In the business world, standing up for one’s values can be difficult, as matters of conscience and conviction can sometimes be at odds with financial and public relations considerations. When a group of leaders needs to negotiate a shared public position on its values, the task becomes even harder. Various leadership coalitions have faced this … Read More

Travis Kalanick, until recently the CEO of ride-hailing service Uber, helped grow the company from the seed of an idea in 2009 into a global firm valued at nearly $70 billion. He cemented his power by becoming Uber’s single biggest shareholder, negotiating for a seat on Uber’s board, and filling other board seats with his supporters. … Read Negotiating seamless leadership transitions

It may be the most burning question in business negotiation: Should you make the first offer?

Traditionally, negotiators were advised to wait for the other side to make a first offer. According to this reasoning, the other side’s offer gives you valuable information about his goals and alternatives.

More recently, however, research on the anchoring bias has … Read What is the Anchoring Bias?

What’s our leverage? U.S. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer asked himself that question continually during the congressional recess this August, he told the New York Times, following the Republicans’ multiple failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. By answering that question, Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi were able to set up their party … Read More

Imagine that you are a purchasing agent who just scored a significant price concession from a supplier. Now it’s time to hang up the phone and move on to another negotiation with a different supplier. You’re feeling proud of how you handled the last negotiation and confident that this next negotiation will go just as well, maybe … Read More

On May 13, Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. special envoy to Syria, announced that he was quitting his position as lead mediator of the Syrian conflict due to frustration with a lack of progress. The same day, a French diplomat said the Syrian government had used chemical weapons more than 12 times after signing a treaty banning … Read More

David Fairman—Managing Director of the Consensus Building Institute—recently shared his extensive experience in negotiating with, and teaching negotiation to, a variety of groups from a broad range of cultural backgrounds. … Read More

It’s Negotiation 101: to get what you want, you need to be able to make a credible threat to walk away from a subpar deal. And for your threat to be credible, you can’t walk in with a bad BATNA, you have to have a strong BATNA, or best alternative to a negotiated agreement. In … Read How a Bad BATNA Keeps Medicare Drug Prices High

What negotiation strategies should employers use when dealing with difficult employees? Conflict management strategies and negotiation skills go hand in hand as this negotiation example about New York Yankees’ star baseball player Alex Rodriguez demonstrates. … Read More

Teach Your Students to Address Fundamental Value Differences While Negotiating Indigenous Land Rights
Indigenous land rights have been a key aspect of negotiations by private companies and governments around the world. Indigenous land rights are the rights of indigenous peoples to land and natural resources, which they have occupied for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. … Read Negotiating Indigenous Land Rights

In negotiation, learning from past mistakes is a critical skill. In our July issue, we detailed errors that Republicans made in their initial attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in the House of Representatives. Although the House narrowly passed its American Health Care Act (AHCA) in May, Senate Republicans repeated many of … Read More