The problem: Your negotiation seems to be over before it has begun. Your targeted counterpart is refusing to sit down with you or simply ignoring your requests. How can you get her to see that she would benefit from negotiating with you? … Read More

When we think about our own ethics in negotiation, we tend to focus on the ethical and legal lines we may be at risk of crossing through our actions. We often fail to consider how we could end up enabling the unethical and even illegal behavior of our negotiation counterparts and partners.

More broadly, we have … Read More

In negotiation, we bring our unique personalities and styles to the table. A reserved, cautious person is likely to bargain differently than someone who is outgoing and proactive, for example. There is much we can do to improve our negotiation performance—such as preparing thoroughly and using proven persuasion strategies. But can we also improve our … Read More

When we negotiate for others, managing expectations is often part of our job, especially if they aren’t familiar with the sometimes complex nature of negotiations. Similarly, we may find it necessary to deal with the expectations of our counterparts. However, it’s easy to overlook the fact that we have expectations of our own that we … Read More

Many U.S. law schools are in crisis, to hear some tell it. During the recent recession, many law firms instituted mass layoffs and pay cuts, and few have fully recovered. As a result, college graduates are thinking twice about becoming lawyers, and many law schools have fewer high-quality applicants to choose from. In the past … Read More

In a hot real estate market, sellers may find themselves determining the best way to engage in an early offer negotiation. We asked Leslie John, the Marvin Bower Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, to answer a question regarding this topic.

Q: I’m selling my house in a seller’s market. As is the … Read More

We recently received a question from a reader regarding a business contract conflict. Robert Mnookin, Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, chair of the Program on Negotiation, and author of Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight (Simon & Schuster, 2010), explains that you may have more options than it … Read More

Even when we’re engaged in aggressive negotiations, we can still frame things to keep the proceedings amicable. In a paper published in the Negotiation Journal, University of Amsterdam researchers Diyan Nikolov Grigorov and A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans suggest that a particular kind of question may be especially useful when delivering offers and proposals in negotiation: hypothetical … Read More

A medical facility might not be the first place you think of for effective leadership in a negotiation. But that’s precisely what took place between a doctor and his patients. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City, a leading cancer research and treatment institution, doctors often will advise men who are … Read More

In complex, multiparty negotiations, the task of value creation can quickly become overwhelming because of the large number of parties and interests at stake. An emerging process called “stakeholder alignment” can help construct order from chaos in complex negotiations, according to Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, a professor at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at … Read More

When a negotiator or team is attempting to reach a deal or engage in dispute resolution on behalf of their organization, the question of whether and when to involve top leaders in the discussion often looms large. Should leaders be involved in the early stages? Take a hands-off approach and swoop in to close the … Read More