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.

April 2013

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Monthly Archives.

Will Your Negotiations Get Sidetracked?
Coping with Negotiator Emotion, Both Fake and Fleeting
Dear Negotiation Coach: Dealing with an Uninformed Buyer

Can Games Really Change the Course of History?

Posted by & filed under Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (Pedagogy @ PON).

By Lawrence Susskind

At a recent meeting at Sciences Po in Paris, scholars and practitioners from a number of countries heard about a very elaborate game in which more than 150 students played the parts of climate change negotiators from all over the world. We watched a video highlighting their intense and emotional interactions on the

A Cash-Out Transaction: Cox Communications

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

On August 2, 2004, Barbara Cox Anthony and Ann Cox Chambers, two sisters who together owned 73% of Cox Communications, announced that they wanted to cash out the minority shareholders of their company. Their initial offer was $32 per share, or a 14% premium to the preannouncement trading price of approximately $28 per share.

Negotiating in China: The Importance of Relationship Building

Posted by & filed under International Negotiation.

Although most Americans treat those they know better than they treat strangers, Chinese behavior towards insiders and outsiders tends to be more extreme than in the United States. A guiding principle in Chinese society is guanxi – personal relationships with people from whom one can expect (and who expect in return) special favors and services. Family ties are paramount, but friends, fellow students, and neighbors can also join the inner circle. As a foreigner, you can cultivate guanxi either by hiring people with close ties to your counterpart or by developing your own relationships with key contacts.

March 2013

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Monthly Archives.

- Learn from the Deficit-reduction Talks – The United States didn’t go over the fiscal cliff, but few Americans liked the deal that was forged to avoid it. We look at what went wrong—and right—to show you how you can do better in your own negotiations.
- To Understand Other Negotiators, Consider the Context – Negotiators are often counseled to engage in perspective taking and empathetic understanding to achieve better results. Yet new research shows that the two very different skills have different payoffs in negotiation.
- Dear Negotiation Coach: Deal with a Crowded Table – Should you limit the number of people in the room during mediation of a high-stakes dispute? Our Negotiation Coach for February, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School professor Guhan Subramanian, suggests strength can be found in fewer numbers of participants.

Keeping the Game Out of Court

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Sometimes those on opposite sides of a bitter dispute can achieve great gains – if only they can spot the ways in which they are similar.

In 2001, the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA), an organization of five New York-area colleges best known for staging college basketball’s National Invitation Tournament, filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). MIBA allege that certain NCAA rules governing team participation in preseason and postseason tournaments restricted school’s participation in MIBA tournaments, in violation of various antitrust laws. After four years of litigation, the two parties announced not only that they would settle a lawsuit but also that the NCAA would purchase the rights to the MIBA preseason and postseason tournaments.

Status Anxiety

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Sometimes in negotiation we are forced to deal not only with the issues on the table but also with concerns about status.

One famous instance took place in the late 1980s, when Robert Campeau, head of the Campeau Corporation and then one of Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Fascinating Business People,” tried to acquire Federated Department tores, the parent company of the prestigious department store Bloomingdale’s.

A bidding war over Bloomingdale’s escalated between Campeau and R.H. Macy. Campeau won with an irrationally high offer – but had to declare bankruptcy shortly thereafter.

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

Posted by & filed under Crisis Negotiations.

Though Congress and the President were able to reach a deal and avoid the dreaded fiscal cliff, both sides engaged in some tough negotiating which has both bewildered and captivated the United States for months. Given all of the posturing and tough talk, some may ask: Is there a method to this madness?