Like other cognitive biases, competitive expectations can be insidious. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to forestall their negative consequences.
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.
When Negotiation is Your BATNA: The US Engages on Syria
The United States and Russia have announced plans to hold a peace conference aimed at ending the civil war in Syria, which has killed more than 70,000 people.
In an op-ed in the New York Times this May, Christopher R. Hill, the dean of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and a former U.S. ambassador, argues that the Obama administration’s decision to engage Russia on the Syrian conflict is both long overdue and insufficient.
Tips for Navigating Negotiations in China
With its booming economy and growing international consumer influence, negotiation skills appropriate for China is in high-demand. Here are a few tips to help you successfully navigate your next round of negotiations in China.
July 2013
The ‘Sandberg Effect’: Why Women Are Asking for More
Obama’s Gun Control Defeat: A Failed ‘Outside’ Negotiation
When Investing Abroad, Negotiate a Better Deal
Negotiating in China: The Gold Rush Mentality
If Chinese culture favors insiders, it stands to reason that outsiders face an uphill battle.
In One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China (Free Press, 2005), business executive and Wall Street Journal bureau chief James McGregor writes of the 1996 attempt by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, to declare that only it had the right to publish financial data in China, thereby locking out Dow Jones and Reuters. It was a bold move based on brute power. Xinhua backed down only after Dow Jones and Reuters appealed to the U.S. government, which threatened to abandon a trade agreement with China.
Negotiate Conditions – And Bring Value to the Deal
Like a contingency, a condition to a deal is a related though far less common deal-structuring technique. A condition is an ‘if’ statement like a contingency, but, whereas a contingency depends on unknown future events, a condition is entirely within the control of the parties involved.
Negotiation Design Dimensions: A Checklist
Here the Program on Negotiation offers a checklist of negotiation design categories. Whether your overall negotiation design is decide-announce-defend (DAD) or full-consensus (FC), or a hybrid of both, raising these issues is usually preferable to falling into a set of important decisions by default.
Check Your Emotional Temperature
Do you ever feel ambushed by strong emotions?
To guard against acting irrationally or in ways that can harm you, authors of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro advise you to take your emotional temperature during a negotiation. Specifically, try to gauge whether your emotions are manageable, starting to heat up, or threatening to boil over.
We Have a Deal, Now What Do We Do: Three Negotiation Tips on Implementing Your Negotiated Agreement
A recent article in Tufts Magazine by Program on Negotiation faculty member Jeswald Salacuse discusses an oft neglected aspect of negotiation: putting into action what negotiators agree to at the bargaining table.
Normally negotiators focus on the deal-at-hand as well as those present at the negotiation, neglecting other aspects of the negotiated agreement that would not only impact others outside of the room but also require their cooperation for its success.
Professor Salacuse calls this process of putting a negotiated agreement into action “the toughest challenge” in negotiation.
June 2013
To Capture the Force, Be Patient: The Disney-Lucas Arts Deal
In Negotiation, Put Your Best Foot Forward
Will a Team Approach Work? Consider the Culture
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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