PON – Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School - https://www.pon.harvard.edu

On February 14, the White House announced that President Donald Trump would sign a federal budget deal that included only a fraction of the funds he had demanded for a border wall with Mexico and attempt to secure the remaining wall funding by declaring a national emergency.

For many congressional Democrats, Trump’s capitulation on the budget— following … Read More 

In business negotiations, we know we’re supposed to focus on substance: which issues matter to both sides, what each party can afford, what each side’s outside alternatives are, how to build a strong relationship, and so forth. Yet we’re often swayed by more superficial, often irrelevant aspects of negotiation, such as the shape of the table, whether … Read More 

Here’s a list of some of the most notable negotiation flops – from deals that were over before they started, to those that were botched at the table, to those that proved disastrous well after the ink had dried. … Read More 

Executives are increasingly faced with the task of negotiating in a realm that many know little about: technology. … Read More 

According to a recent report from NPR Morning Edition’s Sonari Glinton, women not only negotiate harder bargains than men when it comes to vehicle purchases, but also they do more extensive preparatory work. Conventional wisdom has always placed the automobile in the realm of the masculine, but the emergence of the prepared and educated … Read More 

Adapted from “Strike the Right Balance Between Trust and Cynicism,” by Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman, first published in the Negotiation Briefings newsletter.

 Negotiators often must choose between trusting their counterparts and being cynical of their motives. The consequences of such decisions can be serious in dealmaking: trust too much, and you’ll lose big; … Read More 

Even experienced negotiators often make the mistake of treating important talks as a win-lose negotiation. Overlooking effective win-win negotiation techniques, they focus on trying to claim as much value as they can without trying to create new sources of value.

It’s also the case that competitors in a given market or field may fail to recognize … Read More 

In the summer of 2016, Illinois became the only U.S. state in the past 80 years to go an entire year without a full operating budget, according to Reuters. It reached that dubious milestone thanks to an epic negotiation impasse between Republican governor Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled state legislature. The story of the negotiation … Read More 

For her new book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias (HarperCollins, 2018), Dolly Chugh, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, drew on her research on unconscious bias to write the quintessential guide to standing up for our beliefs. In a conversation with Negotiation Briefings, she … Read More 

The ability to take another person’s perspective is a valuable negotiation skill. Perspective taking enhances the discovery of joint gains in negotiation, makes groups more effective, reduces stereotypical thinking, and aids in conflict resolution, to name just a few benefits.

Some people are naturally better perspective takers than others, but all of us have the capacity to pay closer attention … Read More 

A budget impasse growing more adversarial by the day. A government shutdown that kept hundreds of thousands unpaid, suspended vital services, and damaged the economy. Presidential threats to bypass Congress and declare a national emergency.

How did we get there? The budget impasse in Washington, D.C., apparently started in 2014 when those advising Donald Trump on … Read More 

Appealing to observers

What do you do when you believe you’ve been wronged, the offending party won’t talk to you, and you have no legal recourse? For many people, the answer is . . . go public.

That’s what the world-renowned art museum the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, did in January to try to draw attention … Read More