BATNA

Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. The true measure by which you should judge any proposed agreement. It is the only standard which can protect you both from accepting terms that are too unfavorable and from rejecting terms it would be in your interest to accept. (Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes [Penguin Books, 1991], 100-01)

The following items are tagged BATNA.

Negotiation

Posted by & filed under DRD Tag Pages.

Negotiation (2240)

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

FALL 2012
Instructors:
Deepak Malhotra
(617) 496-1020
Andrew Wasynczuk
(617) 495-8043
Michael Luca
(617) 495-8382

WINTER 2013
Instructors:
Michael Wheeler
(617)-495-6747
Francesca Gino
(617) 495-0875

Intensive Course Instructor:
James Sebenius
(617) 495-9334

Career Focus & Educational Objectives

Managerial success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with your suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside

Check Your Confidence

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Many negotiators understand the importance of estimating the other side’s reservation price—the worst deal he would accept from you. However, despite the fact that such estimates often are based on hints, clues, and speculation, negotiators are frequently overconfident that their estimates are accurate.

When It Pays to Delay

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Kathy, a serial entrepreneur, was negotiating the acquisition of a boutique software-development firm when a dispute arose regarding the valuation of one of the software firm’s assets. Specifically, the firm owned the rights to a technology patent of uncertain value. The firm’s owner argued that this patent was worth millions. Kathy agreed that the patent had potential, but there was a problem. The technology potentially infringed on existing patents, and the holders of these patents would almost certainly challenge the firm’s patent in court. If the patent could withstand these legal challenges, it would indeed be worth millions. If not, it might be worthless.

Is Your Role Not Quite Right? Negotiate a Better “Fit”

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

What happened the last time you faced a new leadership opportunity? Whether you were called on to head a team, a task force, a unit, a division, or a company, chances are you negotiated the compensation and perquisites of the appointment—your salary, title, vacation, and bonus. But did you look beyond these basics and negotiate for what you would need to succeed in the new role? New leaders often fail to address issues critical to their ability to perform on the job, including their fit with the role, Judith Williams, Carol Frohlinger, and I learned from interviews with more than 100 women who had taken on leadership positions.

Tough Tactics: Do ‘Death Threats’ Really Work?

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

What would you do if someone threatened you? Strike back? Run away? Beg for mercy? Try to negotiate?

Last April, The New York Times in effect held a gun to the heads of Boston Globe employees – twice. The confrontation, say experts at the Harvard Program on Negotiation, offers valuable lessons in handling high-risk, high-stakes situations.

Background: Sixteen years earlier, The Times bought The Globe for $1.1 billion, the highest price ever paid for an American newspaper. The investment paid off at first, then the newspaper business started heading south. In 2008, The Globe lost $50 million; in 2009, it was on track to lose $85 million.

So The Times threatened to shut the paper down unless employee unions agreed to $20 million in pay cuts, lower severance pay, and an end to lifetime job guarantees for certain employees. Half the concessions – $10 million – were to come from The Globe’s largest labor union, the Boston Newspaper Guild.

Business Negotiation Skills: Negotiate Before the Damage is Done

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Suppose you work for a specialty bicycle manufacturer and have negotiated a one-year contract to buy 500 headlamps per month from a supplier for $10 each, with payment due 30 days after receipt. The seller makes five deliveries; you promptly pay $5,000 after each shipment. The seller fails to make the sixth delivery, however, and announces it will not be able to make any of the remaining shipments because of a production glitch that has made the headlamps extremely expensive to produce. What recourse do you have?

Beware the Pressure of Sunk Costs in Business Negotiations

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Think about what your house, condominium, or some other valuable asset might be worth in today’s market. Did the price you paid for it affect your answer?

“Ignore sunk costs,” accounting professors and economists tell us. The amount of money and effort we’ve invested in the past, they say, is irrelevant to our future investments.

Instructing the negotiator

Posted by & filed under Daily, Negotiation Skills.

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. The Ship Bumping Case is a two-party international negotiation between Russian and U.S. negotiators over a naval incident. Teams internally prepare instructions for a representative not involved in the preparation.

SCENARIO: Vessels from the United States

How an Indie-Pop Band Used Integrative Negotiation to Keep Their Name

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

When interests collide, some managers dig in their heels: You get your way or I get mine. Others go for a compromise where the plan is to give up as little as possible. Neither strategy is likely to lead to the best outcome. But businesses, nonprofits, government agencies … and even rock ‘n’ rollers … have discovered better ways, as we shall see.