Adapted from “Better or Best: Keeping Your Options Open,” by Michael Wheeler (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Jim, a well-regarded residential developer operating outside Philadelphia, has been scouting around for a site for his next project. Two properties seem promising. The Abbott estate consists of 75 acres of woodlands and some overgrown fields. The executor of … read more »

Adapted from “When Tough Talk Is Beside the Point,” by Hal Movius (instructor, The Program on Technology Negotiation, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Most of us intuitively believe that personality traits such as toughness matter a great deal in negotiation. Yet studies by Bruce Barry and Raymond Friedman of Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School … read more »

Jeswald Salacuse’s article Teaching International Business Negotiation: Reflections on Three Decades of Experience was published in International Negotiation, Volume 15, Number 2. The full article can be purchased here.

Abstract:

The author has taught international business negotiation in a wide variety of university courses and executive training programs throughout the world during the last three decades. He has taught international business negotiation … read more »

Adapted from “Battles of the Sexes,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

What happens when men and women compete with one another for scarce resources? In a fascinating series of studies, Professor Laura Kray of the University of California at Berkeley and her colleagues show that gender stereotypes have unexpected effects on the behavior of pairs of male and female negotiators.

In … read more »

Adapted from “Why Aren’t Mediation and Arbitration More Popular?” First published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Many scholars have noted that the business community would greatly benefit from third-party dispute resolution services. The problem is, there isn’t much demand for mediation or arbitration. If the alternative dispute resolution field has in fact built a better mousetrap, why isn’t the market buying it?

J. … read more »

Adapted from “For Better or Worse: How Relationships Affect Negotiations,” by Kathleen L. McGinn (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Six years ago, Esther Lorenza, an experienced entrepreneur and the founder of a new Internet and catalog retailer, concluded that only one supplier could meet her unique product specifications and high standards for quality. There were just … read more »

Adapted from “Leverage Time to Your Advantage,” by Deepak Malhotra (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Businesspeople often make the mistake of beginning negotiations only after an offer is on the table or after an old contract has expired. Why is this a problem? When money is at stake, it can be difficult to build trust or … read more »

Adapted from “The Perils of Powerful Speech,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Death to modifiers! All hail the active verb. Be succinct.

Those are Strunk and White’s commandments for simple and direct writing. They also may be rules for establishing verbal power in negotiation—though not always, it turns out.

Linguistic studies have shown that hesitations (ums and ahs), tag questions (“That’s true, … read more »

Adapted from “What Negotiators Can Learn from Improv Comedy,” by Lakshmi Balachandra (lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management) and Michael Wheeler (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

You’re onstage without a script, relying on your mind and wits to come up with lines and actions that advance the game. Should you trust your fellow players? It seems … read more »

Adapted from “Fickle Intuition,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

When it comes to trusting others, negotiators often rely on their gut instincts. Recent studies indicate, however, that extraneous factors can sway such judgments. For example, Michael Kosfeld and other University of Zurich researchers introduced a twist in a classic trust game in which subjects must decide how much money to … read more »

Adapted from “How to Say What Matters Most,” by Susan Hackley (managing director, Program on Negotiation), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

In their book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (Penguin Putnam, 2000), authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen tell us how to engage in the conversations in our professional or personal lives that make us … read more »