detection. In a similar manner, positive feelings are not always an indication that a great deal is on the horizon. Some parties use warmth in a purely instrumental way to extract concessions. Playing a fair game is not a moral weakness. It is a necessity for those who want successful and long-lasting collaborations.

Hermes is a paradox as he makes use of the negotiation tensions to achieve better outcomes. In deal making he represents his interests but also has something valuable to offer. He is autonomous and relational. The tension can’t be dissolved by trading off personal interest against genuine relationships. Skilled deal makers are fully themselves and fully engaged with other people — this is the mechanism of value creation. Hermes does not hurry to inhabit a stance and does not reject contradictions. He was able to advocate for value creation by offering Apollo the lyre while he was aware that his brother would have been justified to reject his offer. Hermes was unflinching in adversity. It was his wit and composure that ultimately impressed Zeus. He was not only clever in his pursuit but also unperturbed by adversity. In modern terms, Hermes was cool.

The four faces of Hermes are not separate aspects but capacities in a unified architecture that holds the negotiation tensions in balance. Negotiators who manage the push-pull forces in deal-making tend to make more rational decisions, better regulate their emotions and they see the bigger picture. They are more grounded and less likely to be influenced. More often than not, the pressure traps people into rushing their decisions. They don’t properly evaluate their alternatives and they react on their impulses. An astute negotiator puts the tensions into perspective and asks questions: why do I think this way? How is this deal really going to help me? The tensions are not only there to incentivise rushed actions — often that is what the other party wants. They are there to be deciphered and to be used to your own advantage. Hermes is fully engaged but not attached. He has drive and acts decisively when he needs to, but is patient and methodical in his pursuit. Hermes is the root word for ‘hermeneutics’ and it means interpretation. He is a deity associated with speed and promptness — he wears winged sandals while he also stops to deliver his messages. Hermes is paradoxical at all levels. He does not dissolve the tensions but he uses them. That allows him to overcome the constraints set by his negotiation tensions.

The negotiation tensions offer insight and the paradox is the attempt to hold and use the tensions rather than to adopt a more extreme position. Negotiation is competition and cooperation at the same time. Deal makers who rely on manipulation and aggressive tactics tend to do worse in negotiation over a long term. Besides, manipulators rely on holding the other party to higher standards while they make themselves exempt. Many of Cialdini’s principles of influence — reciprocity, consistency and liking — invoke ethical commitments. The manipulators who use them are parasitic on principles they don’t hold themselves — yet the norms they invoke bind them all the same. To someone appealing for reciprocity, you can say: “you owe me equally”. To one who invokes consistency, you can hold them to their own prior commitment.

Cialdini’s principles of influence can be invoked or used by unprincipled agents, but they are not unethical in themselves. There are plenty of instances when their use is not only ethical but legitimate. Reciprocity suggests that one party’s concession should be followed by a small compromise from the other side. A fair move met with a goodwill gesture signals that the other party values the relationship. The persuasion techniques are ethical when they respect the autonomy of the other person and when the intent is mutually beneficial. They are unethical when they are used to manipulate, deceive and constrain. Other persuasion techniques such as anchoring a price or framing the problem through asking questions are not only ethical but also highly effective. Being persuasive when the facts are on your side is ethical. Negotiation is a fair competition of persuasion. But, trying to constrain the other party through intimidation, aggression and threats is unethical. Astute negotiators have more than enough persuasive techniques at their disposal that are not only highly effective but also ethical. Working with and not against the other party is not a nice or naive stance, but a more strategic move.

The Hermes Framework in Negotiation

Hermes as choice architecture (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008) sets out four core capacities, each built to resolve some of the most important dilemmas in negotiation. The astute negotiator uses their abilities to anchor the price or frame the issues in an advantageous way. But they also have defensive competencies to correctly identify the frame used on them, resist it and challenge it when needed. The psychopomp reads what lies behind the surface — the deep motivations and drives — but stays aware of their own instincts and vulnerabilities, so the other side can’t exploit them. The mediator can take the perspective of the other side to create value and build the relationship. Yet they have the defensive capacity to use affective empathy as threat-detection, spotting warmth that’s only instrumental. The hermaion understands that the outcome sometimes turns on luck and environment, and positions to receive opportunity and create value. Yet they can also read a hostile environment and keep the exit live.

The Hermes Framework in negotiation engages with the Hermes archetype of a skilled deal maker to answer: what would Hermes do? The mythological choice was grounded in the assumption that social skills and emotional intelligence are deeply stable human capacities — slow to change across history. That is why people still read Sun Tzu and the classics, and why the Socratic method is used so widely across domains. The Hermes archetype was developed by Carl Jung’s school of analytical psychology and is given its scholarly grounding by Karl Kerényi. However, the Hermes Framework employs the wide compass provided by a bio-psycho-social approach. It uses different psychological theories and research to test the choices Hermes prescribes. Are they effective, safe, accessible? Is Hermes persuasive without being unethical? Can he create value while successfully competing to achieve a great deal? Hermes as a paradox emerged from holding and managing the push and pull forces in negotiation. Over the long run, deal makers who are too competitive or too accommodating tend to achieve less than those who chase the deal and still care about the relationship.

Notes & Sources

This piece draws on the following work; full citations are in the reference list below.

Framing and cognitive biases: Kahneman (2011); Kahneman & Tversky (1979)
The psychology of influence and its ethics: Cialdini (1984)
Reading the counterpart — perspective-taking and emotion recognition: Galinsky et al. (2008); Elfenbein et al. (2007)
Empathy, dark traits, and “dark empaths”: Heym et al. (2021); personality-disorder criteria, American Psychiatric Association (2013)
Affective empathy and the brain — mirror neurons: Bonini et al. (2022)
Cooperation and the cost of exploitation — altruistic punishment: Fehr & Gächter (2002)
Creating versus claiming value — the negotiator’s dilemma: Lax & Sebenius (1986)
The Hermes archetype and the unconscious: Jung (1967); Kerényi (1996)
Apollo and Dionysus: Nietzsche (1872/1993)
Historical figures: Richardson (2026) on Alexander; Lee (2020) on Machiavelli
Primary texts: Homer, Iliad & Odyssey; Plato, Apology; Plutarch, Alexander; Machiavelli, The Prince; the Homeric Hymn to Hermes

References

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Cialdini, R. B. (1984). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. William Morrow.
Elfenbein, H. A., Foo, M.-D., White, J. B., Tan, H. H., & Aik, V.-C. (2007). Reading your counterpart: The benefit of emotion recognition accuracy for effectiveness in negotiation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31(4), 205–223. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-007-0033-7
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