Negotiation Skills

Emotions play a critical but little-understood role in negotiation. Strong emotions such as anger can derail negotiations, yet keeping emotions under wraps can lead to misunderstandings and impasse. Increasingly, researchers are looking more closely at how emotions affect negotiations. The results of two studies offer lessons related to the impact of emotions in negotiation. … Read How Emotions Affect Negotiations

You’ve mastered the basics of good negotiation techniques: you prepare thoroughly, take time to build rapport, make the first offer when you have a strong sense of the bargaining range, and search for wise tradeoffs across issues to create value. Now, it’s time to absorb five lesser-known but similarly effective negotiation topics and techniques that … Read 5 Good Negotiation Techniques

The opening stages of negotiation can be filled with uncertainty. How assertive should you be? How can you set yourself up for success? What should an opening offer look like? To answer these questions accurately, thorough preparation for negotiation is key. Negotiation research offers guidelines to get talks off on the right track. … Learn More About This Program

Powerful negotiators can be formidable opponents. That’s in part because their bargaining power in negotiations—such as a high position in a hierarchy, wealth, or a great BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)—gives them considerable leverage. In addition, powerful individuals tend to demand more for themselves, in violation of fairness norms. Here’s a closer look … Learn More About This Program

Promoting ethical negotiation behavior is one of the steps we can take to reduce the odds that someone will try to deceive us, and is likely to be a more fruitful strategy than trying to improve our ability to detect lies. … Learn More About This Program

In the United States and elsewhere, people with very different worldviews on politics seem hopelessly and dangerously divided. A skill called “conversational receptiveness,” which involves using certain language to show you’re willing to thoughtfully engage with opposing views, can help lessen tensions. … Learn More About This Program

It used to be that when negotiating counterparts were located far apart, one side or the other would need to get in a car, train, or plane if the parties wanted to do business face-to-face. These days, you only need to set up a videoconference on an app such as Zoom or Google Hangouts to … Read The Hidden Pitfalls of Video Negotiation

What should you do when the other party won’t give you what you want in negotiation? Many negotiating tactics are available: Offer multiple proposals to find out what they value most, make tradeoffs to convey you’re willing to concede, find a different negotiating partner, and so on. Making threats in negotiation is another common strategy—one that … Learn More About This Program

When considering how to negotiate online, people often wonder whether the format (text versus video, for example) or the device (smartphone versus a larger screen) used matters. Here, we take a closer look at these and other aspects of online negotiations. … Learn More About This Program

Because of the anchoring bias, opening offers have a strong effect on negotiation. The first offer made in a negotiation serves as an anchor that influences the discussion that follows, even when that anchor is extreme. … Read How to Make the Anchoring Bias Work in Your Favor