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BATNA
- Business Negotiations
- Conflict Management
- Conflict Resolution
- Conflict Resolution and Negotiation Across Cultures
- “Confronting Evil” Panel Videos Now Available Online
- Conflict Resolution Lessons from the Home: How Conflict Management Skills Transform Discord Into Harmony
- Working with Your Agent – and Someone Else’s – In Negotiation
- Confronting Evil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Conference underway
- Crisis Negotiations
- PON co-sponsored conference addresses the challenges of “Confronting Evil”
- Finding the Right Process in India
- The Fiscal Cliff and the Debt Ceiling: Program on Negotiation Chair Robert Mnookin Discusses Recent and Future Negotiations Between Congressional Republicans and the White House
- Robert Mnookin Joins Panel to Discuss the Fiscal Cliff Negotiations on NPR’s Forum
- BATNA for the Holidays? Program on Negotiation Co-Founders Bruce Patton and William Ury Discuss the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ with NPR
- Dealmaking
- Dispute Resolution
- International Negotiation
- Tips for Navigating Negotiations in China
- Negotiating in China: The Gold Rush Mentality
- PON panel discusses Track II Negotiations, Islands of Coordination and Unilateral Moves in the New Middle East
- Complexity Personified: International Standards Negotiations from a Microsoft Manager’s Perspective
- An International Negotiation for an All-American Brand
- Mediation
- Mediating Tragedy: Managing the Boston Victim’s Compensation Fund
- What’s Wrong with Traditional Arbitration?
- Hiring a Mediator: A Checklist
- Social Perceptions at the Crossroads: Why Sex (Still) Impacts the Perception and Evaluation of Other Status-Linked Identities
- Dispute Resolution Using Online Mediation
- Meeting Facilitation
- Negotiation Skills
- Negotiation Training
- Register Now for the Program on Negotiation’s Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Seminar!
- Negotiate Relationships
- Negotiation Training: What’s Special About Technology Negotiations?
- For Better Negotiation Training, Study the U.S. Government’s Mistakes
- Negotiating for Continuous Improvement: Use a Negotiation Preparation Worksheet
- Pedagogy
- Sales Negotiations
- Win Win
- Women and Negotiation
Andrew Mitton /
My experience is that an attempt at precision pays diminishing returns. Each change requires more changes until the contract is a mess. Often additions in agreements inadvertently create ambiguities. It takes humility to realize that you can't cover every possible contingency. We humans are horrible at predicting the future.
Michael Toebe /
With human nature as it is, complex and usually self serving, taking the time to create precision now is almost always worth the time and effort and equally desirable. Lengthy contract documents or negotiations overwhelm people with the tidal wave of controlling minutiae but those points are in there for a reason, to eliminate as much of the back-end costs as possible, even if they are one-sided agreements. As we know, people are o.k. with loopholes if it benefits them and not everyone is ethical or moral either. Assuming differently, wishing for what can't be is setting yourself up for what Ernest Hemingway called "earned disappointment." Leave things to chance and the back-end costs are going to leave you with cause for regret. Both parties in a negotiation need to keep that in mind.