We have all been in situations in which we are pitted against others in competition for a certain item, whether an award, a promotion, or even in an auction. Often, this competitive atmosphere pushes you to ‘play’ harder than you normally would, overvaluing your objective and over-assessing the importance of victory. Often when a group of people are vying for the same thing, the winner of the auction is revealed to have been overly optimistic about the value of the objective and thus is a victim of the “winner’s curse,” typically described as paying more than the asset is actually worth. The January 2008 issue of the Negotiation newsletter offers three helpful pieces of advice for avoiding the “winner’s curse.”