Imagine that your counterpart has placed a draft on the table. Here are three approaches to consider in response. … Read More 

In the early days of his tenure, a chairman spends too much time reviewing the details of his proposed policy with his staff and not enough time sounding out council members to drum up support for his reforms.

The chairman’s missteps lead us to the first rule of coalition building: think carefully about how and when … Read More 

Harvard University is closed due to an ongoing public safety situation in the area. This afternoon’s first session of the “Confronting Evil” conference is postponed until tomorrow morning, starting at 9:00. Please check here for further updates. … Read More 

In a recent study of selfishness in negotiation, Fei Song of York University and C. Brian Cadsby and Tristan Morris of the University of Guelph had participants play the “dictator game,” adapted from experimental economics literature. In this game, Party A is given a sum of money to allocate between himself and Party B. Because … Read More 

Your boss, turning to you and a coworker near the end of your team’s weekly meeting, says, “So, which one of you wants to present our proposal in San Francisco next week?” … Read More 

When a team is preparing for a critical negotiation, members need to appoint a leader, allocate roles and responsibilities, and discuss their at-the-table strategy. Another key objective that teams sometimes fail to discuss is the importance of staying “on message” – that is, making sure that statements by individual members don’t contradict the group’s agreed-upon … Read More 

Sometimes negotiators get off on the wrong foot. Maybe you and your partner had a different understanding of your meeting time, or one of you makes a statement that the other misinterprets. Such awkward moves at the beginning of an interaction can lead one party to question the other side’s motives.

In a recent article, Robert … Read More 

Imagine that you are about to begin a negotiation whose subject matter is squarely within your area of responsibility at my company. However, the dollar amounts at stake are so large that you are tempted to kick it upstairs to your boss, or at least involve your boss directly in the negotiation. What are the … Read More 

When a negotiation ends, our satisfaction with the final outcome doesn’t depend solely on how much we objectively gained or lost, according to research by Jared Curhan and Hen Xu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Hillary Anger Elfenbein of the University of California at Berkeley. In fact, negotiator satisfaction hinges on four factors: our … Read More 

When a group of people are negotiating, what’s the best way to arrive at a decision? Ever since U.S. general Henry M. Robert published Robert’s Rules of Order in 1876, groups have relied on the principle of majority rule, measured with a simple yea or nay vote at the end of the negotiation process.

Majority rule … Read More