Cognitive biases affect even smart and highly educated negotiators. Unfortunately, awareness of our biases is not enough to prevent their having a negative impact on our next negotiation.
strategy
The following items are tagged strategy.
Laughing Matters
You don’t have to be serious to be a serious negotiator. Humor, deftly used, can be a positive factor in promoting agreement.
That’s what Finnish researcher Taina Vuorela confirmed in a comparative study of two real-world transactions. One was an internal meeting of a sales team trying to hammer out a strategy to land a potential customer. The other was the subsequent negotiation between that same team and its outside client.
Status Anxiety
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 Story of Goldman Sachs: Negotiating a Vision
In 1986, the investment bank Goldman Sachs was a $38 billion business owned by more than 100 active and retired partners.
While the partnership structure had insulated the company from the vicissitudes of the stock market and given the company a strong culture of teamwork, it had some significant disadvantages, particularly an unstable capital base and an inability to grow by making acquisitions with stock.
In New York, Fast-Food Workers Test Their Negotiation Skills
On November 28, dozens of employees at several fast-food restaurants in New York City walked off their jobs and demanded better pay and unionization. In doing so, they launched what is believed to be the largest coordinated campaign in the United States to unionize fast-food workers from different restaurants, reports Steven Greenhouse in the New York Times.
Top 10 Negotiation Stories of 2012
Here’s a recap of some of the most interesting and challenging negotiations of 2012.
Dispute Resolution and the Chicago Teachers Union Strike
When a conflict looms, it can be tempting for each side to try to make unilateral decisions on key issues because of the belief that negotiations with the other side will be a dead end. This strategy may pay off in the short term, but it’s important to factor in the long-term costs.
Negotiating Two Steps Ahead of the ‘Fiscal Cliff’
Program on Negotiation and Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra recently sat down with CNBC to discuss the fiscal cliff and how Democrats and Republicans can not only complete their current negotiation successfully, but also their future negotiations.
Business Negotiations Skills Tips: Curb Your Overconfidence
Here are four pieces of advice that current negotiation research offers to reduce your overconfidence.
BATNA Basics: Boost Your Power at the Bargaining Table
Perfect your negotiation skills in this free special report, BATNA Basics: Boost Your Power at the Bargaining Table from Harvard Law School.
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