Business Negotiations

David Schwimmer, the actor who played Ross on the hit television comedy Friends, famously convinced the show’s five other leads in the early years of its run to negotiate their contracts with NBC as a team. The “mini union” formed by the actors ultimately helped them negotiate an unprecedented $1 million each per episode during … Learn More About This Program

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, people increasingly were staying home to watch movies on streaming services such as Netflix rather than heading out to the local multiplex. Film studios and other content providers were eager to capitalize on the trend by shortening the traditional “three-month theatrical window”— the exclusive period of time that theater companies … Learn More About This Program

Our decisions in negotiation depend greatly on our predictions about how the future will unfold. But, as has never been more apparent than in 2020, the future has a way of surprising us. In his new book Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely (Harper Business, 2020), University of California, Berkeley professor Don Moore … Learn More About This Program

Since 2013, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been organizing nonviolent action to defund police forces and invest in Black communities. For years, many Americans—particular White Americans—viewed BLM as a radical fringe group. That swiftly changed in May. Horrified by a bystander’s video of the death of George Floyd, millions of people worldwide have … Learn More About This Program

As a model of how negotiators can make lemonade out of lemons amid the global pandemic, the agreement
between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to wrap up their disrupted 2019–20 season appeared to stand out as a nearly textbook case. The two sides reached a deal in early June … Learn More About This Program

The death of George Floyd beneath the knee of a White Minneapolis police officer provoked many Americans to protest police brutality and racial injustice for the first time. Floyd’s killing has also prompted U.S. organizations, most of which are led by Whites, to reckon with the fact that they have failed to create workplaces where … Learn More About This Program

One of the biggest negotiation stories of the Covid-19 era is how many deals are collapsing. As we described in last month’s issue, lots of agreements that made perfect sense just a few months ago have become inadvisable or impossible to carry out. Here’s how one troubled acquisition unfolded recently.
A change in fortune
Corporate buyout firm Sycamore … Read Negotiation In The News: Dissolution of a Deal

In the best of times, negotiators thrive by striking a careful balance between cooperation and competition. Collaborating with our counterparts to create new sources of value, and then trying to claim a fair share of that value for our side, is typically a recipe for success.

In the worst of times, working with other parties to create … Read In Times of Crisis, Collaboration Must Come First

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us negotiating circumstances we never envisioned just months ago, from health crises to lost jobs to plummeting sales. Businesses of all sizes, in particular, are faced with the difficult task of contract renegotiation as a result of parties’ inability to meet current deal terms.

Unfortunately, contract renegotiation is much … Read Contract Renegotiation in a Time of Crisis

With face-to-face negotiations currently hazardous to our health, businesspeople across the world have switched to Zoom meetings, Skype calls, Google Hangouts, and other forms of videoconferencing. In addition to enabling social distancing, videoconferencing seems at first glance to have all the advantages of in-person meetings. It eliminates the costs of meeting face to face, including … Read Videoconferencing in Business Negotiation