The following items are tagged power.
Harvard University is closed today due to an ongoing public safety situation in the area. This afternoon’s first session of the “Confronting Evil” conference is postponed until tomorrow morning, starting at 9:00.
Please check here for further updates later today.
In past articles, we have highlighted a variety of psychological biases that affect negotiators, many of which spring from a reliance on intuition.
Of course, negotiators are not always affected by bias; we often think systematically and clearly at the bargaining table.
When multiple parties gather to discuss issues, someone has to oversee the group’s efforts, or the process will descend into chaos or stalemate.
A negotiation manager should prepare the group’s agenda, establish ground rules, assign research tasks, summarize conclusions, and represent the process to the outside world.
A draft agreement may allow you to control the early stages of talks, but be aware that it also can obstruct agreement in the long run.
Putting a draft on the table may lock parties into bargaining positions prematurely, interfering with a search for common interests and creative options.
On February 16, in the midst of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) All-Star weekend, members of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) unanimously voted to oust Billy Hunter as the union’s executive director.
“This is our union and we have taken it back,” National Basketball Players Association president Derek Fisher said, as reported by ESPN.com. Fisher said the union had been “divided, misled, [and] misinformed,” by its leader. Hunter hinted in a statement that he might contest his firing in court.
The Program on Negotiation is pleased to co-present “Confronting Evil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” a two-day conference which will bring together leading scholars to discuss the conceptual and practical dimensions of evil. Topics to
Microsoft’s General Manager of International Standards, Jason Matusow, will present his view of the dynamics of technology standards creation and what it means to lead a team of professional technology diplomats who focus on the 100+ country international standards environment. Mr. Matusow’s team is globally distributed and engaged in a broad spectrum of technology subjects such as cloud computing and cyber security. The discussion will focus on the practical implications of negotiation skills and practices that have a direct impact on the results of his team’s work.
In March 2005, German powerhouse SAP agreed to buy Retek, a small company that offered information management software, for $8.50 a share. The deal included a matching right in which Retek committed to negotiate exclusively with SAP for five days if it received a “superior offer.” The matching right didn’t scare away Oracle, SAP’s archrival, which was convinced that it could integrate Retek’s application software better than SAP could. Oracle offered $9 a share, triggering SAP’s matching right. SAP countered with $11 per share, and Oracle responded with $11.25 per share. SAP declined to match Oracle’s last offer, and Oracle closed its deal in mid-2005.
In the mid-1990s, a young JD/MBA student at Harvard was writing a case study about a railroad deal that was ongoing at the time. Somewhat to his surprise, he landed an interview with Bruce Wasserstein, the renowned dealmaker who had pioneered the hostile takeover, and who was a consultant in the railroad negotiations.
It was a fascinating conversation, the student remembers.
“I began to recognize that sophisticated dealmakers play the game at a different level – like a chess game instead of trying to scream and yell louder than others in the room.
“Rather than a frontal assault, sophisticated dealmakers engage in a carefully thought-through sequencing strategy: Get all the pieces lined up, to the point where when you go in the room, it’s basically a done deal.”
Like many of us, this student was hooked by the sweet art of negotiation … and he went on to become a world-renowned dealmaker, instrumental in megadeals such as Oracle’s $10.3 billion hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft, Cox Enterprises’ $8.9 billion freeze-out of minority shareholders in Cox Communications, the $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of Toys “R” Us, and Exelon’s $8.0 billion hostile takeover bid for NRG.
In 1995, a new government came into power in the Indian state of Maharashtra and canceled a 20-year power purchase agreement with the Dabhol Power Company, a joint-venture formed by Enron, General Electric, and Bechtel. Claiming that the deal was improper and even illegal, the government declared publicly that it would not renegotiate.
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