What if the CEO says and won't budge from I have three fingers up and no less? And, what if the potential suitor says you have to get us a number somewhere in the two fingers to show good faith, we would like to try to come to a deal, but if you stay in the three fingers we will walk? And, the CEO continues by saying, I have told the shareholders three fingers and I won't budge, and that it really should be in the four fingers? What if the potential suitor gets up and leaves, but on the way out one of their negotiators takes aside the second in command and says, we are very interested, but get us a two finger number and we can get back to negotiating, but three fingers is a non-starter. What if back in the board room the matter is discussed and all this comes out to the board of directors, and they all look at each other, WTF, they talk privately and then ask the CEO if this is true? What if the CEO says something like not while I am CEO, I will not accept anything less than three fingers? What if the board says, okay, you're fired and gets back to the potential suitor with a high two finger demand? This is just a made up scenario and any similarity to people live or dead is purely coincidental. And, the use of the word finger in lieu of digit is not meant to imply any similarity to any CEO that has recently been fired that you may know. This is purely an educational exercise to show that sometimes, even if infrequently, it might occur that a chief negotiator is fired in the middle of negotiations.
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